To Stay at Home
The great radio commentator Edward R. Murrow announced soberly, “Berlin last night wasn’t a pretty sight. In about thirty-five minutes it was hit with about three times the amount of stuff that ever came down on London in a night-long blitz. This is a calculated, remorseless campaign of destruction.”305 He was reporting what he actually saw while accompanying a Lancaster four-engine bomber on a nighttime raid over the German capital.
The citizens of Berlin lived in the middle of this remorseless campaign for two years. Anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, and fighter aircraft provided a strong defense for the city, and, early on, inflicted heavy losses on the enemy formations daring to venture this deeply into Germany. Still, the bombers came, and the people of the city had to cope with the mounting destruction. After every raid, they did whatever they could to repair their homes and neighborhoods. One Berliner poignantly tried to explain what kept them going:
We repair because we must repair. Because we couldn’t live another day longer if one forbade us the repairing. If they destroy our living room, we move into the kitchen. If they knock the kitchen apart, we move over into the hallway. If only we can stay ‘at home.’ The smallest corner of ‘at home’ is better than any palace in some strange place.306
We can’t understand an “air war” or bombing campaign without considering the effects on all the human beings involved. Most of this month has been seen from the perspective of the airmen flying their hazardous missions. We must also remember that the destruction on the ground was even more horrendous. By understanding and remembering the suffering on both sides we are bound to more soberly consider how to resolve our present and future conflicts. War has always and will always exact a terrible price in human suffering.
David said to Solomon: “My son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the Name of the Lord my God. But this word of the Lord came to me: ‘You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight.’”
—1 Chronicles 22:78
Shipbuilders at work. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)