Reaching for reconciliation, Part 1

December 7, 1941, August 6, 1945. August 9, 1945.

Burning ships at Pearl Harbor
Burning ships at Pearl Harbor. Image in public domain

How should these days be remembered? Only for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the American atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? As days that must live in infamy? As just another set of dates and names in a violent world history?

Or can we view them as signposts at the end of an old wrecked highway that has given way to a newer path, one that was carefully constructed to avoid siren calls for punitive justice, one that leads instead towards reconciliation?

Today we begin a two-part series on reconciliation by Tomoko Maekawa of Nagasaki University, who provides a personal story from the 67th  anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki.

By guest author Tomoko Maekawa

During the excitement of the Olympics in London in August 2012, other moving scenes were observed quietly in Nagasaki, Japan. Clifton Truman Daniel and Ali Mayer Beazer, grandsons of men who were directly involved in the bombing, participated in the memorial ceremony.

Clifton Truman Daniel, 55, is a grandson of the late U.S. President Harry Truman, who ordered the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Ali Mayer Beazer, 24, is a grandson of the radar man, Jacob Beazer, who boarded both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombers and probably decided when to drop the bombs. I personally talked with him when an NBC TV reporter asked me to act as interpreter.

On August 8th, Ali watched an old documentary made by the broadcasting company 27 years ago to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the bombing. The documentary contains interviews with three men — Thomas Ferby, a bomber on the Hiroshima flight; Calmat Behan, a bomber on the Nagasaki flight; and Ali’s grandfather Jacob Beazer, the radar man for both flights.

In interviews at the ceremony, both of these grandsons expressed a commitment to fighting against nuclear weapons.

Tomoko Maekawa, with edits by Kathie Malley-Morrison