James Cameron, whose Avatar is doing incredible business worldwide, recently bought the film rights to Charles Pellegrino’s The Last Train from Hiroshima, a book recounting stories from survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which killed 70,000 people. Pellegrino’s tome also includes remembrances from US military personnel involved in the bombing. One problem: according to William J. Broad’s New York Times article "Doubts Raised on Book’s Tale of Atom Bomb," crucial elements found in The Last Train from Hiroshima have as a source recollections by Joseph Fuoco, who has been denounced as an impostor by veterans, historians, and scientists.
In The Last Train from Hiroshima, Fuoco is featured as a man who, as a last-minute replacement, flew aboard Necessary Evil, one of two planes accompanying the Enola Gay on August 6, 1945. The family of the man Fuoco is supposedly to have replaced, flight engineer James R. Corliss, asserts that Fuoco’s story is false. So does another man who was on the plane with Corliss. Fuoco died in 2008.
According to Pellegrino’s publisher, his two books on the Titanic were used as sources by James Cameron. According to reports, future editions of The Last Train to Hiroshima will have passages related to Fuoco excised from them.
A description of the atomic mushroom cloud by James Corliss: “All the time it was churning all around, sometimes inside out, with red, yellow, purple and brown colors.” The Times articles explains that that happened as the "firestorm sucked up cars and buildings, bodies and dirt."
I almost never lie. I have told zero lies on this subject. So don’t call me a liar.
You sound like you’re really close buddies with him – being on a first-name basis, claiming you know about his approach, etc. – so I really don’t know anything about that stuff.
The lies Pellegrino has written in ‘Last Train’ are documented ten-times over. That’s not even getting into his established lies about the Titanic (claiming he invented Argo probably being the most hilarious one) and a slew of other issues.
So, I’m glad that you’re (apparently) friends with Pellegrino, but he’s still a pathological liar. I documented just a handful of his lies at JamesCameron.Blogspot.com.
The only liar is you Mr. Brennan! How dare you ridicule an honest man? I know for a fact that Charlie is fully dedicated to his profession and is considered one of the world most brilliant scientists. As an author Charlie brings truth, honesty and integrity to his novels, any mistake that was found in Last Train was addressed by Charlie and a rewrite is in the works. The reason for the head hunting towards Charlie is more of jealousy and hatred for his brilliance than it is for his knowledge and skill as a scientist and writer. I implore those who read these articles to keep an open mind and read Charlie’s books and judge for yourself. You will find that Charles Pellegrino is by far an honest and brilliant writer and scientist
The author of ‘Last Train from Hiroshima’, Charles Pellegrino, is the guilty party, not Fuoco. Just days before the (non-existent) fatal accident with the bomb that Pellegrino attributes to Fuoco, Pellegrino was claiming that he already knew of this.
Moreover, Pellegrino has a long history of lies. The most obvious example is his claims of being a doctor: I checked with the college he claimed he got a PhD from and they stated that he did not graduate from there.
I wrote about this author’s history of fraud and lies at my blog, JamesCameron.Blogspot.com.