Aging veterans say salute to Harry Truman will be last

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- World War II veterans who have gathered for years in August at the Truman Museum to honor the former president's decision to bomb Japan in 1945 say this weekend's tribute will be the last.

Age has caught up with the veterans, who since 1995 have gone to the museum on or near the anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, stood at the president's grave and saluted.

"We're calling it 'Harry's Final Salute,"' said Ben Nicks, 87, of Shawnee, said of Saturday's gathering. "We're all just getting too old."

The former World War II B-29 bomber commander is chairman of the Harry S. Truman Appreciation Society, which was formed to publicly display the veterans' gratitude to Truman for, as Nicks said, "having the wisdom and courage to use every available weapon to end World War II."

The group formed in order to stem what members described as growing doubt in society whether it was necessary for Truman to drop the bombs. The impetus was a Smithsonian Institution exhibit planned in 1995 around the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Nicks said that display would have emphasized the suffering of the Japanese rather than other factors, such as how using the bomb made it unnecessary for troops to attack Japan.