Why the cloud over Kokura? Could there be a 'God reason'?
A healthy and unharmed Kokura of modern times! They owe it to God I would say!
Kokura lays about half way between Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Near the end of World War II when it was determined that the US military would drop their newly developed atomic bombs, one uranium and one plutonium, on a pair of Japanese cities within a few days of each other, they took the wise step of having more than two possible targets in case the weather was bad. After all, weather does not always cooperate. And this was one of those missions where you couldn't just locate the city you were after and drop your bomb. Mission coordinators had chosen specific landmarks in each town. The pilots of the B-29 bomber planes were given very specific instructions about this. They were to obtain visual contact with the particularly chosen landmark before dropping their bomb. This was a 'precision bombing' mission.
Hiroshima was struck on Aug 6, 1945. Kokura was supposed to be the target for this second mission three days later on August 9th. It was the PRIMARY target at least. Nagasaki was the SECONDARY target. Kokura, Japan was an important industrial city, and so damage there would have big impact for the war.
As the planes approached that day, intent on bombing Kokura, they received the news from advance weather planes that the city was 3/10 cloud covered. That was considered good news. A city that is 3/10 cloudy is obviously 7/10 clear. And 70% clear was considered quite clear enough. They were not far away.
Yet amazingly, when they arrived over Kokura only a short time later, they were dismayed to find that the report had been wildly off. Instead of 3/10 cloudy they were faced with a city that was 7/10 cloudy. In only this very short amount of time there had been a very great change in cloud cover. They could not see their target within the city of Kokura.
They had some extra fuel built into the mission, of course, so they made three circuitous trips around Kokura from far above hoping for a gap in the cloud cover, but they were never able to get it. There was no lessening of the cloud cover. There was no sighting of the target. And so, running out of time and not wanting to press too close to the limits of their fuel, they opted to break away and proceed to Nagasaki. And the rest is WWII history. The bomb was dropped on Nagasaki to mind staggering effect on the infrastructure and nauseating loss of human life. Nauseating, but war ending. And it should be fairly remembered that the United States did not start this war. For the US it had begun with staggering losses at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, a surprise air raid at the hands of this same nation, Japan, that we were not then even at war with. Ironic in a sense that this surprise air raid would effectively end the war started (for the USA) by that surprise air raid.
But in consequence of this strange cloud that grew so suddenly and then would not move away or thin out Kokura got lucky as could be. In fact, in Japan they sometimes used the phrase 'the luck of Kokura' after that to signify an especially lucky escape from harm. Many have noted, of course, that Kokura's good luck was Nagasaki's bad luck. But very few people in our present day have had the opportunity to hear that the citizens of Kokura were not the only lucky ones that day.
Unknown to the American mission planners that had chosen which cities would be bombed, Kokura was performing a secret function for the Japanese. There had been a secret and very recent movement of Prisoners of War...to Kokura. It had quietly become the holding place of what is said to have been the largest group of Allied Prisoners of War in the region. There were reportedly well over 1,000 such prisoners being held by the Japanese in Kokura on the day that the American bomber came, saw with frustration that the strange cloud over Kokura had become thick and didn't seem inclined to thin out for them, forcing them to choose their backup target: poor Nagasaki!
These prisoners went on to be released. And then they went home, because the war was over within only a matter of days. And then many of them got married or continued on in marriage and had children that they would never have had if the bomb had been dropped that day on Kokura. And so there are likely 10,000 people running around in the USA and the nations associated with Britain and her former colonies, and probably other nations as well, who today owe their very existence to the 'luck of Kokura', and the oddly fast forming cloud sent by.... dare I suppose God?
But it is speculation. Perhaps there were people in Kokura, citizens there, who were special to God? Perhaps the famous 26 martyred Christians of Nagasaki centuries earlier played a role? The possibilities are endless, but Jesus certainly knows the answer. Maybe one day we will learn it.