August 6, 1945 A Day to Remember

August 6, 2020 (Thursday)

Paul Tibbets was the pilot who commanded the B-29 which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on this date in 1945. He never considered his mission as controversial. As he said, it was war.

We cannot possibly understand, in 2020, the wartime situation in 1945.

I did not fight in that war, but I was alive during that war and shared the feelings of all Americans about it. I was 10 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked and was nearly 14 when the war ended. We had no sympathies of any kind for our enemies back then. It was war with all the feelings that came with it.

After a very costly victory in the two-month battle of Okinawa, America prepared to invade Japan. Japanese citizens were told to fight until death. There would be no surrender. Most thought that the battle of Japan could last as long as five years, with millions of lives lost on both sides. The mass destruction wrought by the atomic bombs convinced some Japanese leaders to surrender. Many veterans of that era always felt they lived to return home because of the atomic bombs that hit Japan in August, 1945.

The threat of nuclear war still looms, although world-wide destruction and death will result. It will be over in hours. But there are those in this world who would not hesitate to use weapons of any kind to destroy us, even it means their own deaths.

Thoughts like these are very troubling, and we Christians should be driven to our knees in response. We can find no better scripture to guide us today than 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”