Phi Delta Kappa International is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Phi Delta Kappan.

http://www.jstor.org

World War II in Social Studies and Science Curricula Author(s): Victor J. Mayer Source: The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 81, No. 9 (May, 2000), pp. 705-711Published by: Phi Delta Kappa InternationalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20439766Accessed: 14-08-2015 02:56 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Fri, 14 Aug 2015 02:56:23 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

TU~1 1 TT-w-1

In Social Studies an

science Curricula

All educators have a

responsibility to create and sustain a stream of

memory of the horror of war that carries from

generation to generation, Mr. Mayer

reminds us.

BY VICTOR J. MAYER

D_ URING MUCH of 1996,1 had the good fortune of living in

Japan and working on a project in glo bal education. While there, I visited Hiro

shima several times. To help me

Children's Peace Monument at the Hiroshima Peace Park.

subject should be a responsibility of teachers at various levels and in several areas of the curriculum.

Unfortunately, very little seems to be done in school curricula these days with regard to modem war fare, especially the impact of radi ation on human and animal life.

Nuclear War in American And Japanese Science Texts

Just to be certain that I was cor rect in my assumption and because I am a science educator, I exam ined eight popular American high school science textbooks for any information they presented on nu clear radiation and the effect of its use in World War II. (For a list of the texts, write me at 111 W. Do

minion Blvd., Columbus, OH43214, or e-mail me at mayer.4@osu.edu.) Two were high school physics text books. Conceptual Physics, written by Phil Hewitt and published by Addison-Wesley, devoted a page to a discussion of the development

understand the Japanese thinking about Hiroshima, a Japanese colleague suggest ed that I read Hiroshima Notes by Kenza buro Oe, the 1994 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.' Visiting Hiroshima and its Peace Park is an experience that

VICTOR J. MAYER is an emeritus profes sor of science education, geological sciences, and natural resources, Ohio State University, Columbus. Since retiring in 1995, he has com pleted research on global science literacy at Hyogo University of TeacherEducation and as a seniorFulbright researcheratShizuoka Uni versity, Shizuoka City, and the Division of Sci ence Education of the Center for Research in Education of the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture, Government of Japan, Me guro.

educators of every nationality should have. Seeing firsthand the results of modem war fare is unforgettable. Coupled with read ing Japanese literature relating to the Hiro shima bombing, that experience helps im

measurably to understand postwar Japan, but it also holds dramatic lessons for what we teach the world's children about war, especially "modem" war.

Those of us in the West seem to have forgotten the need to impart the knowledge of the results of modem warfare - and especially nuclear war - to our school children. When I was in high school, just after the end of World War II and at the height of the Cold War, we learned about the nature of the A-bomb and its destruc tiveness to humans and the biosphere. This

and use of the A-bomb during World War II. It included a reference to Hiroshima. In a different section, the text made a gen eral reference to the biological effects of certain kinds of radiation. This is the on ly one of the eight books that devoted a significant amount of space to World War II and the use of the atomic bomb.

I also examined hree high school chem istry books, one high school biology book, and two physical science books (used in the ninth grade). The biology book had no information on radiation at all. The others ranged from a general discussion of nu clear radiation and its uses in medicine to an occasional picture of a test explosion of the hydrogen bomb. Two did mention the Manhattan Project - but only in a side

Photo courtesy Victor J. Mayer MAY 2000 705

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Fri, 14 Aug 2015 02:56:23 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

bar or on an incidental time line of the de velopment of nuclear energy. The only ex ception to this almost complete lack of in formation was found in one chemistry book, Chemistry in the Community, published by the American Chemical Society. It had a single sentence mentioning the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, but again it offered no information on the potential effects of the use of nuclear weapons. None of these books contained any reference to the pos sibility of nuclear winter in the event of an all-out nuclear war.

It appears that science texts present very little information to American schoolchil dren regarding nuclear war. Surely, I thought, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this would not be true of Japanese science textbooks. I was truly surprised, therefore, that a pop ular Japanese text for high school biolo gy contained no reference whatsoever to the effects of nuclear radiation on organ isms, much less on humans. Two Japanese physics texts contained very brief descrip tions of nuclear energy near the end of the book. The sole reference to biological ef fects that I was able to find was the use of radiation in health services. Again, not a single reference to Hiroshima or to the po tential for nuclear winter.

