Proving once again that there is always a faithful remnant!
It was miraculous. Unfortunately, they attribute the miracle to Mary and not God.
**But in the midst of this terrible carnage, something quite remarkable happened: there was a small community of Jesuit Fathers living in a presbytery near the parish church, which was situated less than a mile away from detonation point, well within the radius of total devastation. And all eight members of this community escaped virtually unscathed from the effects of the bomb. Their presbytery remained standing, while the buildings all around, virtually as far as the eye could see, were flattened.
Fr Hubert Schiffer, a German Jesuit, was one of these survivors, aged 30 at the time of the explosion, and who lived to the age of 63 in good health. In later years he travelled to speak of his experience, and this is his testimony as recorded in 1976, when all eight of the Jesuits were still alive. On August 6 1945, after saying Mass, he had just sat down to breakfast when there was a bright flash of light.**
Fantastic book.
Back in the late 1970’s I was the NBC (Nuclear, Biological & Chemical Warfare) officer for my USMC squadron. My instructor at NBC Officer’s School told us that his instructor was married to a Japanese woman who was a 1 year old infant hiding with her mother in a bomb shelter within one mile of Ground Zero at Hiroshima, He may have said “At Ground Zero”, but my memory is not certain.
He said that she suffered no ill effects and that their children were all healthy and normal.
Seeing the effects of the A-bomb as it detonated is an unforgettable experience.