I

The morning cry of tired children could not be heard as the bleak horizon of Kokura, Japan was revived at the baritone booming of anti-aircraft fire. The 25mm bullets disappeared into the overcast sky and were lost to the clouds. The B-29 Superfortress bombers flying overhead broke their eastern course and started to head southwest. The citizens in the streets of Kokura found themselves immobilized, their feet glued to the ground covered in pamphlets that warned of their impending doom. The thunderous sound of the B-29 engines gradually faded as the horizon once again became lifeless.

II

Smoke danced off the barrels of the twin .50 calibre Browning machine guns as a pair of bullets departed the sole turret of the tail gunner. To the protest of the crew three of the four turrets were stripped to make way for the ordinance of the plane, which rested tranquilly in the bomb bay as the plane made its way southeast. The gunner looked on with attentiveness at the flock of birds flying ten thousand feet below him as the bullets came closer to striking. To the dismay of the gunner, the lead bird had remained free of death. But a slight grin grew upon his face when one of the birds further back fell out of formation. There was no grin on the pilots’ faces as they remarked their fuel gauge. The icy waters of the pacific became an ever intrusive thought in their heads. The steadfast bombers continued southeast, getting closer to their target every passing minute.

III

The people of Nagasaki, Japan, had been sent into panic as the air raid sirens went off at ten before eight. Mothers desperately clutched their children and sat in their homes, their silent sobs would soon become joy. After a half hour of quiet turmoil, the mothers tightly hugged their children with tears of joy. The all clear had been sounded. They sent their children out to play after it was reported that two American bombers were flying for reconaissance purposes at seven before eleven. Only a few minutes after that, the city was bathed in wrath only the devil himself would dare wield.

IV

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” the bombardier shouted. It was his twenty-seventh birthday, and those words would forever be implanted in his mind. Forty-five seconds later, The Second Kiss to Hirohito was dropped from the heavens onto Nagasaki. The B-29 Bock’s Car made a sharp bank to get as much distance between itself and the leveled city. God’s fury mushroomed nearly ten thousand feet higher than the bomber. The only silence greater than that of the onlooking crew was the now stifled Nagasaki. The purr of the engines was the sole sound as the B-29 returned home.