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.
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.
Nagasaki and verso[1]]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.
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.
"[5] 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].
A bus awaited us at Atsugi airport outside Tokyo and the plane crew and I were driven to the American-occupied Dai-Ichi Hotel....That night I slept between sheets and the following morning delivered Weller's story to the Daily News.
As payment, a rowdy evening's entertainment was provided at an establishment catering to thirsty American officers and featuring compliant Japanese girls who were not of the Geisha class.A Boston Globe article by Gerald R. Thorp of the Chicago Daily News "TOKYO, Sept. 10(CDN) 'New Brand of Jap to Him!'"
Roy Swanson, Leadville, Colo.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).
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.
http://www.ussmissouri.org [6] 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.
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.
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.
[emphasis added] The Los Angeles Times on September 16, 1945 published a front page article "By George Weller Chicago Daily News Foreign Service Nagasaki.
The Los Angeles Times page one article of September 16, 1945 with its sub-headline "Witnesses Describe Parachutes Falling and Searing Blast" includes Weller's interviews with Captain Farley, POWs Bridgman and King, and Dutch doctor Vink (all in Dispatch #5) and Weller's interview with the Japanese lieutenant, aide to the district's commander (Dispatch #1).
The New York article includes Weller's interviews with Captain Farley, Dr. Vink, Harold Bridgman, and Fred King (Dispatch #5).
The Associated Press' Vernon Haugland quotes Dr. Vink "only four of our 200 prisoners were killed"[outright when the bomb exploded; four more died subsequently] in article published widely, including in the New York Times and on September 10, 1945 in the Miami Herald.
Thus papers in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, and Akron all print Weller's incorrect casualty statistics, whilst Dispatch#5 gives correct data, as does the Associated Press in 1945.
The fact of publication by the Los Angeles Times, Boston Evening Globe, New York Post, Miami Herald, and Akron Beacon Journal is irreconcilable to George Weller's assertion that: "...I sent 25,000 words by the hands of the obliging kempeitai, the secret police, directly to MacArthur.
[9] Weller claims that he was "the first Westerner to enter either of the bombed cities after Japan surrendered" [10] and that "No other correspondent had yet evaded the authorities to reach either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
"[11] However, other reports note people entering the city as early as August 22, and the earliest dispatch from Weller was dated September 6 (see below).
However, the Chicago Daily News on August 30, 1945 published under size extra large headline: "1st INSIDE STORY OF HIROSHIMA Reporter Tells How City Vanished in Atom Blast" a notable scoop by Leslie Nakashima written for United Press (and also printed in the New York Times "Newsman finds all of Hiroshima gone after atom blow.")
Born in Hawaii and previously a reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and a foreign correspondent with wire agency UP in pre-war Tokyo this Nisei's dispatch includes: "...I arrived at Hiroshima at 5 A.M. Aug. 22, to find out about my mother, who lived in the outskirts of the city.
And the Chicago Daily News published a dispatch by Associated Press war correspondent Vern Haugland on page one under size large headline: "U.S.
[13] In the same 1967 account Weller asserts that Nagasaki, prior to August 9, 1945 "...in the face of all logic, it had been spared so far....Streams of B-29s flowed north and south around it, but this prime target remained mysteriously untouched.
"[18] On August 3, 1945 New York Times had carried the front page headline "BOMBERS FIRE GREAT NAGASAKI SHIPYARDS" and a page one story beginning "Nagasaki, one of the three major shipbuilding centers of Japan and ninth port of the empire, was left aflame yesterday, its dockyards smashed and its harbor littered with sunken ships by over 250 planes of General George C. Kenney's Far East Air Force."