I sent an early draft of this article to a high school science teacher in Osaka for his comments. He returned a long e-mail message including the results of a survey of his students and his recollections con cerning his own learning about the war and its aftermath:

As a senior high student, I had under stood that peace education meant anti bomb education. I had been taught the importance of peace with the miserable death of our citizens. But that had not meant I had felt any hatred or malice against the States or people in the States. I had mixed feelings, but had felt some hatred against only the existence of the atomic bomb itself, and so did many Jap anese students. Because I remember the interview, in his anguish as a person, of a member of the Enola Gay crew. And we know many Hibakusha [Japanese ex posed to atomic radiation] had been in vited to the States to cure their skin bumns, and even under the temporary occupa tion, soldiers treated Japanese citizenry

with humanity and generosity.

The survey of the students concerned what they knew and felt about Japan's role

Paper cranes, like these located at the base of the Children's Peace Monument, have become a symbol of the campaign against the use of nuclear weapons.

during the war, especially the atrocities committed against other Asians and pris oners of war. I will comment on these be low.

Our future depends on reducing or elim inating the possibility of war and on the tight control of nuclear weapons. Our citi zens need to understand the devastating effects of war so that they can make judg

ments on national policies related to nuclear war. Where will the public knowledge of Hiroshima and the effects of nuclear war come from, if not from the school science curricula? Perhaps, I thought, it can be found in the materials for social studies and history. That seems a likely place for some fairly extensive treatment of war and its impact on human populations.

Nuclear War in U.S. History and Social Studies Curricula

Being a science educator and relative ly unversed in current social studies cur ricula, I turned for information to the na tional standards that were under develop

ment in 1996. I found that the National Center for History in the Schools, Social Sciences Division, brought together a se ries of focus groups and working com

mittees under the policy direction of the National Council for History Standards. The committees were made up of 30 in dividuals widely representative of histori ans and history educators. Their charge was to develop a set of national standards for teaching U.S. history.

In reaction to severe criticism of the

original drafts of the history standards, the new drafts were further reviewed by ad ditional panels set up by the Council for Basic Education. The resulting standards represent the very difficult-to-reach con sensus of professional historians and his tory educators as to the important content of U.S. history curricula. While that does not mean that the standards are necessari ly followed in the development of educa tional materials and instruction, they do represent informed opinion and so should provide an indication of the types of in formation included in history courses in the United States.

I examined the standards for any con tent related to the Pacific War. In the sec tion dedicated to "the Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)," the over view of the standards states:

The role of the United States in World War II was epochal for its defense of de mocracy in the face of totalitarian aggres sion. Yet students should learn about the denial of the civil liberties of interned Jap anese Americans and the irony of racial

minorities fighting for democratic prin ciples overseas that they were still de nied at home.

There are three standards in this sec tion. Standard 3 encompasses "the causes and course of World War II, the character of the war at home and abroad, and its re shaping of the U.S. role in world affairs." To understand these issues, students in grades 9-12 should perform the following activi ties:

706 PHI DELTA KAPPAN Photo courtesy Victor J. Mayer

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Fri, 14 Aug 2015 02:56:23 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Analyze diplomatic correspondence, legislative actions, and political speech es to determine the reasons for the Jap anese attack on Pearl Harbor on Decem ber 7, 1941. Why did Japan set up the EastAsian Co-Prosperity Sphere? How did the United States respond? When and why did the United States cut off oil to Japan? Was this an act of war? Should the United States have accepted the No vember 10 proposal from Japan? Were the differences between the United States and Japan in the 1930s negotiable or ir reconcilable? How did Japan justify its attack on Pearl Harbor? Why did FDR call it a "date that will live in infamy"?

Draw evidence reflecting different perspectives to analyze within its his torical context the decision to use the atomic bomb on Japan. Construct a sound argument, debate, or position paper on the appropriateness of Truman's decision considering various factors such as: the

Allied military position in the Pacific in 1945; estimated military and civilian cas ualties in a prolonged war; long-term con sequences as understood in 1945; Japa nese surrender overtures; and the prob ability of Soviet entry into the war.

Using novels, reports from govern ment hearings, and pictures, analyze the effects of the relocation centers on Jap anese American families and civil liber ties. After reading selections from Re turn toManzanar, Citizen 13660, or oth er memoirs of life in the camps, discuss questions such as: How was family life affected by the camps? How did the con tributions of the Nisei Battalion contrast

with the treatment of Japanese Ameri cans at home? Assemble historical evi dence to explore questions such as: On what grounds did government officials justify the internment of Japanese Amer icans? Was this an example of racism?

