Iceland12
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St.Paul Man Prepared to Invade Japan Instead He Watched WW2 End Instead
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_28568637/wwii-vet-from-st-paul-remembers-wars-end
Seventy years ago, a young Army pilot from Minnesota named Robert Wieman was preparing for the invasion of Japan, a battle that was intended to finally bring World War II to an end.
Wieman's plane, the heavily armed A-26 attack plane, was built for the kind of low-level strafing and bombing that would be needed to support American troops hitting the shores of the Japanese home islands. The plane's name, the Invader, reflected the task ahead.
But the invasion, scheduled for fall 1945, never took place.
Seventy years ago this month, Japan capitulated after the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Wieman still flew his A-26 over Japan. He took part in the post-war occupation of the nation. In flights over Nagasaki and Hiroshima, he saw for himself the devastation caused by the atomic bombs. He toured the massive network of caves where the Japanese military would have staged its last stand.
Wieman, now 93 and living in St. Paul's Highland Park, retired after a long career with 3M and then as a real estate agent. He only recently gave up riding a motorcycle. But he's taken up writing, authoring accounts about his experiences as a wartime pilot and getting published in magazines such as Air & Space and Flying.
He writes today that President Harry Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan was the right one, arguing that it saved millions of lives on both sides that would have been lost if a full-scale invasion had been fought.
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_28568637/wwii-vet-from-st-paul-remembers-wars-end
Seventy years ago, a young Army pilot from Minnesota named Robert Wieman was preparing for the invasion of Japan, a battle that was intended to finally bring World War II to an end.
Wieman's plane, the heavily armed A-26 attack plane, was built for the kind of low-level strafing and bombing that would be needed to support American troops hitting the shores of the Japanese home islands. The plane's name, the Invader, reflected the task ahead.
But the invasion, scheduled for fall 1945, never took place.
Seventy years ago this month, Japan capitulated after the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Wieman still flew his A-26 over Japan. He took part in the post-war occupation of the nation. In flights over Nagasaki and Hiroshima, he saw for himself the devastation caused by the atomic bombs. He toured the massive network of caves where the Japanese military would have staged its last stand.
Wieman, now 93 and living in St. Paul's Highland Park, retired after a long career with 3M and then as a real estate agent. He only recently gave up riding a motorcycle. But he's taken up writing, authoring accounts about his experiences as a wartime pilot and getting published in magazines such as Air & Space and Flying.
He writes today that President Harry Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan was the right one, arguing that it saved millions of lives on both sides that would have been lost if a full-scale invasion had been fought.
