US Will Not Apologize for Japan Nuclear Bombings Within Veterans' Lifetime

It is unknown whether the US government will apologize for the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at least as long as veterans of the war are alive, the political and communications director at the US-based Peace Action nonprofit organization told Sputnik Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Alexander Mosesov – On August 6, 1945, a US B-29 bomber named Enola Gay dropped a nuclear bomb that killed about 140,000 people in Hiroshima. A second bombing followed three days later, this time on the city of Nagasaki, killing 70,000 people. The bombings caused Japan to surrender on August 15, 1945, bringing World War II to an end.

"I think that the U.S. should apologize to Japan for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Unfortunately, as long as veterans from that war are alive, I don't think the government will make such a proclamation. I do think that it will happen one day," Paul Kawika Martin said.

Earlier in the day, a Populus poll conducted exclusively for Sputnik revealed that the vast majority of Japanese — 74 percent of those polled — believed that the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in the final stages of World War II were not justified by the circumstances of war as it had been apparent that they would entail the mass killing of civilians.

According to Martin, the use of nuclear weapons causing large-scale civilian casualties cannot ever be justified.

"Especially with the destructive forces of a modern weapon, which is several to hundreds of times larger than those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is no justification to use nuclear weapons that will kill mostly civilians and devastate the environment for decades," he warned.