What were the Supreme Court's decisions in U.S. v. Hirabayashi (1943); U.S. v. Ko rematsu (1944); U.S. v. Exparte Endo (1 944)? What constitutional issues were involved in the cases: Was the restric tion of civil liberties during wartimejus tified? Why did Congress issue a pub lic apology and vote to compensate sur viving Japanese American internees in 1988?2

It is clear that these standards intend for teachers to provide an unbiased view of the U.S. role in the war. They include an appraisal of the pros and cons of using the atomic bomb on Japan and of the in ternment of the Japanese American citi zens during the war.

Unfortunately, the standards seem to

ignore the nuclear policies of the Cold War period. Other than an objective that

students be able to explain "the origins of the Cold War and the advent of nuclear politics" and a directive that students be assessed on this objective, I could find no other reference in the standards to nuclear policies or the Cold War, despite exten sive coverage of the Vietnam War and Mc Carthyism.

Personal Experiences Of World War II

Why did I get interested in World War II and its relative absence from the cur riculum? After retiring from Ohio State

University and after a long professional life spent teaching and preparing science teachers, I got involved in the global ed ucation project that took me to Japan. I have met and talked with a number of Japanese science educators of my age and several more whose parents lived through

World War II. I also experienced the war, but from an entirely different perspective. Actual combat was never brought to the U.S., whereas Okinawa was invaded by the American armed forces, and many cities of mainland Japan were subject to air raids. The most widely known were the fire bomb

ings of Tokyo and the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It has been interesting and instructive to compare our experiences.

I have followed several controversies between Japan and the governments and civilians of some of its neighboring coun

tries, such as the demands made to the Jap anese government for an apology to and compensation for the "comfort women" of neighboring nations who were forced into prostitution for the Imperial Army. I

have also read Japanese accounts of the causes of mass suicides of Okinawans up on theAmerican invasion and learned about private efforts of Japanese war veterans to

make known the atrocities committed by the Imperial Army in China and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. I obtained this informa tion through articles in the Japan limes and through bilingual television news broad casts. As mentioned earlier, I have also learned more about the horrors of nuclear

war through my visits to Hiroshima and my reading of the literature from the im mediate postwar era in Japan. These read ings, conversations, and experiences have given me a deeper insight into the need for

and possible content of programs dealing with modem warfare and nuclear devices.

My experiences in World War II. I was born in 1933, so when the Japanese Navy, under the command of Admiral Yamamo to, attacked Pearl Harbor, I was 8 years old. Thus the war was an integral part of

my growing up. I lived on a farm outside Mayville, a small town in Wisconsin. My

father would take me to elementary school as he trucked the morning's milk to the dairy. Occasionally, he had to stop for gas for our small pickup truck. As a farmer he

was able to get a high category of gaso line rationing coupons because the provi sion of food was an important part of the

war effort and because he worked not only our family farm but two other smaller ones throughout the war. Even though there was a constant need for gasoline for the trac tor and other farm vehicles, he was able to conserve enough so that we could take our yearly weeklong fishing vacation in north ern Wisconsin during the summer. So my childhood during the war years was in many respects very normal for an American farm kid.

Like most boys, I would grudgingly help my father in whatever way I was told. In the spring, I would walk behind the "stone boat" pulled by Goldie, one of our old horses, and pick up the many small rocks that had surfaced over the winter through the glacial till that formed our soil. Later, after the crops had been plant ed and had begun to grow, I would walk through the fields pulling up "mustard."

To encourage me and provide me with a small "allowance," my father paid me a penny or so per plant.

In the autumn, I would walk along the roadside ditches near our farm, collecting seed pods from milkweed. Each seed was attached to some silky "fuzz" that aided the seed's dispersal by the wind. This fuzz

was the kapok that was used to fill life jackets for the sailors and airmen fighting the war in the far-off Pacific and Atlantic theaters. Later in the war, during harvest time, I would drive a team of horses to pick up hay or grain from the field and bring it in to the barn. My mother saved grease from cooking, which was also col lected for the war effort and used to make

munitions in a plant located about 40 miles from Mayville.

