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Father Christopher Jamison, Benedictine Monk

In the midst of our holiday enjoyments, August brings the annual reminder of the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945. Over 200,000 people were killed by just two bombs. Yet without this, I might never have been born. Let me explain. My father was a navigator in the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II, with many lucky escapes such as the time his fully loaded bomber crashed on take-off but without exploding. But many of his fellow airmen did not escape death in action and10,000 Australian aircrew lost their lives during the war in the Pacific. My father was quite clear that without the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that war would have dragged on and he could have died, meaning that I would never have been born.

Tomorrow we celebrate the 70th anniversary of VJ day, remembering how soon after the second atomic bomb explosion, Japan surrendered. I feel torn between the horror of the instant destruction of civilians and the slow attrition of allied service personnel who would undoubtedly have died if the war had continued.

The Christian tradition of the just war says that you may not attack innocent civilian populations. The opposing argument says that nowadays there are no innocent civilians because everybody plays their part in total warfare. This argument justifies attacking civilians in towns where terrorists live because, willingly or unwillingly, those civilians support our enemies. Personally, I hope that just war theory prevails and that civilians are never again targeted in war. My Father never persuaded me to change my opinion on that. But he did succeed in passing on his passionate belief that we should never hate the old enemy. So on VJ Day I’ll give thanks not only for my Father and his comrades but also for the people of Japan.