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Title: Robert Coombs Interview
Narrator: Robert Coombs Andrews
Interviewer: Alice Ito
Location: SeaTac, Washington
Date: August 2, 2003
Densho ID: denshovh-crobert-01-0026

<Begin Segment 26>

AI: Well, so then, in those early years -- actually, let me, let me back up a bit. In 1945, then, was that, the fall of 1945, is that when you started at Sutter?

RC: Yes.

AI: Then that was just shortly after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I'm wondering, when that news came to you, what went through your mind?

RC: The horror of it. And it still -- that bomb is still a horrible thing. It, it's sort of like an unforgivable act. And yet, we know what the consequences were. It brought about an end. The sacrifice of lives, apparently by, the government thought, they thought it was worth it, because to invade Japan, there would have been a mass slaughter, probably. It's hard to know what would have happened. I think there was a sense of gladness on the part, probably of the Japanese, that it was over with, too. They'd have to be -- get that load off their backs. They, they had a horrible life during that period of time. That's just my general reaction, (...) I was married in '45 and when my son was stationed in Japan at Masawa Air Force Base, that was some years afterwards, Marguerite and I went over, and we toured Japan. And we had the most wonderful experience touring Japan. It couldn't have been nicer, couldn't have been welcomed with such pleasure everywhere we went.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.