Toward the end of the war, I recall see ing German prisoners who were brought to Mayville to work in the canning facto

MAY 2000 707

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Fri, 14 Aug 2015 02:56:23 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

SomR/'apafvrtpe Aovrced werel m'wdv

more vworabIeto

th^jpais&aan quietly ct~rwa of U.S p

ry located next to our farm. They helped

process the peas and corn grown on our farm and others in the vicinity. I also vague ly remember the day the attack on Pearl

Harbor occurred. We were at some type of

family gathering at the local golf club, which had a lounge and dining room often used for social events. Someone had been lis tening to the radio and announced in a loud voice that Japan had launched an attack against the United States.

These memories were awakened for me

when I visited Hiroshima two weeks after I arrived in Japan. Whereas the conduct of the war framed my early childhood, the fear of nuclear war and its aftermath was an integral part of my teenage and adult

years. I remember hearing the announce ment of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiro shima and Nagasaki and seeing pictures in the newspapers. I can also remember studying the effects of the Hiroshima bomb ing during my social studies class in high school. I had an excellent teacher who knew enough about physics to accurately describe the types of radiation and their implications for human health and survival.

My ninth-grade science was not so well

taught, however. The future principal who

taught science used the Hiroshima bomb as an "example" of how matter and ener

gy are distinct physical entities. He taught us the dubious notion that one could not be converted to the other. Even my high school mathematics classes often dwelt on the war. My math teacher had been a cap tain in the army and loved to talk about his experiences. I'm afraid I learned more about army life than I did about algebra or geometry. In later years, as a geology grad uate student at the University of Colorado, I received a personal account of the aeri

al missions to deliver the atomic bombs to Japan from my academic advisor, who had been an Army Air Force meteorologist dur ing the war. He flew on the mission that helped to target Nagasaki for the second atomic bomb.

My information about the war was all re ceived secondhand, through radio, movies, and newsreels or from others who had ac

tually fought in the war. And all of it came from the American side of the Pacific.

Over the years I have read accounts of the Pacific War written by Americans and, of course, have viewed many movies made during and immediately after the war. They recount the battles, the reasons for the war, and many of the surrounding events. I have read about the atrocities committed by the

Imperial Army in Nanking, in Southeast Asia, in the Philippines, and elsewhere, and I've seen a representation of the use of

Western prisoners of war as slave labor in such movies as The Bridge over the River

Kwai. I am sure that some of the informa tion provided, especially during the war,

was propaganda designed to bring our na tion together and unite it in the face of the "Jap" enemy. But much was not merely propaganda, as I learned after the war and

especially during my stay in Japan. Some of these Western accounts also

dealt with the reasons behind the use of the atomic bombs and the reactions of the

Imperial Army leaders and the emperor to the threat posed by atomic weapons.

However, some of the Japanese sources of information, especially the dioramas at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, offered somewhat different interpretations of the causes of the war and the events during it. I wondered about these interpretations,

which were much more favorable to the

Japanese and quietly critical of American policies toward Japan during the War.

My encounters with the "other side."

Living in Japan and working with science educators there unexpectedly became an

opportunity to recall a very early and for mative part of my life, but from the perspec tive of "the other side." In the series of ar

ticles that make up Hiroshima Notes, Oe describes the range of feelings in the anti nuclear movement that arose in Japan fol lowing the war and subsequent occupa tion. He also describes the physical and psychological suffering associated with the aftereffects of radiation.

I also read Masuji Ibuse's Black Rain, a fictionalized tale of the events before,

during, and after the Hiroshima attack, told from the point of view of a citizen of Hiro shima who had been working in a defense factory. He describes the physical devas tation, the bodies floating in the river and stacked on the banks, the lingering death of those he knew, and the psychological trauma of those who remained alive but

were mentally or physically affected by the bomb.

At the end of Aioi Bridge we found a carter and the ox harnessed to his cart both seated, dead, on the electric car tracks. The ropes around the load had come undone, and the goods had been rifled.

Here, too, the corpses came floating one after the other down the river, and it was a sickening sight to see them butt their heads against the piers of the bridge and swivel round in the water. Near its center, the bridge reared in a hump about a yard high, and on what one might have called the crest of the wave a young for eigner with fair hair lay dead with his arms clasped about his head. The sur face of the bridge was distorted and un dulating.3

The novel includes the following mes sage of surrender by the emperor:

The enemy is using a new and sav age bomb to kill and maim innocent vic tims and inflict incalculable damage.

