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Barack Obama is the first sitting U.S. president to visit the hallowed ground of Hiroshima, site of the world's first atomic bomb attack. Obama arrived at Hiroshima's memorial park on Friday. (May 27) AP
President Obama lays a wreath at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, western, Japan, Friday, May 27, 2016.(Photo: Shuji Kajiyama, AP)
HIROSHIMA, Japan —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>President Obama made history<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Friday by<span style="color: Red;">*</span>becoming<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the first sitting U.S. head of state to visit<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Hiroshima since American forces dropped an atomic bomb on the city<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in<span style="color: Red;">*</span>1945, killing an estimated 80,000 people and hastening the end of World War II.
Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe laid<span style="color: Red;">*</span>wreaths<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park shortly after Obama's arrival.
"Seventy-one years ago on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed," Obama said.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“The memory of the morning of Aug. 6, 1945 must never fade. Since that fateful day we have made choices that have given us hope. The United States<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and Japan forged not only an alliance but a friendship.”
Large and seemingly supportive crowds began gathering outside the Peace Memorial Park before Obama's arrival.
“It’s going to mean a lot for people here to see him come and lay flowers and pay his respects. No one expects him to apologize —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the gesture, the visit alone, is enough,” said Matt Steckling, 25, a Chicago native who has lived in Hiroshima for about a year and a half.
Obama said earlier in the week that he would not apologize for the Hiroshima bombing or the atomic bombing of Nagasaki three days later. Japanese bomb victim organizations have long pressed for an apology, viewing the use of atomic weapons as inhumane. Many American veteran groups and former prisoners of war have opposed an apology, arguing that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings hastened the end of a long and brutal conflict.
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"Our visit to Hiroshima will honor all those who were lost in World War II and reaffirm our shared vision of a world without nuclear weapons," Obama said at a press conference this week.
Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945.
Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize largely on his stated goal of controlling the spread of nuclear weapons.
A policeman checks the flowers at the cenotaph at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Hiroshima on May 27, 2016.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: JOHANNES EISELE, AFP/Getty Images)
Obama was in Japan this week to attend the Group of Seven leaders’ conference in Ise-Shima, about 300 miles away. He was scheduled to meet with troops at a U.S. airbase near Hiroshima after the summit ends Friday, before completing his trip with a brief visit to the bomb memorial.
Obama<span style="color: Red;">*</span>entered the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, where he was expected to sign a guest book. He<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and Abe were scheduled to tour the memorial park and speak with three atomic bomb survivors.
No American veterans or former prisoners of war were invited to the ceremony. A U.S. POW support group announced last week that the White House had invited a former POW to accompany Obama during his visit to the memorial, but the White House later said that no such invitation had been extended.
Supporters said that was a missed opportunity.
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“The inclusion of this individual standing alongside our president and the leader of America’s strong ally would have served as a powerful and appropriate reminder of all those who suffered in the Asia Pacific region during WWII,” Rabbi Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said in a statement Thursday.
Among the invited guests is 78-year-old Shigeaki Mori, a Hiroshima bomb survivor. Mori spent 35 years trying to locate and console family members of 12 captured American airmen who were killed in the bombing.
Mori is not looking for an apology from Obama, said Barry Frechette, a filmmaker who produced a recent documentary on Mori’s efforts.
“The most important thing we can do is recognize what happened, and understand the horrible consequences of war,” Frechette said. “We heard from U.S. POW families about how terrible a sacrifice was paid in the loss of their loved ones, but also what terrible consequences of war on the Japanese side, too, especially to the civilians.”
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