Smithsonian staffers took the plane apart into smaller pieces and moved it inside.
The display, say the vets, is tilted against the U.S., portraying it as an unfeeling aggressor, while paying an inordinate amount of attention to Japanese suffering. Too little is made of Tokyo’s atrocities, the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor or the recalcitrance of Japan’s military leaders in the late stages of the war - the catalyst for the deployment of atomic weapons.
Correll, editor in chief of Air Force Magazine, noted that in the first draft there were 49 photos of Japanese casualties, against only three photos of American casualties. The Committee for the Restoration and Display of the Enola Gay now has 9,000 signatures of protest.īy his count there were four pages of text on Japanese atrocities, while there were 79 pages devoted to Japanese casualties and the civilian suffering, from not only the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but also conventional B-29 bombing. As if their participation in the war were morally equivalent.” The Air Force Association claims the proposed exhibition is “a slap in the face to all Americans who fought in World War II” and “treats Japan and the U.S.