Moreover, should hostilities continue any further, the final result would be to bring about not only the annihilation of the Japanese race, but the destruction of human civilization as a whole.4

I am told that this novel is required reading in almost all Japanese schools. As I read it, I wondered what attitudes it has created among the Japanese. How do young Japanese feel about Americans after read

ing this book? What attitudes do they take into adult life? Other novels of the war

period and after often use the war as a set

ting or contain references to life during and

after the conflict. For example, late in the

war, middle school children were required to work in factories to support the war ef fort. In his novel Ghosts, Morio Kita de scribes an incident in the life of the nov el's adolescent hero. It takes place in the car factory he was working in.

Eventually, early in winter when the B-29s had first begun to leave their va

708 PHI DELTA KAPPAN

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Fri, 14 Aug 2015 02:56:23 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

por trails high up in the sky, this girl who had aroused in me a medley of emotions without ever knowing what grief she caused, left the factory. The girls were being sent to work in a branch factory far away. I did see her once af ter that, just once. It was during the lunch break one day, as a group of us were walking near the factory gates. A truck which had just finished unloading was on the point of setting off again when a few schoolgirls on the back of it began shouting excitedly at someone to hurry.

Out from the factory gates burst the girl I loved, carrying a large but apparently light cardboard box in her arms.5

I would have been about the same age as the novel's hero, perhaps a couple of years younger. How different my life was

during the war. I, too, was infatuated with a girl. She sat across the room from me in sixth grade. Like the hero in this novel, I never had the courage to speak to her. But we were in school. We returned to our par ents' homes in the evening. We had nor

mal lives. The home of the novel's hero had been in Tokyo, but it was burned in one of the fire bombings by the American B-29s. Both his parents were dead.

In Black Rain, Ibuse writes:

The schoolgirls in the voluntary la bor units wore white cloths round their foreheads, and annbands proudly labeled "School Volunteer Unit." On their way to the steel factory, and on their way home again, they marched together, singing in chorus as they went:

A rifle in your hand, a hammer in mine -

But the road into battle is one, and no more.

To die for our country's a mission divine

For the boys and the girls of the vol unteer corps!

The girls were employed at the steel works, turning anti-aircraft shells on the lathes. They worked in two shifts, and the later shift would be turning shells until ten at night. None of them, I am sure, ever dreamed of the horror that was

waiting to descend on them.6

These young girls were completely dedicated to the Imperial Army's war ef fort, even willing to die for it. This seems to have been the result of the Japanese sys tem of education at the time, in which every one was taught to fight and if necessary to give up his or her life for the emperor. My

work for the war effort consisted of pulling weeds from the fields, helping with the har vesting of grain, and picking up rocks in the spring. But this was only in the sum

mer or on weekends. During the school year, I attended school faithfully, was tak en there by my father, and studied under nuns who were charged with my moral and intellectual welfare. My education did not train me to fight and die for President Roo sevelt. Never for a moment was I made to fear an attack from either bombers or in fantry.

Even more instructive for me than read ing was learning of the personal experi ences of some of my Japanese colleagues and their families. While at the 20th an niversary conference of the Japanese So ciety for Science Education, held in Hiro shima, I met a science educator whose fam ily had lived there during the war and its aftermath. Being of elementary school age at the time, he had not worked in the fac tories. Instead, he was sent to a town some distance from Hiroshima, where it was felt he would be safe from air attacks. His moth er remained in their home, about three kilo

meters from the center of the city. When the bomb fell, his father was at work in the city, and his mother was at home pregnant with his sister. His father was seriously af fected by radiation and died three days af ter the attack. His mother was shielded by the house and bore no aftereffects. His sis ter was born a week later and has lived a normal life. However, his grandfather was outside and was seriously burned. Afraid of further air attacks, the grandfather crawled into a shelter that had been dug in the ground near their home and remained there for a month.

As I worked with various science edu cators in Japan, we occasionally discussed their families' experiences during the war.

The geologist who invited me to come to Japan is just two months older than I. In one of our conversations on the Shinkan sen (train) on our way to Tokyo, I asked him what his life was like during the war. He had lived in Tokyo, but his father had worked for Asahi Press as a war corre spondent in SoutheastAsia. When the fire bombings started, my friend's family moved to a small town on the shores of the Japan Sea, on the other side of the island of Hon shu from Tokyo. He was too young for work in the factories and was allowed to enter lower secondary school (seventh grade) in

April of 1945. Those in eighth and ninth

grades, however, went into the factories like those described by Kita and Ibuse.

