First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of Wa

An incredible book, one I had difficulty putting down. It revealed to me a totally unknown aspect of the Second World War. So much has been written about the Nazi atrocities and so little about what happened to our POW's in Japan. The author was the first Westerner to enter Nagasaki after the atomic bomb and has first hand fascinating information and insights. A must read for anyone interested in history.

This book will never be forgotten by me. This is one of the most important books I've ever read. It details the American POWs in Japanese work camps, the death marchs, and sea voyages they suffered through. It also details the hospitals full of Japenese citizens suffering from "Disease X" after the Atomic bombs fell. But, for me, the most important thing is this story was never supposed to be told. George Weller snuck into these areas. He tried to get his accounts through the censors and General MacArthur. This story was supposed to be destroyed, hidden, and forgotten about. This story is one that should be told and remembered.

Grabbed me from the first page and I was unable to put it down until I finished. Anthony Weller did a wonderful job compiling his father's work.

The book presents the literary version of the "if a tree falls in a forest..." conundrum. Specifically, what is the literary value of news dispatches published 60 years late? In September of 1945, one week from the Japanese surrender and a bit less than a month out from the detonation of "Fat Man," Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent George Weller impersonates a colonel and sneaks into Nagasaki in defiance of Douglas MacArthur's general ban. Yet Weller nonetheless sends his daily dispatches through MacArthur's censors in Tokyo, who use 99% of them for wastebasket-ball practice. So why does son/editor Anthony Weller believe the carbons are worth publishing now that they've ceased to be news (aside from belatedly realizing his father's lifelong crusade to escape the cloak of MacArthur's arrogance)? "In our era of the controlled, hygienic 'embedding' of journalists in war zones, amid current disputes over a government's right to keep secrets, the Weller dispatches represent a kind of rogue reporting that many militaries may have snuffed out, but which is still essential to learning the truth." (p. 245) There is no question that this book succeeds and derives its significance as an immediate, first-hand record of both the plutonium bomb's effects in Nagasaki and the wretched treatment that Allied prisoners of war received at the bayonets of the Japanese.

On the other hand, the narrative value of war dispatches leaves something to be desired as a contemporary read. From a literary standpoint, the book suffers from insufficient editing, notwithstanding that the editor claims to have excised 20 percent of the content to "avoid highly redundant material." George Weller, good journalist that he was, sought to capitalize on his exclusive by sending dispatches to newspapers in Australia and the U.K. in addition to the Chicago Daily News. Many of these "stories" were fodder for local writers, chock-full of one-liners from thirty or more interviewees identified by name and hometown. One or two are more than sufficient to get the flavor of 1940s-era reportage. Thirty-plus pages of them are tedious.

The most fascinating parts of the book are the full-fledged stories: Weller's recollection (written in the 1960s) of how he managed to get into the roped-off city and obtain local cooperation, the diary of an American civilian who managed to evade capture on Wake Island for nearly three months, the harrowing details of the prisoners of war on the "Death cruise" (the Japanese transfer of 1600+ POWs from the Phillippines to Japan -- a journey which barely 300 survived; Iris Chang's work on Nanking would have succeeded far better had she illustrated the visceral impact of Japanese brutality the way Weller does), the investigation of how the bomb worked as opposed to how its impact had been imagined and the biological effect we call radiation sickness. Here's the irony, though: nearly all of this (save the bomb info) was published at the time. While First Into Nagasaki collects these stories in one convenient place and restores some of the gorier details that censors and editors had removed, it doesn't really bring the heart of these stories to light for the first time. Further, since the book contains only Weller's accounts, readers aren't treated to any follow-up that would tell us, say, what happened to the Wake Island survivors after capture.

