First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War is a collection of reports by Chicago Daily News foreign correspondent George Weller. Although written in 1945, the dispatches were suppressed by Gen. Douglas MacArthur's military censors and remained unpublished for decades. The reports were eventually recovered, complied, and edited by the author's son, Anthony Weller, and published for the first time in 2006.
Synopsis
The Occupation authorities declared Nagasaki (and Hiroshima) off-limits to reporters.
Weller reports that he was the first outside observer to reach Nagasaki, on September 6, 1945, four weeks following the U.S. atomic bombing of the city. He spent a total of three weeks in Nagasaki and in the nearby Allied POW camps — some of which he "opened", and revisits the series of news reports he published at the time about his experiences.
The first dispatches by non-Japanese reporters were filed by Associated Press correspondent Vern Haugland and New York Times Lawrence who visited Nagasaki September 9, 1945. Captain Joe Snyder, press officer with MacArthur headquarters, in his book Para(graph) Trooper For MacArthur: From the Horse Cavalry to the USS Missouri 1997 Chapter 16 "Nagasaki Inferno" pp199–209 describes "boarding a transport plane packed with reporters headed for Nagasaki.[for example: photographers 1. see Google image search Nagasaki Bernard Hoffman (LIFE Magazine) 2. Bettmann/CORBIS September 13, 1945 Stanley Troutman (Acme war pool) 3. Nagasaki and verso]Other officers and correspondents headed for Hiroshima about the same time, so the world would soon know more than it was prepared to digest about the horrors of the atomic bomb. ... I toured the city with the AP's Jim Hutcheson, among others. He and I had become good friends since our narrow escape on Corregidor. ... There were thousands of stories in Nagasaki and our group saw many pitiful sights of people with radiation burns who, in dreadful agony, were slowly dying. The first thing Japanese doctors asked was if American doctors had a cure for the bomb's effects on the human body. ... We received a report from GHQ that American doctors were coming to Nagasaki soon...." Snyder acknowledges what he calls Wilfrid Burchett's "ingenuity" in successfully reporting from Hiroshima. Snyder does not mention George Weller or any dispatches of George Weller's from Nagasaki. Joe Snyder [1983; owner and editor of the North Missourian] and Walter Cronkite [1964; CBS] are both recipients of the Missouri School of Journalism Honor Medal.
From the first days of the Occupation reporters were cleared to cover freeing and rescue operations on behalf of these prisoners. Weller comments: "What the command wanted covered was the prison camps of northern Japan. The dam was to be opened to one last orgy of home town stories, more mindless and more alike than the slow molasses drippings of four years of sloppy, apolitical, dear-mom war....I did not feel that the right way to end this war was to...chew more fodder about what-beasts-the-Japs-are and Jimmy-looks-skinnier-today."[First into Nagasaki page 5 and 6]
The U.S. military in Tokyo censored approximately 55,000 words of his dispatches, along with more than 100 photographs.[Acknowledgments pages 317-8 First into Nagasaki Edited and with an Essay by Anthony Weller]
However, Weller does not refer to governmental censorship of any photographs of his related to Nagasaki.
On January 7, 2009 the Telegraph published Nagasaki photographs dated September 5, 1945: "After we asked readers for stories and photographs relating to Britain at War, we received these fascinating photographs of Nagasaki and Hiroshima from Cecil A. Creber, who took them less than a month [Nagasaki = September 5, 1945] after the atom bombs were dropped on both cities [August 6 and 9 1945]." The Linlithgow Gazette November 28, 2008 "Amazing atomic aftermath pics set for key war archives" features a photo of Creber captioned "Life through a lens: Cecil with his faithful Ensign box camera."
On February 13, 2010 Mainichi published "New color footage of Nagasaki A-bomb devastation shows need for greater research resources" plus a 01/05/2010 Photo Special [film circa September 11, 1945 found at the United States National Archives in Washington D.C. by Professor Burke-Gaffney].
Weller writes these correspondents "looked like yacht passengers who have stopped to buy basketry on an island." He writes that Colonel McCrary "offered to take carbons of my stories and file them when airborne." The reporters under McCrary's leadership were not subject to censorship, making their dispatches especially valuable. Weller writes: "I refused." "How could I close up my atomic laboratory, with the work only half finished?"...and concludes with the explanation that his refusal is because he wanted to write "something free, big and formal....something ample, leisurely and magnificent." [First into Nagasaki page 19-20]
Haugland of The Associated Press states: "We offered Weller a ride back to Tokyo with us,...."[see Haugland infra p. 20] Weller describes a feeling of "hopelessness" about his dispatches because the Kempeitai to whom he claims to have entrusted the stories had "returned to Nagasaki, but they had no message for me."[First into Nagasaki page 21] Weller, although working as a reporter for a daily publication, chose to refuse an offered opportunity either to timely send his Nagasaki dispatches uncensored from the aircraft or alternatively to confront the Occupation censorship directly by filing in Tokyo, despite writing: "I wanted to be prepared to defend every line. If the stories were blocked as reprisal against me, I intended to take the case to MacArthur himself."[First into Nagasaki page 18]
Weller traveled to Nagasaki from Kanoya airbase with Sergeant Gilbert Harrison. Harrison's career later included: Chairman of the American Veterans Committee; editor and publisher of The New Republic magazine; author of several books. In Harrison's memoir [Parts of a Past iUniverse June 2009 pages 81–2] he describes carrying George Weller's Nagasaki reporting from an airstrip outside Nagasaki to the Chicago Daily News in Tokyo:
A Boston Globe article by Gerald R. Thorp of the Chicago Daily News "TOKYO, Sept. 10(CDN) 'New Brand of Jap to Him!'" indicates that Harrison was by September 10, 1945 accompanying correspondents in Tokyo.
