Granddaughter of Flying Tigers commander dismisses Abe's Pearl Harbor visit as meaningless

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is meaningless, granddaughter of the famed Flying Tigers commander Lt. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault, said Tuesday.

"I feel the visit by Japanese Prime Minister Abe to Pearl Harbor on the anniversary of the great atrocity was meaningless and he was nothing more than a tourist," Nell Calloway, director of the Chennault Aviation and Military Museum in Monroe, Louisiana, told Xinhua.

"It is very important to remember the times that history changed our worlds but we have to remember all of the men and women who lost their lives because of greed and ambitions of countries that refused to live in peace," she said. "When we understand this we will work even harder to make sure this history is not repeated."

She stressed that the United States and China came together under the sign of the Flying Tigers, also known as the 1st American Volunteer Group-AVG, during World War II, and that both countries have to work more closely together as they did in World War II in order to make the world a better place to live.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval base, where more than 2,400 Americans were killed.

Abe, who is in Hawaii on Tuesday, took part in a remembrance ceremony at the USS Arizona monument with U.S. President Barack Obama to honor those who died at Pearl Harbor 75 years ago.

Abe's visit came seven months after Obama's trip to Hiroshima in Japan, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site where the United States dropped a nuclear bomb in 1945.

source: Xinhua