Richard Jernigan -> RE: My artwork website (Dec. 6 2016 0:20:50)
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My father participated in both the planning and execution of the fire bombing of Tokyo, which killed more people than either of the atomic bombs. Tokyo was not the only city targeted by LeMay's fire bombing campaign. Like most of his generation, Dad had no doubt whatsoever that the cause was just. Nor, like most of his generation, did he speak about his experiences. Almost immediately after coming home from the Marianas Dad was assigned to MacArthur's staff for the Occupation of Japan. On his way he was tasked with taking the first contingent of occupying troops from the USA to Japan. When he came home from Japan more than a year later, he recalled entering Tokyo Bay aboard the troop ship, to dock at Tokyo's port. He said, "The docks and port facilities were mostly intact, just as we planned. When you walked a block inland, you could see all the way to the Imperial Palace. There was hardly a house or a building standing." That was all he had to say about it. I was watching him when he said it. I will never forget the look in his eyes. During a little more than a year on MacArthur's staff he had learned a little about Japan, gotten to know a few Japanese, and had seen the effect of the war on the people. Undoubtedly he must have learned things about the Emperor's role in the war which became known to the public only in the late 1990s, things which Dad never spoke about to anyone, presumably honoring an oath of secrecy. During that same homecoming conversation he handed my mother a present. She unwrapped a full dress kimono of the very highest quality. Mother was a more than competent seamstress. She made tailored suits for herself, out of pride and pleasure in her craftsmanship. But none of us had ever seen anything remotely like the utter magnificence of the silk and complex embroidery of that kimono. Mother gasped with pleasure and excitement, then asked, "Where on earth did you get this?" "I bought it from a waitress at the Imperial Hotel." "What was a waitress doing with a thing like this?" "She was the daughter of a Duke." To me, the Boeing B-29 was a thing of both beauty and power. After seeing the look in Dad's eyes when he described the desolation of Tokyo, I knew that plane had an additional meaning for him. When Paul Tibbets came in 1976 to the Confederate Air Force show at Harlingen, Texas to fly the Enola Gay (the plane and pilot who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima), the two of them stood off by themselves for just a few moments, talking quietly, looking at the ground. Then they shook their heads, tapped each other on the back, and rejoined the group, with an upbeat comment on Duane Cole's aerobatic performance earlier in the day. Neither Dad nor Tibbets ever expressed any regret for their role in the war. But they didn't take it lightly. In Dad's case, I think the totality of his feelings was one of the things he never spoke about to anyone, even to my mother--and they were very close. RNJ
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