A science educator who works in the Ministry of Education was born in north eastern China. His father was in the In perial Army that occupied portions of Chi na beginning in the early 1930s. My col league lived there throughout the war, re turning to Japan during the occupation when he was about 8 years old. Another science educator's father was also stationed in Chi na, along the Manchurian border. He was captured by the Russians late in the war.

Many of the women in Siberia where he was imprisoned tried to get the Japanese men to marry them. Since Russian men 18 years of age and up had been transferred from Siberia to the Western front to fight the Ger man army, there were few eligible men re maining. The women were lonely and want ed families. His father resisted forming a family in Siberia and returned to Japan af ter the war to start what turned out to be a successful fish business. He found a Japa nese wife and fathered and reared my col league.

The most tragic account is one I heard from another university science educator.

He is the youngest member of a family of five sons. His father had died prior to the

war. His oldest brother turned 18 in 1945 and was conscripted into the kamikaze unit following his 18th birthday. The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6. On August 7, the brother was sent on his mis sion. One of my friend's earliest recollec tions is of being strapped to his mother's back as a very small child, when she trav eled to the Imperial Army headquarters in southern Japan to object to such a waste ful use of her eldest son. This science edu cator now spends quite a bit of time in the Philippines and other Southeast Asian coun tries assisting teachers and administrators.

He tells of the resentment expressed by citizens of those countries about the ac tions of the ImperialArmy during the war. Since he works in science, he can avoid many of the questions and concerns, but his colleagues in the social sciences are not so fortunate.

Information in Japan On Its Role in the War

The Ministry of Education and the Jap anese education system have been criticized by some for not incorporating sufficient information about the conduct of the Im

MAY 2000 709

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Fri, 14 Aug 2015 02:56:23 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

perial Army into the curricula of schools.

These critics feel that, unless the Japanese

people understand the way their army treat

ed such conquered populations as Kore

ans, Chinese, and Filipinos and the way it

treated prisoners of war, similar occurrenc

es could be repeated. Though this seems

extremely unlikely, the failure of the Jap

anese to recognize the brutality of their

army's actions against non-Japanese dur

ing the war does undennine Japan's credi

bility when it comes to its peace initiatives.

Moreover, it encourages suspicion as Ja

pan develops economic initiatives in South

eastAsia. Although these criticisms of the

education system may be justified, I did

find a lively discussion of these issues in

the Japan Times, an English-language news

paper published in Japan. If I as a young child living during the

war in the U.S. was exposed to propa

ganda regarding the war effort and the

characteristics of our enemy, it is reason

able to assume that the Japanese citizen

ry also experienced war propaganda de

signed to ensure their hatred and fear of

the American enemy. Certainly Black Rain

and other accounts of the political and emo

tional atmosphere in Japan during the war

say that this was the case. For example,

in an article in the Japan Times, Shigeaki

Kinjo, a professor emeritus at Okinawa

Christian Junior College, is quoted de

scribing the end of the war as he and his

family experienced it. Most died in a mass

suicide as the Americans invaded his is land.

"What really forced us into the mass suicide was the presence of the Japa nese Imperial Army on the island, and 'Kominka Kyoiku' [the prewar and war time education dedicated to turning all Japanese into loyal subjects of the Em

peror]," said Kinjo. Kinjo said that what was termed an

"honorable death" was in fact the mas sacre of Okinawan islanders.... As a 16-year-old, I believed wholeheartedly

what was taught under 'education to die,' in which people were brainwashed in to believing in the honor of dying for the Emperor."7

Okinawans tried to blow themselves up, jumped off cliffs, even stabbed or beat family members to death. Kinjo was no exception. He killed his mother while cry ing desperately. He recalls, "At first, I had no guilty conscience at all. If we had let our loved ones live in such a situation,

they would have been raped, and brutally

murdered by 'Kiciku Beiei' [savage Amer

icans and British] - so we were taught."

Of course, none of these things actu

T7h/troopk Bied,

P

"

cp~ ontwrw

theAm' &4AWo- the'

ally happened as the Americans took over

the island. Okinawans, and indeed all Jap

anese during the occupation, were treated

with mercy and sympathy by most Amer

ican soldiers. Certainly this was the poli

cy of the Allied Forces of Occupation. As

a result of his experiences during the war

and after, Kinjo has learned of the impor

tance of telling the postwar generations about the events that occurred before and

during the war in Okinawa and about his

traumatic experiences. He feels that it is

important for all Japanese to do this, to

examine why these terrible events occurred.

