Hiroshima – Why
The Bomb Was Dropped
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Program: B
Though it
only runs 67 minutes, the Peter Jennings-hosted Hiroshima – Why The Bomb Was Dropped (1996) is a then-50th
anniversary look at the real history behind how it was decided to drop Fat Man
and Little Boy on Japan and where. I
have problems with Jennings as a reporter, in that he seems
to skip certain vital points, though he still is thorough otherwise. If censoring Toby Keith at a recent event on
the 9/11/01 was not enough, the term “Japanese Imperialism” and “Axis Powers”
are disturbingly skipped. Though it is
not explicitly making the U.S. sudden villains, its clarity on
some matters is off-set by distortions or neglect of others.
The point
of discussion here stems from the idea of an insane twist in the showing of the
Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bombs.
Political correctness at its worst, the display was stripped of any
explanation at the last minute, which was a slap in the face of those who
fought the Axis Powers and those who need to know the actual history of what
happened. No doubt, dropping any nuclear
bombs is a bad thing, but the same critics never attack the likes of French
President Jacques Chirac for setting off a bunch in the ocean when he got into
office. The combination of hypocrisy,
denial, revisionism, American masochism, and lying in the name of supposedly
being against any “racist” attitude against the Japanese is nuts. These are the same people who still vilify
the Germans, but not necessarily the French.
At least this program has the guts to deal with the extreme Japanese
torturings (death marches are missed), and other aggressions that was a road
the country began decades earlier, as recently depicted in Ed Zwick’s grossly underseen
and underrated The Last Samurai
(2003, see my review on www.SprocketGuild.Org
or go to the following link: http://www.sprocketguild.org/pdf/review-lastsamurai.pdf) with Tom Cruise.
At the
worst, as the show explains, the U.S. knew the now-defunct Soviet Union was ready to hit the island, and
certain interests in this country did not want the island of Japan to “go Red” and let the U.S.S.R.
to make it another Communist stronghold.
That they became such a huge economic center in the world later could
potentially back that argument, though the standard line was to save American
lives. Either way, these were world
scourges that had to be stopped and even if we give critics the “benefit’ that
America is not perfect (no country is), it did more great things for the world
than Japanese Militarism, German Nazism, Italian Fascism, and Soviet Communism
combined were. Anyone who says otherwise
is outright nuts!
The full
frame image originated on analog color pro-NTSC video of the time, but
high-quality first-generation film footage from the ABC archive is a plus, as
we usually have to tolerate lesser footage on most such programs and documentaries. The Dolby Digital 2.0 is simple stereo at
best and with all the new debates and discoveries on the subject since 1996,
the DVD is unacceptably devoid of extras.
So here
we have it, a decent work on the end of WWII and the bombs that finally helped
to end it. Like so many other things
about WWII, the pain never goes away. Hiroshima – Why The Bomb Was Dropped is
worth your time.
- Nicholas Sheffo
