On Oct. 11, 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt approved the plan to invent and build atomic bombs. Then, on Dec. 7, 1941, Mitsuo Fuchida led 353 Japanese airplanes on an attack on Pearl Harbor, killing 2,000 Americans.

The U.S. Air Force attacked the Norsk Hydro Plant with 320 airplanes on Nov. 16, 1943, to prevent the Nazis from building their own atomic bombs. When the Germans tried to send atomic weapons material to Japan on the Japanese submarine I-52, U.S. Navy airplanes sunk the submarine on June 24, 1944, to prevent Japan from having an atomic bomb.

Col. Paul Tibbets was asked if he could drop a single bomb and destroy an entire Japanese city even if he knew American POWs were there. Paul said, "Yes," and got the job.

In Hiroshima the week before Paul Tibbets dropped his bomb, there were 23 American POWs and Mitsuo Fuchida. Mitsuo Fuchida left the day before Hiroshima was bombed and returned the day after it was bombed. Of the 23 American POWs, not all were killed instantly. Roman Roland and Sgt. Ralph J. Neal took two days to die of radiation sickness.

Emperor Hirohito only agreed to surrender after two atomic bombs were dropped and the Soviet Union had successfully invaded Manchuria. He never signed the surrender and got immunity from war crimes trials for himself and his royal family, from the new Shogun, Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Ralph Dring

Bloomington