Only by knowing and understanding the

history of this war can we ensure that such

terrible actions will never happen again. Some war veterans are also speaking

out about their actions during the war. The

Japan Times published an article in which an Army veteran, Yasuji Kaneko of Tokyo, describes his regrets for atrocities he and his army unit committed in China. They

were attacking a small village in Shan

dong Province and having a hard time be

cause of the sturdy wall that protected it.

The troops ignited pipes containing a gas

and threw them into the village. "As the

smoke filled the village, the Chinese sol

diers and civilians staggered into the streets

in pain. 'We riddled them with bullets,'

Kaneko recalls. 'They fell to the ground in a bunch."' "As his unit then entered the village,

"I was told to kill everyone left, in cluding women and children, because women give birth and their boys would grow up to fight us in the future." He remembers finding a middle-aged worn

an and her little child hiding in the back of a house. His superior raped the wom an, and Kaneko dumped her into a well and threw a hand grenade into it.

Kaneko says he grew up under the influence of militarism and did not ques tion his values or the use of poison gas until after the war.8

After his return to Japan from Siberia

and China, where he was imprisoned as a

war criminal, he joined other former war

criminals to form Chugo-ku Kikansha Ren

raku Kai, a group now including some 500

members. They have been taking oppor

tunities, such as this interview, to inform

the Japanese public about the atrocities

committed by the Imperial Army. They be lieve that postwar generations must under

stand this very sad chapter in Japanese his

tory so that such things can never be re

peated. The city of Hiroshima has a Peace Me

morial dedicated to the ending of all war.

It includes a museum that documents the

war efforts in and around the city and the

effects of the atomic bomb. In several prom

inently placed panels, the curators have ex

pressed their opinions about the reasons

the A-bomb was used on Japan and why Hiroshima was selected as a target.

First, they suggest that dropping the

bomb was an attempt to limit the number

of American casualties by shortening the

war. Indeed, this is what President Truman

argued, with the support of the U.S. Army,

in ordering the bombing. The American War Department believed that an Ameri

can force landing on Japan proper would

experience fierce fighting, not only from

the Imperial Army but from the civilians as well. It was deemed likely that as many as 500,000 American lives might be lost

in an invasion. That would be consistent with America's experience during the in

vasion of Okinawa. Such fierce fighting on

the Japanese mainland would have killed

many Japanese as well as Americans.

The second reason cited by the cura

tors is that the agreements at Yalta would

allow Russia to enter the Pacific War with

in a few months. The Americans felt that

the war needed to be ended as soon as pos sible to prevent the Russians from enter ing the Pacific War and to limit their in fluence in that region following the war.

The third reason cited is that the Amer ican Army wanted to see what the effect of a bomb would be when used in a war time situation. The idea that this might have

710 PHI DELTA KAPPAN

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Fri, 14 Aug 2015 02:56:23 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

been an "experiment" deeply disturbed me. When I returned to the U.S., I read sev eral books about recent controversies in the U.S. over the atomic bombings of Ja pan. Most writers agree that the War De

partment wanted to impress the Japanese leaders with the devastation yielded by the bombs and so ensure their surrender.

Perhaps this is what the curators meant. Another panel at the museum suggests

that Hiroshima was chosen as the target because its size and shape were suited to the destructive power of the bomb and that, since the city had not previously been at tacked, demonstrating the effects of the atomic bomb would be easier. Only sec ondarily did the panel suggest that Hiro shima was an appropriate military target because of its army installations and war industry. The overall impression this dis play created for me was of an attempt to

play down the role of Hiroshima in the war, to create doubt about why it was bombed, and to reinforce the idea that Hiroshima

was used to demonstrate the power and destructiveness of the bomb.

In a book highly critical of the bomb ing decision, Robert Jay Lifton and Greg

Mitchell state that "a consensus among scholars has formed around the idea that political concerns (i.e., intimidating the Soviets) played at least some role in the Hiroshima decision."9 Thus many Ameri can scholars seem to agree with the Japa nese curators as to the reasons Truman or dered the bombings.

Reading this set of explanations caused me to study more carefully the reasons stated by American leaders for dropping the two atomic bombs on Japan. I found that there has been considerable controver sy regarding the decision to use the atom ic bombs on Japan, especially the pluto nium bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

I first became aware of these contro

versiesjustbeforeIleftforJapan. In 1994, curators at the Smithsonian Institution in

Washington, D.C., drafted information to go along with the display of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that delivered the bomb over Hi roshima. The early drafts, developed by a panel of history scholars, focused on the politics of the decision to drop the bomb, even suggesting some criticism of the plan and pointing out the horror and destruc tive effects it had on the Japanese.

