Korea War, 60 Years - Night Vision Collage B-29 and Finlandia, by Chuck Overby 朝鮮戦争６０年―B29パイロットだったチャック・オバビーのコラージュ

World War II and Korean War
Boeing B-29 Superfort
70 tons gross weight
10 ton bomb load
23.5 ton fuel load
[6,400 gallons]

NIGHT VISIONS

Penetrating black voids
in night ahead
brightened with
july fourth-like
works of fire --
Steady on course
into colored holocausts
become hard metal
with rockets red glare --
While below
bombs burst everywhere --
our gifts to “gooks”
and our flag was still there.

© chuck overby; 6/7/78
Korean War B-29 pilot
Founder the Article 9 Society; 3/18/91

Transferring technology to serve the
needs of humans everywhere, killing at
each other -- B-29 night bombing in
Korea. Anti-aircraft fire [flak] at night
looks like 4th of July fireworks. Some
U. S. national anthem words of violence
find their way into this poem. I would
prefer something beautifully and
thoughtfully gentle like Sibelius’
“Finlandia” as a national anthem. The
term “gooks” was a common “term of
endearment” used in the US military in
the Korean War for North Korean and
Chinese people who happened to be the
“enemy” of the day.

FINLANDIA

(Words by Lloyd Stone 1933 ?)
(Music by Jean Sibelius, 1899)

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace, for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is,
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine,
But other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and mine.