Sixty years ago, on 6 August 1945, a B-29 nicknamed the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, another B-29 released a second A-bomb over Nagasaki. Emperor Hirohito took to the airwaves on 15 August to inform his people that Japan was surrendering. September 2 saw the ceremonial conclusion of World War II on board the battleship Missouri.
Another war to end all wars had ended.
This issue of Proceedings honors the millions of men and women who proved Admiral Yamamoto right when he said of the Pearl Harbor attack that he helped plan, "I'm afraid all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve."
Military historian Williamson Murray anchors our tribute with two stellar articles. The first describes how a nation trying to mind its own business was roused from its slumber and mobilized militarily and industrially to combat the original Axis of Evil. The second article argues that President Truman's much-debated decision to drop the Bomb in 1945 not only spared hundreds of thousands of American and Japanese lives at the time, but may well have forestalled the use of nuclear weapons during the Cold War.
Our 60th anniversary package includes an amazing document, a historical nugget never before published. On the same September day that General MacArthur, Admiral Nimitz, and other senior American officers were gathering on board the Missouri for the surrender ceremony, seven American submariners literally went over the wall from the sub base in Yokosuka, blithely hopped aboard a train to Tokyo, and toured the devastated capital city amid a sea of bewildered Japanese faces. Midway through their unauthorized jaunt, they learned that they were the first Allied military men to enter post-war Tokyo. That night a young ensign, Robert Rhea, wrote a colorful letter home describing the adventure. We were fascinated when the letter came our way, and we believe readers will respond as we did.
Back to the present, Lieutenant Commander Steve Tatham of the Royal Navy provides a timely, provocative view of Al Jazeera, the controversial, Qatar-based satellite news channel that has bedeviled American officials and others with its Middle East coverage.
The Coast Guard is the focus of this issue, which includes several articles that relate to the service, including a piece by a longtime contributor, retired Captain Bruce Stubbs, who wonders if the Navy is poised to poach on the Coast Guard's traditional mission on the littorals of the United States.
The winners of our annual Coast Guard Essay Contest, sponsored by Integrated Coast Guard Systems, LLC, are also in this issue, all by service members. Reserve Public Affairs Specialist Second Class Judy Silverstein, on active duty since 2003, wrote the prizewinning essay. She says that Deepwater and Rescue 21 may be the hardware at the center of Coast Guard transformation, but cautions that leaders must expend the time, effort, and dollars to keep the troops up to date on what is happening. Lieutenant Commander Robert Todd Hannah in his second place essay illustrates how the Defense Department need look no farther than the Coast Guard for the methods and means of bridging the civilian-military divide in homeland security and defense. Retired Captain James F. McEntire, rounding out the winners, thinks that transformation is fine, but wonders if everyone agrees on what the end state should look like.
The first weeks of summer have been darkened by the loss of three men of surpassing importance to the Naval Service. Captain Slade Cutter kicked the winning field goal against Army in 1934, then won a staggering four Navy Crosses as a submarine skipper in the Pacific. General Lou Wilson earned the Congressional Medal of Honor as a company commander in World War II. When he became Marine commandant in the bleak days following the Vietnam War, he set about revitalizing the Corps.
Most Americans know Vice Admiral Jim Stockdale as Ross Perot's politically unseasoned 1992 running mate. "Who am I? Why am I here?" he asked at that year's vice presidential debate. To the national security community, he was much more, especially to those he led as a POW in Vietnam. One day, knowing that he was going to be forced to make a public appearance in Hanoi, he battered his face with a stool, disfiguring himself so that his unblemished countenance would not give the mistaken impression that American prisoners were being treated well. Like General Wilson, Admiral Stockdale received the Medal of Honor.
We mourn the passing and celebrate the lives of all three men this month.
Editor's Page
By Robert Timberg