On Mother’s Day in 1944 in Germany a little girl and her mother huddled in the dark as bombers flew overhead. In England mothers scanned the skies for the dreaded Nazi V-1 “buzzbombs”. What does a mother say to a frightened crying child? What does a child remember of such a terror filled night? On Sunday May 10, 2009, Rocky Mountain PBS broadcasted “Bomber’s Moon: Girls Beneath the Bombs”. During the dark nights of World War II, whether in London, or in Berlin, mothers warned their children that when there was a full moon the enemy bombers would probably make a raid. They called it a “Bomber’s Moon.
Six years in the making, this is a documentary about nine women whose childhoods were deeply impacted by the second World War. The nine women interviewed in the film witnessed first-hand the bombing of their respective homelands. Many of these women now live in Colorado, but during the war they lived in Germany, England, Austria and Japan. Each suffered under constant bombardment. Exuding a quiet strength, they bring to life the awe, fear, confusion and sense of loss of being girls in the midst of a global conflict.
The program also features the stories of the pilots who flew the planes that dropped the bombs. At the time those men, who are now in their 80s and 90s, were often the same age as the girls older brothers. The film features the story of a little Tokyo girl who survived the fires on the ground and the B-29 pilot who dropped the bombs on that raid. The program also features the last in depth interview of the late Paul Tibbets the pilot of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Tibbets explains why he never had a regret about that notorious mission.
The movie has broadcasted on several TV stations all over the United States and is presented almost monthly somewhere in Colorado.
