Apologize?

On Monday, in a ceremony generally ignored by the media, Secretary of State John Kerry made the following appearance. 

He was laying a wreath at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial also known as the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan. 

The picture above is of the building as it appeared following its completion in April 1915. The picture below is how it appeared in September 1945. 

If you had asked me on Sunday if the United States owed Japan an apology for the use of an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima in 1945 I would have said no. It is Tuesday and after a good deal of reading and thinking I'm not so sure. Let's take a minute to look back. On August 6, 1945 a B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb called "Little Boy" at 8:15 a.m. The bomb's target was the Aioi Bridge. It missed its target by almost 800 feet detonating 2000 feet directly above the Shima Hospital. The domed building that survived was 2000 feet vertically and 490 feet horizontally from the hypocenter of the blast. It was the only building at the hypocenter left standing. It survived because it was almost directly under the blast. The blast killed 70,000 people instantly and another 70,000 would die of fatal radiation injuries. 

Why Hiroshima? Why an atomic bomb? The answer is more complex than you might think. President Truman alleged at the time an invasion of the Japanese mainland would cause an estimated half million casualties. Years later President George H.W. Bush would claim the use of atomic weapons on Japan saved a million lives. Hiroshima was an important port and headquarters of the Japanese Second General Army. There were about 40,000 military personnel in the city. That would seem to make it a legitimate military target. There is, of course, more to the story. The United States had virtually complete control of the skies over Japan. We had been and were continuing to firebomb their cities. If "Little Boy" was dropped on a city that had been firebombed the true power of the weapon would not be as apparent. Hiroshima had not been firebombed. The blast would show its power, terrorize the population of Japan and blunt the territorial ambitions of Russia who had agreed to join the fight against Japan. President Truman felt Russia would attempt to expand its influence into Asia. 

Why we shouldn't have used the bomb. At the time there were seven total five star generals and admirals. Six of them felt the bomb's use was unnecessary. Their assessment was that the Japanese knew they were defeated and were likely to surrender before any invasion. The bomb overwhelmingly targeted a civilian population. Yes, there were military personnel in Hiroshima, about 40,000. The blast killed an additional 100,000 men, women and children. Civilians who happened to live in a port city that had not yet been firebombed. We, the United States, remain the only country to ever use atomic weapons in a war. We continue to maintain and even upgrade our nuclear arsenal. It will cost us an estimated one trillion dollars over the next 10 years. 

Was our use wrong? Should we apologize to the citizens of Japan? 

I look at the picture above and struggle with an answer. If we had not used those weapons perhaps the world would not have an appreciation for their fearsome destructive power. Perhaps in the decades since someone would have been tempted. At the same time the deliberate targeting of a civilian population was and always will be wrong. We are quick as a nation to demand other countries acknowledge and apologize for their misdeeds. We never seem to apologize for ours. Perhaps a place to start is with the few remaining survivors of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some day the United States may apologize for these attacks. My concern is that no of the survivors will be alive to hear it.