Can nuclear bombing be justified?

August 4, 2014

Former Dutch POWs in Nagasaki disagree whether A-bomb was justified

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201408040060 

By MAKI OKUBO/ Senior Staff Writer

While many of his former comrades believe that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki played a vital role in ending the war, Ronald Scholte, a 90-year-old Dutch hibakusha, vehemently disagrees.

"Whatever it takes, we can never, ever say that it was good that an atomic bomb was dropped," he told The Asahi Shimbun during a recent interview at his residence in Gilze, the southern Netherlands.

Former Dutch prisoners of war such as Scholte, who survived the world’s second atomic bombing in Nagasaki in 1945, have attested to its terror, but remain divided over justification of its use.

“The terrible weapon that I witnessed must not be used on humans again,” Scholte said. “It is my responsibility to warn the world by telling of what I experienced (in Nagasaki).”

When the atomic bomb detonated over Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, Scholte, who was imprisoned at the Fukuoka No. 14 Prisoner of War Camp in the city, was engaged in forced labor to construct a tunnel about 1.7 kilometers from Ground Zero.

At around 11 a.m., he heard a bomber high in the sky and someone shout that a parachute had been released from the aircraft. In the next instant, he was blown into the tunnel by a shock wave from the blast.

When he crawled out of the tunnel, it was dark everywhere and the city had been flattened with fires breaking out everywhere. He smelled the odor of burnt human flesh and saw charred bodies lying on the ground, people buried under collapsed houses and others wandering around with their skin peeling off their bodies.

Over the next three days, Scholte and his fellow inmates were forced to collect bodies of the victims, and what he witnessed during the assignment left him with indelible images of horror.

A half-charred body of a child was lying between bodies that may have been the child’s parents. When he tried to carry the three bodies, the child’s legs came off from the torso.

The native of Dutch-controlled Indonesia became a POW after the Japanese military occupied the Southeast Asian nation in 1942. He was often beaten by guards, and when three of his fellow inmates were executed, he was forced to carry their bodies, Scholte said.

In April 1943, Scholte was transferred to the POW camp in Nagasaki. But the atomic bomb effectively “blew away my hatred of Japan,” he said.

After retiring from the Dutch military at the age of 56, he started writing and speaking publicly about his account of World War II. For the past four years, he has spoken on his experiences in Nagasaki at a local elementary school, and a DVD capturing his lecture has been used as a teaching material in schools.

At the end of the war, there were 195 Allied POWs who were imprisoned at the Fukuoka No. 14 POW Camp, including 152 Dutch nationals, 24 Australians and 19 Britons, according to POW Research Network Japan. Eight POWs were killed by the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

Many of them were forced to work at the nearby Nagasaki shipyard of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

Willy Buchel, a 94-year-old resident of Waalre, the southern Netherlands, was also imprisoned in the same POW camp and forced to work at a nearby factory.

On Aug. 9, 1945, he saw a bomber in the sky and dashed inside the factory building without thinking. The next instant, he saw a strong flash of a blinding white light, and he lost consciousness.

While he said he no longer holds bitterness toward the Japanese for what he endured during imprisonment, he still believes that the atomic bombs played a vital role in forcing Japan's surrender.

“The atomic bombs effectively ended the war and liberated us,” Buchel said. “Without them, we would have perished (in the POW camp), and so would have many more people.”