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Article: Hiroshima then and now.('Thy Brother's Blood': Reminiscences of World War II)(Cover Story)
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- August 16, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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WHEN THE JAPANESE finally surrendered in August 1945 I was stationed in Europe, a second lieutenant in the infantry about to begin a two-year stint as a liaison officer with the Red Army, first in Czechoslovakia and then in Germany. I had just turned 21.
It pains me now to recall that the Allied bombings of cities such as Hamburg, Berlin and Dresden had troubled me not one bit. The targets were invariably described as military and the bombings as precision," but if any of us had stopped to think - and few of us did - we would have known that the civilian casualties were heavy. Also, it was natural for us Americans to be more concerned about the safe return of our ...