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“WHILE KOKURA SLEPT”_
W/C _ Japanese Shikishi Board_
2025

Among the most meaningful of my works to-date, “While Kokura Slept” is a small painting accompanied by Haiku which together tell the story of events leading up to August 9, 1945, a tragic day for all people all over the world, especially those in Japan. 

The date was moved up from the eleventh.  And Plane #89 had been replaced with #77.   The words, Salt Lake, and a well-known place of worship were both painted on its side.  Why? Because 77 was housed in an airfield just outside of SLC. (Strange, to picture a house of worship on the side of a plane about to commit the most ungodlike act.)

But the date and the plane were not the only things that changed in the eleventh hour. There was much more - and acts of God or acts of nature -  however one might view it - came into play, again and again.

 

 Three times pilots flew over Kokura, and three times the weather prevented direct visualization. Three times, and all the while Kokura slept. . . And then the pilot turned the direction of the plane.

 

Nagasaki was able to be directly visualized.  And the first thing seen were its majestic mountains!  This was significant because this difference between Nagasaki and Kokura- or for that matter between Nagasaki and Hiroshima - played a part too.  It led to a significant difference in outcome. Hiroshima was flattened, but for Nagasaki the blast was dampened and contained -by those mountains.. . ….

Fates were determined both by men and by nature, who would survive and who would not - in an horrible act that would forever change the face of war , and all the while Kokura slept. . . . . .