Richard Rhodes has already published definitive works on the history of Oppenheimer's legacy with The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. At this point, the destruction of red cells, white cells, and platelets caused by radiation exposure is also fairly well understood (though it was not at Weller's time). Less publicized has been the actual impact of the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For example, raised on The Day After and Threads as I was, I imagined buildings dissolved in a hurricane of fire and people vaporized in the street. It was therefore surprising for me to read Weller's account of exposed American POWs surviving the bomb blast simply by lying lower than the protective walls of an open-air ditch, or of fire emerging not from any fission reaction, but from the simple result of collapsing wooden structures onto lunchtime coals. From Weller's perception, "Stand beside a wall; have any masonry between you and the bomb [in 1945]; and you are as safe as underground" (p. 282).

Imagine my disappointment to learn that Weller's words were not a unique source of revelation today or even 60 years ago. Weller did succeed in publishing his findings in 1946, but beyond that had himself been scooped by an Australian reporter named Wilfred Burchett who got into Hiroshima before Weller found Nagasaki and managed to get a factual story about radiation sickness entitled, "The Atomic Plague" published by The London Daily Express on September 5, 1945. Not only that, but Anthony Weller considers his father would probably have managed to get more of his dispatches published sooner had he been willing to hand off his carbons to the Air Force press junket that visited Nagasaki briefly a mere three days after Weller's illicit arrival.

"For me [Anthony Weller] it is a small triumph that these words, the deaths and lives that were written about, and the deep determination behind them to get at the truth, were not lost forever" (p. 312). Well, it's safe to say that I might not have been attracted to this book had it not been for my erroneous belief in the truth of that statement. So if it turns out that Anthony Weller has in fact added only a small piece to scholarship by preserving his father's storytelling as originally reported before any editing took place, there's consolation in the fact that at least half of it is worth reading.

So many horrifying atrocities. Many of those stories recounted in this book. What was it about the Japanese character that is was so ubiquitous? I have read many books and similar stories abound.

SURPRISED DEATH TOLL IN NAGASAKI WAS 60-80 THOUSAND WHILE FIRE BOMBINGS OF TOKYO WAS 100,000

It always was obvious to me that Hiroshima was talked about, written about and debated while the "other" bomb was only mentioned many times in same sentence as the Hiroshima. So I've always been curious and therefore asked many questions about Nagasaki, that bomb and the whys and wherefore of that specific incident.

This book surprised me in that it focused more on Douglas McArthur's desire to paint his own picture in handling the situation and banning scores of reports. The author or specifically his son who tracked down his father's notes, mostly carbons, has resurrected an amazing story of the terrible things that happened to ours and many other troops after the bomb was dropped. The unbelievable and monstrous treatment that most of us, even some military historians lack knowledge of because of rewriting of history bobbles the mind.

To give one an idea of how men were driven to madness if not starved to death or shot (Japan did not care or never had the slightest intention of upholding the Geneva Convention) some 35 out of 100 survived POW camps whereas, surprisingly the death rate was 4%. They upheld the Geneva Convention despite the atrocities against Jews or anyone who was a "lesser breed" in their view. The Japanese considered all enemies worthless. Read this book to see the other side of history as most know it. I've agonized over the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings all my life but after reading this, I believe it did save many lives

So many interesting facts. One of the saddest facts is that fully one out of every three of ALL the Allied POWs killed in the entire war with the Japanese were killed by friendly fire at sea.

Four and 1/2 stars but I must choose simply because it's not the greatest war book and there are many better authors yet highly recommended because of so few books have such a shocking account of how the Japanese were the most ruthless and cold blooded enemies I could ever imagine even in my worst nightmares. Also, the men and their children and grandchildren plus future generations need this story told.

Found mouldering in a trunk 50 years later, these dispatches tell riveting stories. The Nagasaki stories make up the first part of the book, but the really gripping stories are later in the book, when George interviews surviving POW's in Japan and writes vividly about the death ships that carried these men to Japan.

I was really torn about this book. On one hand, it's a great historical document about events that occurred during WWII in the Pacific theater that were censored by MacArthur. It covers one of the most devastating events in history, the bomb attack on Nagasaki. On the other hand, it is very, very difficult to get through because it is incredibly dry.

This book would be a great book to use for research but it's quite difficult to get through otherwise.