American POWs Died at Hiroshima

The deaths have been known for awhile but the reports still shock most people.  I've written about it for years, in my book Atomic Cover-up and in this article from last year. Few Americans know that among the tens of thousands victims in Hiroshima were at least a dozen and perhaps more American prisoners of war. This was kept from the American people—even the families of the victims—for decades, along with so much else related to the atomic bombings (that's one victim, John Hantschel, at left).  One night,  as a pair screamed in pain in their cells—asking to be put out of their misery—the other Americans asked the Japanese doctors to do something. “Do something?” one of the doctors replied. “You tell me what to do. You caused this.” The two men died later that night.

Three days after the Hiroshima blast, perhaps as many as a dozen Dutch POWs were killed in the bombing of Nagasaki. One American soldier there, a Navajo from New Mexico, survived in his cell.