Enemy Gift

On November 1, 1945, my Grandpa Steve’s A 20 Bombardment Group prepared for a flight over a piece of ocean loosely held by the crumbling Japanese Empire. His orders were to attack the city of Kyushu on the Japanese mainland. If he managed to survive the first wave of his assignment (to fly within radar and give chase to Japanese pilots while simultaneously skip bombing every railroad tunnel), it would have to be done with precision…or there wouldn’t be enough gas to make it back across the ocean.  The mission was so close to impossible, the Army Intelligence officer recommended that Grandpa write his last letter home.

Grandpa Steve never attacked the city of Kyushu, Japan. The planned invasion of the Japanese mainland never took place. America dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima instead. As with every war, one government’s collateral damage became someone else’s son…or daughter…or grandmother…or cousin…