Carly

When I was five, or so, stories always ended with the words, “… and everyone lived happily ever after.” But now I know that it isn’t like that. The world isn’t that big, happy place I always thought it was. Some nation is always going to be power- hungry, and that nation won’t stop at much until it controls a lot more land than it used too.

The World War II unit scared me. It really did. It scared me that someone like Adolf Hitler could rise so quickly through the government. And that everyone went along with him and his ideas. As soon as the SS and the Gestapo was formed, anyone who didn’t agree was simply squashed.

When Hitler joined the Nazis, they were known as the National German Workers Party, and they had fifty-five members. Within a year of Hitler joining, the numbers skyrocketed to over one thousand. Very soon, Hitler was second in line to German President Hindenburg. When Hindenburg died, Hitler took command.

Hitler had been in the army in World War I. When he began his persecution of the Jews, he kept an important fact secret: when Hitler was in the army, he was awarded the infamous Iron Cross by a Jewish officer.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched an air attack on Pearl Harbor. Many, many ships were bombed, and hundreds of American sailors died. If you had a son, a brother, a cousin, a next-door neighbor on the Oklahoma, the Arizona, the California, you would not know if they were dead or alive!

Actually, the U.S. Intelligence was daily intercepting Japanese messages, and we did almost nothing! It’s rumored that FDR knew that Pearl harbor was going to be attacked, and decided to use it as an excuse to enter the war. That would almost make sense, though.

In Europe, Hitler was devouring almost every country he could get his hands on. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Denmark, France and very nearly Russia were swallowed by the German army. Most of the countries couldn’t defend themselves against the German blitzkriegs, or lightening war. But when Hitler began launching the air raids on Britain, the Emerald Isle held on.

Because Japan was allied with Germany, the Pearl Harbor attack was an attack by Germany. The US quickly declared war on Japan, Germany, and also Italy, because Italy was allied with Germany. This group of three became known as the Axis.

Before the Japanese attack, the US had simply sent supplies over to Britain. Now the Americans had entered the war!

After months of useless air raids, the Allies (Russia, England, America) had decided that if the Axis was to be defeated, a land attack was the only thing to do. So, D- Day was launched. Normandy, France was chosen to be the landing site for D- Day. While the Allies worked at liberating France, another group of Allies worked their way up through Italy.

Within eleven months, Hitler had committed suicide, and the European branch of the Axis was thoroughly beaten.

But, despite months of air raids, Japan showed no signs of giving up. The Japanese army had started recruiting all boys over fifteen, and all girls over seventeen. Japan was losing an entire generation. Suicide missiles were being trained for and carried out, and that just seems terrible. But, as the Japanese believed that the Emperor, Hirohoto, was divine, I guess that they would do just about anything for him, without questioning it, or anything. Yikes.

This war in the Pacific was getting bloodier and bloodier, and it was showing no signs of stopping. And then these two scientists named Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi came up with the brilliant idea for the atomic bomb. You’d think that someone as bright as Einstein would have figured out sooner that even if the atomic bomb helped win that particular war, but what about the next war? I mean, WW I was supposed to be the “ war to end all wars”.

The first nuclear test took place in a squash court under the University of Chicago football field. Roosevelt died, and Truman took office, and for the first time was briefed on the project. And, of course, Truman went along with it.

There was a huge atomic test in New Mexico. The explosion was so big, and so bright that a blind girl, ten miles away saw the blast. Any ground near the site was turned into green glass, and the tower the mini- bomb was dropped from was completely demolished. You’d really think that right then and there someone would clue in on just what this bomb would be able to do. Two bombs were built, a long, skinny thing nicknamed “Little Boy”, and a thing that looked like an egg with wings nicknamed “Fat Man”.

There was a hitch. No American planes were big enough to hold one of the bombs, so things got delayed for a bit while B- 17’s were developed, but finally, they were ready.

After the US took possession of Guam, the B-17’s and the bombs were all transported to Guam.

After the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese finally surrendered. To keep the Emperor from losing face, the U. S. helped Hirohito figure out a way to explain it all to his extremely loyal subjects. Finally, he decided that he would tell his people that he had decided not to be divine any more. I’d say that that must have been hard to do, but sometimes I still think that the US is sometimes too nice for it’s own good. I guess we believe in the phrase, “Give until it hurts”.

I still remain adamant to the fact that we should not have dropped the bomb. It caused so much destruction that still occurs today: leukemia, birth defects, etc. And the Cold War lasted for so long! As Einstein said, “ I don’t know what the World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Yep, war is scary.

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