First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Anthony Weller (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

George Weller, a Pulitzer Prize– winning war correspondent for the Chicago Daily News, entered Nagasaki on September 6, 1945, four weeks after the atomic blast leveled the city. The first Westerner to tour the city's ruins, he talked with doctors at the makeshift hospitals and scoured the countryside in search of the POW camps scattered across southern Japan over several weeks. His eyewitness dispatches were intercepted and buried, however, by Gen. Douglas MacArthur's censors. Weller saved his carbons, but they disappeared in the hectic months after the war and remained lost for 60 years, until rediscovered after his death by his son Anthony, himself a journalist and a novelist (The Garden of the Peacocks). Weller's dispatches from Nagasaki are riveting even at this late date, though they are only a small part of the book. His extensive interviews with POWs mostly reinforce what we already know about their brutal treatment. The book also offers an account of one of the so-called "death ships" that carried POWs from the Philippines to Japan, and a 1966 essay on Weller's experiences in Nagasaki. On balance, Weller's dispatches are a welcome addition to the historical record. (Jan.)
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From Booklist

In September 1945, four weeks after the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Weller, a reporter and photographer, disguised himself as an American officer and filed a series of dispatches and photos documenting the material and human devastation. Unfortunately, General MacArthur censored the dispatches, and Weller's account remained unpublished until his son found it. The account is, at first, curious. Weller describes the destruction of the city in a detached, unemotional manner; however, once he visits the shell of a hospital and views the suffering of children with acute radiation burns, his mask of objectivity falls away. Weller graphically recounts the slow, painful agony of children dying from radiation poisoning, yet he does not engage in guilt-ridden breast-beating over America's crime. With an equal tone of outrage, he also reports on the savage treatment of American POWs at camps on the outskirts of the city. As the number of nations capable of producing nuclear weapons appears to be growing, this gruesome glimpse at the results of nuclear war is timely and important. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st ed edition (December 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307342018
• ISBN-13: 978-0307342010
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #330,215 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rescued from Oblivion, January 25, 2007

By	William H. Bartsch (Reston, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Anthony Weller has made a real contribution to history in locating and having published -- after over 60 years -- the dispatches of his renowned war correspondent father describing the first outsider's impressions of the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki. These dispatches -- and those covering his visits to nearby POW camps where he interviewed the Allied victims of over three years of Japanese brutality -- were submitted by George Weller but fell afoul of General MacArthur's self-serving censorship and never saw the light of day -- until his son rescued the carbon copies of the dispatches from oblivion in 2002.

Also included in this remarkable volume are graphic descriptions -- published in part only -- of the POW experiences of two American civilians captured on Wake Island and of the 300 survivors of the 1600 American officers and enlisted men transferred under horrendous conditions -- including attacks by American submarines and aircraft -- from the Philippines to Japanese-held Formosa.

Without the benefit of his lost 1945 dispatches, George Weller did manage to have his recollections of his Nagasaki experience published in 1966 as a essay, focusing on the veil of censorship that dogged his efforts 21 years earlier, and that full account is also included in this volume. In addition to making all this material available in one place, a major effort of research, Anthony Weller has contributed his own essay analyzing his father's struggles with wartime censorship and the controversial "atomic bomb" issue that was so sensitive immediately after World War II. In all, this book is highly recommended by the reviewer to anyone concerned about the Nagasaki attack and the effects of censorshp in World War II -- and afterwards -- who is sympathetic to the efforts of honest and dedicated reporters like George Weller to get the truth out.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An extremely important addition to the historical record of World War II., March 14, 2007

By	Paul Tognetti "The real world is so much more... (Cranston, RI USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It was perhaps the most underreported story of World War II. Very little has ever appeared in print about the incredibly inhumane treatment of American soldiers and civilians in Japanese POW camps. Until now. In the days immediately following the surrender of the Japanese empire, Chicago Sun Times reporter George Weller, who Walter Cronkite charactorizes as "one of our best war correspondents" slipped quitely and without authorization into Nagasaki, Japan to see for himself the legacy of the atomic bomb that had been dropped just four weeks earlier. In terms of press coverage of this horrifying and historic event Mr. Weller was indeed "First Into Nagasaki".
Upon his arrival in Nagasaki George Weller immediately embarked on a tour of the devastated city. What he saw shocked him. There was devastation everywhere. He learned from various officials that at least 21,000 people had already died and that thousands more were injured. He saw first hand those people who were suffering from what he referred to as "Disease X". These doomed individuals were destined to die a slow and painful death due to atomic radiation. George Weller reported his findings in a series of dispatches to his newspaper. Unfortunately for him General Douglas MacArthur was not particularly disposed to having any negative news coming out of Japan. Unbeknownst to George Weller, his reports were being 100% censored by the United States military. After completing his tour of the city proper Weller moved on to a number of the POW camps in the city, among them Omuta and Izuka. He interviewed scores of American POWs along the way. These former POW's told Weller of the inhumane and sadistic treatment they had received at the hands of their Japanese captors. Once again, Weller sent another series of dispatches to the Chicago Sun-Times only to have them totally censored by our own military! For a host of political and security reasons, the American people would never hear the troubling stories George Weller was trying to tell. His reports it seemed had been lost forever. He had made carbon copies of all of them but these too seemed to have disappeared. After George Weller died in 2002 his son Anthony was sifting through some of his dad's papers in an old trunk when lo and behold he came upon those tattered and yellowing copies.
And so now, more than six decades after these historic events took place "First Into Nagasaki" finally presents George Weller's compelling dispatches for all to read and digest. This is powerful stuff folks. Over the decades much has been written about the atrocities in Nazi POW camps. Curiously, very little has ever been disclosed about the inhumane conditions that existed in Japanese POW camps. "First Into Nagasaki" does much to set the record straight. This is an extremely important book and one that should prove to be a real eye opener to those like myself who were born after the end of World War II. It might be useful to conclude this review by quoting George Weller on the subject of censorship: "The moment when it could have been understood politically is missed, surpressed. The possibility of comprehension will never again return...And the porcelain men of history will pose forever in these lying attitudes. The aim of well-timed censorship is to instill this simple idea: it probably never happened." Highly recommended!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendid Book of Little Known World War II Events, January 18, 2007

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a splendid report from a reporter who actually chose to report rather than just be a mouthpiece for MacArthur in Japan. For unknown reasons, the areas around Hiroshima and Nagasaki were declared off limits to American reporters. Mr. Weller managed to get assigned to a visit to a air base in Southern Japan he then 'escaped' from supervision by an Army PR type and made his way to Nagasaki.

I was particularly struck by an exchange between he and a Japanese lieutenant.

'What do you think of the culture of a people who could drop such a terrible weapon on the people of Japan?'

'To give you an honest reply, I would have to ask my own people. And of course I would have to begin with those who were walking to church on Sunday on Red Hill in Hawaii when your planes struck them.'

My own discussions with young Japanese of today have them almost thinking that the story of World War II was basically that the US began dropping Atomic bombs on them for no reason.

In travels around Southern Japan Mr. Weller visited POW camps near Nagasaki and interviewed dozens of American POWs who told stories of torture, starvation, murder and above all of their travel in a 'hellship' which carried US prisoners.

A splendid book that brings to light several stories that have been little reported.