英 市民虐殺に同意 歴史の忘却

英、原爆使用に同意　広島投下の１カ月前　公文書で裏付け
2013.8.4 17:38 ［歴史・考古学］

　米国が広島に原爆を投下する約１カ月前の１９４５年７月、英政府が米側に対し、日本への原爆使用に同意すると公式に表明していたことが４日、機密指定を解除された米公文書で裏付けられた。原爆投下に米国の同盟国である英国が深く関与し、両国の「共同決定」として対日使用された側面が浮かび上がった。

　日本は唯一の被爆国でありながら、こうした事実は一般にはほとんど知られていない。

　英国が政府として日本への原爆使用に公式に同意したのは、第２次大戦末期の４５年７月４日にワシントンで開かれた原爆開発協力をめぐる合同政策委員会（ＣＰＣ）の会合。

　議事録によると、英代表のウィルソン陸軍元帥は冒頭、原爆開発計画を監督するスティムソン米陸軍長官や計画責任者のグローブズ米少将らを前に「英政府は日本に対する原爆使用に同意する」と言明した。（共同）

U.S. documents show Britain supported atomic bombing of Japan

Britain expressed support for the use of atomic bombs by the United States against Japan in World War II about a month before the first one was dropped on Hiroshima, documents recently declassified by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration showed.

The documents illustrate Britain's involvement as a close ally in the United States' decision to carry out the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, something not widely known in Japan.

The British government officially expressed its support for the atomic bombing of Japan in a meeting of the Combined Policy Committee held in Washington on July 4, 1945, on the development and control of nuclear energy, referring to atomic bombs as Tube Alloys, a codename used for British wartime research on nuclear weapons also used to refer to plutonium.

According to the declassified minutes, British Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson told the meeting chaired by U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson that the British government "concurred in the use of the T.A. weapon against Japan."

"The Governments of the United Kingdom and the United States had agreed that T.A. weapons should be used by the United States against Japan, the agreement of the British Government having been communicated" by Wilson, the minutes said.

The committee was established based on the Quebec Agreement in August 1943 by the United States, Britain and Canada on coordinated development of atomic weapons.

Britain's official agreement to the use of atomic bombs came after U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed in their meeting in New York in September 1944 that an atomic bomb might be used against Japan when it was developed.

Shortly after the July 1945 committee meeting, the United States conducted the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico.

==Kyodo

（歴史問題）