The first dispatch presented in First into Nagasaki (see page 25 and photos on cover and back inside endpaper) is datelined Nagasaki September 6 and reads: ..."After a 24-hour trip on what seemed like dozens of trains, the writer arrived here this afternoon as the first visitor from the outside Allied world." On September 6 the Chicago Daily News printed a dispatch under Weller's byline datelined Kanoya, which begins:
The remainder of Weller's dispatch consists of a series of direct quotations from men of this medical corps with names, addresses, and photographs (these last are not from in Japan but are formal military portraits). Samples:
After the September 6 dispatch from Kanoya, Weller's next dispatch was printed on September 12 with an "Ōmuta, Kyushu" dateline (Omuta was a prisoner of war camp approximately 100 miles by railroad from Nagasaki and twice that from Kanoya). Headlined "New Saga of Boldness For Wermuth as Captive", it is an account of the famous "One-Man-Army" Captain Arthur W. Wermuth continuing his leadership as a POW on a Hellship carrying prisoners to Japan.
Photographs
The photograph in First into Nagasaki facing the Introduction by Anthony Weller xv is captioned "George Weller (r.) with Admiral Chester Nimitz on board the U.S.S. Missouri for the treaty signing, Tokyo Bay, September 2, 1945." This caption is incorrect since the figure on the left of the picture is not Fleet Admiral Nimitz, the signer as United States Representative of the proceedings' documents. In all still images and moving pictures of the Japanese surrender ceremony Nimitz is seen wearing Navy cap with full "scrambled eggs" denoting his five-star rank. The personage in the photograph appears to be John Knight, publisher of the Chicago Daily News, who was in attendance on the USS Missouri as a guest of the Secretary of the Navy.
With reference to this photograph supra presented in First into Nagasaki, the Battleship Missouri Memorial at Pearl Harbor: "can confirm that the individual pictured to the left in the photograph is not Fleet Admiral Nimitz." http://www.ussmissouri.org visitors can "walk in the footsteps of" on the famous Surrender Deck of the 'Mighty Mo'
George Weller was actually photographed with a prominent naval figure Hiram Cassidy[sic] by the Associated Press on March 25, 1943 AP Images ID 4303250106. The picture was taken just before Weller's letter to the Foreign Editor of the Chicago Daily News quoted in Weller's War pp355–6. At left is Commander Hiram Cassedy[correct spelling], then Captain of Searaven, hero of several submarine engagements in the South-west Pacific (Submarine Operations in World War II US Naval Institute Eighth Printing December 1965 pages 104,193-4,233,463). At right is George Weller wearing the British-type tropical uniform of shorts and knee socks. Cassedy (later Admiral) commanding Tigrone went on to lead a submarine group "Hiram's Hecklers" and also to hold the Pacific record for "lifeguard" duty (with 31 rescues; Ibid. pp 471–3).
The Chicago Daily News September 8, 1945 printed prominently two photographs credited 'Associated Press Wirephoto' showing one American foreign correspondent amidst an obliterated surrounding former city. These photographs feature in the background what has become the widely recognized symbol for the atom bombs dropped on Japan, the shell of a pre-war structure which has been preserved as it looked then. Now commonly referred to as "A-Bomb Dome" it is on the UNESCO World Heritage List registered as "Hiroshima Peace Memorial." The CDN 1945 captions read: "An Allied war correspondent looks over the twisted steel and masonry in what was the city of Hiroshima before it was struck by an atomic bomb." "No show tonight. An Allied war correspondent stands in a sea of rubble, looking at the remains of what once was a Hiroshima movie theatre." [Nagasaki photographs (Associated Press: Stanley Troutman; creation date September 13, 1945) in database AP Images (available through libraries).]
Photographs of Nagasaki had already been printed September 1, 1945. Caption: "Nagasaki Today - Japanese workers (foreground) carry away debris in a devastated area of atom-bombed Nagasaki. Smokestacks and a lone building stand in the background. This picture is from Domei, official Jap news agency." Transmission credit is to Associated Press Wirephoto.
Photographs published in First into Nagasaki in 2006 already had appeared in the Chicago Daily News in 1945. [emphasis added] Exhibit A: subject: George Weller and Logan Kay; source + locator: First into Nagasaki page 146 (example #1), book jacket front cover (example #2), jacket spine (example #3) = Chicago Daily News October 18, 1945 'Part II - Wake Ghosts' Diary: Navy's Return Raises False Hopes ships shell and leave, so 'Crusoes' give up' Caption: Memento of Terror—Logan "Scotty" Kay, Clearlake Park, Calif., one of the "ghosts" of Wake Island, who hid from the Japs for 77 days, shows George Weller (left) of the Chicago Daily News Foreign Service, a helmet bearing the names of many men who died on Wake and at a prison camp in Japan. /