The preliminary version of the text for the exhibit drew fierce criticism from such groups as the American Legion and the

Air Force Association. They charged that it emphasized the suffering inflicted on the citizens of Hiroshima while glossing over the brutality and aggression of the Japanese government during World War HI. Eventually, the director of the National Air and Space Museum, Martin Harwit, an astrophysicist, was forced to resign. The plane was on display in the Smith sonian's National Air and Space Museum from 1995 to 1998. However, the exhibit

was very sparse. None of the information about the bombing that had been devel oped in 1994 was included.10 IfAmericans ignore the reality of nuclear war, as dem onstrated by the fierce political reactions to the Enola Gay exhibit, and if we fail to teach our children about its horrors and our role in them, will we not be asking for a repeat of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

It seems to me that we Americans, at

least as represented by our politicians in

Washington, are failing to take a critical look at the atrocities that we ourselves com

mitted during World War II: the bombing of Dresden, the fire bombings of Tokyo, and the nuclear holocaust wreaked on Hi roshima and Nagasaki. At the same time,

many Americans criticize the Japanese for failing to examine their role in the war. From what I've seen, I wonder whether the Japanese aren't actually doing better than we. The survey that my friend from Osaka conducted of his students demonstrates a widespread awareness among secondary school students of the conduct of the Im perial Army during the war. He reports that 74% of his 113 students understood the brutality of the Inperial Army's actions in Korea and knew of the presence in Japan of many Koreans brought there for slave labor during the war. He also notes that there is a growing commitment among Jap anese teachers to make their students aware of the massacres carried out by the Inperi al Army, especially in China and Korea.

The Responsibility of Educators

In the words of General Sherman, my message here is "War is hell." It should never occur again, whether on the scale of a world conflagration or a small ethnic war. It is our responsibility as educators, American and Japanese, to bring this mes sage to the students in our own countries just as strongly and effectively as we can.

We must also use our influence and pro fessional channels to assist those in other

countries to do the same. It seems to me that science and science

educators bear special responsibility. Sci ence has been employed in the waging of war. Science educators have contributed to this effort by helping to prepare young scientists, who in turn helped to discover the secrets of nature that permitted the de

velopment of terrible weapons of destruc tion. We must take the responsibility to

make changes in our curricula and in the way we teach.

Social studies educators also bear spe cial responsibility for improving their glo bal curricula. One of the intended conse quences of effective global education pro grams is to reduce the likelihood of war and its devastating aftermath. Citizens need accurate and unbiased information about the impact of a war on the combatants and noncombatants on both sides of any con flict. They need honest portrayals of what led up to a war and of the morally wrong ful actions of both sides during the war. Fundamental to this "historical" treatment of war and its effects is the strong belief that the citizens of all countries must come to recognize the actions of their own coun tries that have led to war and contributed to misery and hatred. We need to recog nize and understand the errors of the past in order not to repeat them in the future.

All educators have a responsibility to create and sustain a stream of memory of the horror of war that carries from gener ation to generation. "The beginning of the end of War," Herman Wouk writes, "lies in Remembrance.""

1. Kenzaburo Oe, Hiroshima Notes (Tokyo: YMC A

Press, 1981). 2. "National Standards for United States History for

Grades 5-12," available from National Center for

History in the Schools, UCLA, http://www.sscnet. ucla.edu/nchs/, 1996.

3. Masuji Ibuse, Black Rain (Tokyo: Kodansha In

ternational, 1969), pp. 108-9.

4. Ibid., pp. 299-300.

5. Morio Kita, Ghosts (1954; reprint, Tokyo: Ko

dansha International, 1991), pp. 104-5.

6. Ibuse, p. 193.

7. Tetsushi Kajimoto, "Priest Recounts Hell in Oki

nawa Paradise," Japan Times, 23 August 1996.

8. Tomoko Otake, "Kill All, Rob All, Burn All,"

Japan Times, 26 September 1996.

9. Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima

in America: Fifty Years of Denial (New York: G. P.

Putnam's Sons, 1995). 10. Philip Nobile, ed., Judgment at the Smithsonian

(New York: Marlowe and Company, 1995). 11. Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance (New York:

Simon & Schuster, 1978), foreword. IC

MAY 2000 711

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Fri, 14 Aug 2015 02:56:23 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions