The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back (John MacRae Books)
by Charles Pellegrino
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Book Summary Information
Author: Charles PellegrinoEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2010-01-19
ISBN: 0805087966
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Book Reviews of The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back (John MacRae Books)
Book Review: Extraordinary claims and fabrications.
Summary: 1 Stars
"I will say again, no person and no facts in this book were fabricated by me." -Charles Pellegrino
Oh really? Let's examine some specifics.
Criticism of Mr. Pellegrino's book came immediately after publication not only from members of the 509th, but from nuclear scientists and some very well-respected historians all of whom questioned many of the claims made in his book.
When writing about history, one of the first things an author should do is perform simple, basic checking of easily verifiable facts. Inexplicably, Mr. Pellegrino seemed so willing and eager to push this aside in his effort to rewrite history in a most sensationalistic manner. His so-called "knowledge" of the non-existent radiation accident on Tinian involving the Little Boy apparently began when he was back at Brookhaven, long before Joseph Fuoco dovetailed his equally fictitious accounts into that of Mr. Pellegrino's. If it wasn't so serious, his description of how Little Boy functioned is almost laughable along with his account of Luis Alvarez installing extra initiators in that weapon or for that matter Alvarez having anything whatsoever to do with the Little Boy assembly. While on Tinian, Alvarez was in charge of the team that measured bomb yield. While Mr. Pellegrino offers no historical evidence whatsoever in the form of footnotes to back these extraordinary claims, there is overwhelming documentary evidence available to refute them, including a 2010 Los Alamos Press Release.
With regard to bomb yields, once again Mr. Pellegrino hasn't done his homework. He claims that Little Boy had a "mysteriously low, 10 - 12.5 kiloton yield." The latest and most authoritative yield calculation is contained in the extensive DS02 (Dosimetry System 2002) report issued in 2002 by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF). This dosimetry reassessment was mandated and supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (MHLW). It is considered by many to be the current "Gold Standard" for radiation studies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This report can be found on the Internet in just a few minutes.
According to DS02, the current best yield estimates are 16 kilotons for the Little Boy used at Hiroshima and 21 kilotons for the Fat Man used at Nagasaki. This means the yield of the Little Boy was approximately 75% that of the Fat Man; a far cry from the 1/3 claimed by Mr. Pellegrino and most certainly not a dud.
Pellegrino mentions the "shadow people" on numerous occasions. Here he merely repeats the old myth that these people had been vaporized by the intense heat produced when the Little Boy exploded over Hiroshima and all that remained were their shadows burned into stone, asphalt, and concrete. Again, there is no scientific evidence to support this claim. It is quite simply a physical impossibility!
As part of the Joint U.S.-Japan Working Group, George Kerr was one of the authors of the DS02 mentioned previously. Kerr dispels this popular myth, "The thermal radiation pulses from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were very short in duration. The pulses caused horrific burns to the skin but they did not transfer sufficient energy to the body to vaporize a person." He continued, "The thermal radiation pulses were followed by the blast waves from the bombs. The blast wave probably displaced the bodies of people who produced the shadows that are often shown on the asphalt surface of a bridge so that it appeared the bodies may have been vaporized.... or they were probably removed for burial before the pictures were taken."
As contained in the 509th Press Release (available on the Internet), which was given as an exclusive to Bill Broad who first broke this story in The New York Times, "Mr. Pellegrino reserved the final insult for the end of his book. On the very last page, he quotes from an alleged 1999 letter from Tibbets to Nagasaki strike aircraft Flight Engineer John Kuharek and "cited by J.C Muller [me] at the 2005 Tinian Symposium." Pellegrino states that in this letter "Tibbets expressed his belief that after Hiroshima and the massive firebombings elsewhere, Japan was so defeated and so close to surrender that Sweeney's bomb had become redundant if not completely irrelevant, and never needed to be dropped in the first place." The letter in question quoted at this 2005 Tinian Symposium was in fact actually written in 1995 by Tibbets to historian John Coster-Mullen. This erroneous statement by Tibbets does not appear anywhere in this letter and is another complete fabrication."
This is even more troubling. Mr. Pellegrino also states on that last page 345 that Tibbets wrote in that letter about Sweeney's "indecisiveness and a failure to command." The problem here is that I wrote that as part of my speech presented during the 2005 Tinian Symposium speech. Those are my words, not Tibbets', and were lifted directly from my speech without attribution or permission by me to Mr. Pellegrino.
As Mr. Pellegrino I'm certain is fully aware, this is not "Fair Use" as defined by the US Copyright office since his book is a commercial, for-profit work and does not therefore fall under their strict definitions for "Fair Use." Not only does he fabricate statements from Tibbets along with getting the date, my name, and who the letter was written to wrong, it can be argued Mr. Pellegrino also violated US Copyright law.
It doesn't stop there. Instead of conducting his own research, Mr. Pellegrino's descriptions of the Nagasaki mission were lifted almost verbatim from the War's End book written by Charles Sweeney. Pick up a copy of both books at any library and compare them. As an example, on page 182 of Sweeney's book he wrote, "I went over to the intelligence hut. Reconnaissance photographs were providing a better view of the destruction on the ground as some of the smoke cleared. Sixty percent of Hiroshima had been laid to waste. Preliminary casualty estimates were 80,000 killed or seriously wounded." Mr. Pellegrino wrote on page 82, "Charles Sweeney was called to the Intelligence hut. According to Bad Penny's [non-existent]reconnaissance photographs, Hiroshima's activities as an industrial base had ceased. Preliminary casualty estimates were approaching 100,000 people." Note the inflated casualty figure in Mr. Pellegrino's version.
As to the accuracy of Sweeney's self-serving autobiography, Enola Gay bombardier Tom Ferebee told me in 1998, "Tibbets got through the first 60 pages of the book and was too disgusted to go any further." Ferebee was also present during a car ride in Wendover with Sweeney and Tibbets when "Paul turned around and let him have it" for a full half-hour. Ferebee added, "He just sat there and took it." Numerous 509th vets intimately familiar with what transpired told me Sweeney's book more properly belonged in the fiction category. Keep in mind Tibbets wasn't simply the Enola Gay pilot; he was commander of the 1,800 member 509th and the person who, not only hired Sweeney, but assigned him to that mission.
According to the Associated Press, the atomic bombing of Japan was the "top news story of the 20th century." Right from the beginning, newspapers around the world scrambled for every tidbit of information about this story including the names, service records, hometowns, etc. of everyone on those flights. In addition, there are plenty of books and Internet resources available that list all those names. It would have been incredibly easy for Mr. Pellegrino, or a research assistant, to verify the stories of Joseph Fuoco (none of which turned out to be true), he simply chose not to do so. To put it bluntly, Mr. Pellegrino believed Joseph Fuoco because he desperately wanted to believe his stories since they fit perfectly into Mr. Pellegrino's anti-war (according to his literary agent) book. He didn't simply let his guard down; he never had it up in the first place.
The book flap states "Almost everything we know about the bombing turns out to be wrong." Actually, it's so many of Mr. Pellegrino's descriptions that turn out to be wrong.
As I stated in another posting, if Mr. Pellegrino can't bother to sweat the small stuff, what about all those detailed, elaborate descriptions of the survivor's stories?
I could go on, but in short, this book makes some very extraordinary claims that are simply not true. As the old saying goes, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." Sadly, absolutely none of that extraordinary proof is contained in this book. If it had, perhaps this book might have been more credible.
John Coster-Mullen is the author of Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man, an Honorary Member of the 509th, and the subject of a lengthy article in the 12/15/08 issue of The New Yorker.
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Summary of The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back (John MacRae Books)
Drawing on the voices of atomic-bomb survivors and the new science of forensic archaeology, Charles Pellegrino describes the events and aftermath of two days in August when nuclear devices detonated over Japan changed life on Earth forever
Last Train from Hiroshima offers readers a stunning ?you are there? time capsule, gracefully wrapped in elegant prose. Charles Pellegrino?s scientific authority and close relationship with the A-bomb?s survivors make his account the most gripping and authoritative ever written.
At the narrative?s core are eyewitness accounts of those who experienced the atomic explosions firsthand?the Japanese civilians on the ground and the American flyers in the air. Thirty people are known to have fled Hiroshima for Nagasaki?where they arrived just in time to survive the second bomb. One of them, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, is the only person who experienced the full effects of the cataclysm at ground zero both times. The second time, the blast effects were diverted around the stairwell in which Yamaguchi had been standing, placing him and a few others in a shock coccoon that offered protection, while the entire building disappeared around them.
Pellegrino weaves spellbinding stories together within an illustrated narrative that challenges the ?official report,? showing exactly what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?and why.
From Henry Holt and Company and Macmillan Books
It is with deep regret that Henry Holt and Company announces that we will no longer print, correct or ship copies of Charles Pellegrino's The Last Train from Hiroshima due to the discovery of a dishonest sources of information for the book.
It is easy to understand how even the most diligent author could be duped by a source, but we also understand that opens that book to very detailed scrutiny. The author of any work of non-fiction must stand behind its content. We must rely on our authors to answer questions that may arise as to the accuracy of their work and reliability of their sources. Unfortunately, Mr. Pellegrino was not able to answer the additional questions that have arisen about his book to our satisfaction.
Mr. Pellegrino has a long history in the publishing world, and we were very proud and honored to publish his history of such an important historical event. But without the confidence that we can stand behind the work in its entirety, we cannot continue to sell this product to our customers.
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