Japanese survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki handed letters and a petition to the Smithsonian Institution on Friday urging it to mention the human casualties caused by the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and the subject of an upcoming exhibition.
Sunao Tsuboi, secretary general of the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, and Terumi Tanaka, secretary general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization, submitted the letters and the petition to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
The letters, including one from Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, and a petition signed by more than 25,000 people call on the museum to change its plan to exhibit the reassembled Enola Gay from Monday in a celebration of U.S. technology.