Soon after seeing the bombs fall, I can hear explosions and then feel them rocking the earth beneath my foot.

They are bombing the docks!

Dad couldn’t have made it there yet.

Having already released their bombs over the harbor, a squadron of four Ju-88’s buzz over the house. Their machine guns remain silent.

That’s not how we flew in Ethiopia. We fired our machine guns at the people on the ground.

As my gaze retraces the planes’ route back to the harbor, I am surprised by the color of the smoke rising above the buildings. Instead of the normally acrid black of a bomb’s post explosion flame and smoke, the rising clouds are a mustard, yellowish-green color mixed with the black. The yellowish smoke billows forth in all directions, as if occupying available space, rather than simply rising into the sky.