Personalizing History: Marking the 75th Anniversary of the End of World War II
By Dr. Joshua W. Walker, President and CEO, Japan Society
This post draws on an article previously published in the Huffington Post on August 6, 2015.
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb in world history on Hiroshima and three days later, on August 9, a second atomic bomb destroyed Nagasaki. These actions, and August 15, 1945, the day that Japan accepted unconditional defeat, have come to be remembered as the most consequential, and controversial, days of historical memory.
Five years ago, I wrote a piece on the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, and I made a connection in terms of my own personal life — between my own career, my parents, Southern Baptist missionaries who took me to my adopted heartland, Japan, when I was a one-year-old and have served there faithfully for close to 40 years, and my grandparents, who served in the American forces during World War II. My maternal grandfather, Lewis Graham, was an Air Force pilot who trained crews on bombers such as the B-29 immortalized by the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. My paternal grandfather, Carlton Walker, was a member of General Douglas MacArthur’s U.S. Army occupying forces after Japan’s surrender. Today, in my career as a diplomatic bridge builder, I am the President and CEO of Japan Society, working to foster U.S.-Japan relations through the Society’s 113-year-old mission of connecting the two countries. The U.S.-Japan alliance, now in its 75th year after the war, has never been more important for the world.
This story is personal to me, but it is not unique. The end of World War II is something that we all share on either side of the Pacific, whether we are Japanese or American. We need to remember that 75 years ago, the world witnessed how the destructive power of the atomic bomb, the ultimate killing machine, was used to end that war. We also need to celebrate and safeguard where we are today, in a world order that has in many ways been shaped by the U.S.-Japan relationship.
My grandfather, Lewis Graham of Bowling Green, Kentucky, lived to be over 90, and the years he served in the United States Air Force during World War II were among his most consequential — he was extremely proud of his unit and service. I grew up in Japan, and Granddaddy Graham seemed to love Japan every time he came to visit us there. However, he never talked about his wartime experiences. On the other hand, Grandpa Walker, my paternal grandfather, spoke often about the samurai swords he had confiscated as a member of the United States Army Occupation Forces.
Granddaddy Graham was a quiet man. I remember the Japanese church members who asked questions about his wartime service when he came to visit us. He would always smile and politely divert the question to his wife, who would inevitably have something to say as the “talker in the family.” During our last visit together, around the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Granddaddy Graham shared some of his memories and reflections from Japan for the first time. He talked about flying the B-29, and casually mentioned that he had trained with the Enola Gay crew, who would later drop the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Having never heard this side of his story before, I was incredulous that my own grandfather could have brought so much devastation to a country and people whom I have always loved so deeply. “No,” he said, “I did not drop the bomb, but I knew and trained with that crew on the same islands in the Pacific, and flew a series of missions that dropped bombs across the Pacific.” “This was a necessary evil to bring the war to a close,” he said. “The Japanese were a proud and determined people who would have fought to the last person if America did not drop those bombs.”
I tried to reconcile the horrible irony of my grandfather’s service during the war and my parents’ work with the Japanese that includes 3/11 disaster relief, English language teaching, and spiritual counseling. Tears came into Granddaddy Graham’s eyes as he saw my devastation. They were not tears of sorrow, but the memory of an old Japanese church member who, I learned, had thanked him for his service on his last visit to my Japanese hometown. The fact that Granddaddy Graham had reconciled the Japan that he had bombed into submission with the Japan that he so thoroughly embraced because of his daughter and grandsons’ love of it is one of the most powerful and vivid memories I have of him.
Confronting and reconciling personal historical memories is never easy. My own grandfather’s evolution is instructive at a broader level of what is possible. I have always felt a sense of amazement about how, in only three generations, we have gone from mortal enemies, to being deeply embedded in the Japanese community, as my parents are, to leading an organization like Japan Society. We need to continue to educate and help the Japanese understand what led to World War II and to help Americans understand that there is an onus on us at the private sector level, the think tank level, the academic level, and the civil society level to find true connections. In this moment of extreme crisis, where COVID has hit us in such a direct way in New York, and in the United States more broadly, along with social unrest and political uncertainty, we need to reaffirm the sense of kizuna, the connection or bond that brings us all together.
As a leader, I want to make sure everything we do ensures that we will never find ourselves in this situation again, and that the U.S.-Japan alliance will continue to be strong 75 years from now. I hope that when my grandchildren look back at their family legacy, they can be proud in the same way that I am proud of my grandparents and my parents.
That is what I have learned from today in history. Thinking about what 75 years in history means, because the world has dramatically changed since 1945, I expect that the world will continue to change. We are at another turning point. Just as World War II set the stage, so to speak, for the post-WWII world of the United Nations and the U.S.-Japan Treaty Alliance, we need to remember that peace is not free and it is also not easy. Peace is something that you have to work for and for which you have to be prepared to pay the ultimate price. I hope that we can keep that memory front and center as we pause today to reflect on all those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, around the world.
