Don't forget the Japanese

Your editorial ``Remembering WW II,'' Aug. 25, needs some added observations. If a Smithsonian Institution exhibition features the B-29 that dropped the A-bomb over Hiroshima, it should also include a replica of the Japanese airplanes that dropped the bombs at Pearl Harbor. Neither the Pacific or European campaigns were ``wars of vengeance.'' They ended the would-be empires of the Nazis and Japanese, and gave us a world of freedom.

No one today approves of atomic warfare. Having been in the North African campaign, the invasion of Southern France, and crossing the Rhine into Germany gives me a certain perspective. Our battalion was scheduled to be sent for the invasion of Japan. We thought somewhat differently of the first use of the atomic bomb. Were the thousands of men who were helplessly destroyed on Utah beach any less precious than the Japanese (including women and children) in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? And would thousands of Americans killed in a Japanese invasion be preferable? The men in our outfit thought otherwise.

Not only the terrible loss of Jews in Europe should be commemorated but also the loss of millions of others there, and in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Then the goal of ending all wars must continue. Gordon S. Hodge, W. Falmouth, Mass.

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