Author Information
Niigata Rewritten
Folder:
Forgiving
I am alive today
because on that day
the skies of Niigata
were overcast and gray.
*
FJootnote: JBO taught English
in Japan for 11 years. One day
a man came up to her after class.
He said he had been born on Aug 6, 1945
and was born in Niigata. That city
was selected as President Truman's
first target for the dropping of atom bombs
in Japanese civilians. But that day
Niigata's sky was overcast, and so
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were selected.
Footnote:
Father George Zabelka was chaplain to the crew of the Enola Gay which dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In later years Father Zabelka asked forgiveness of the Japanese and all for not having fulfilled his spiritual duty as a chaplain to advise against such a mission.
