Wake of World War Two

　　World War Two ceased on Aug. 15th in 1945. The Japanese Government requested all the fronts to stop fighting and discard their armaments, and almost all the soldiers responded appropriately to it. However, the USSR, which is Russia at present, had already started their invasion into Japan on Aug. 9th after the atomic bombing on Hiroshima and continued their invasion after the surrender of Japan, breaching the mutual non-aggression treaty with Japan on a unilateral basis.
　　Several thousands of inhabitants on Karafuto, which is called Sakhalin in Russia, escaped from Karafuto to Otaru City, in fear of the savagery of Russians. Though the war had already been over, three non-armed passenger ships on which those people were on board, were torpedoed by Russian submarines and two of them were sunk off the coast of Rumoi City on Aug. 22nd. More than 1700 people were killed at that time. The monument for them was built in Rumoi City near the sinking point.
　　At about 4 o'clock, I went out on the deck. It was just before dawn. The ship was just passing off the coast of Rumoi City. I commemorated the victims by a moment of silence. The sea wind felt fresh. When I took a walk on the deck with a canned coffee in hand, two crew members came out of the cabin and started to sweep the floor and arm rails. They didn't work for direct service to passengers and weren't able to speak in Japanese, so I told them of the victims in English. It was new to them.
　　Just at the time, the bright sunlight came to me and a few minutes later, a half circle rainbow emerged. I realized that my sincere prayers had reached the victims.

(Vocabulary)
savagery  残忍さ, 残忍な行為;extremely cruel and violent behaviour:
北緯５０度以南の樺太は日本領、したがってこのブログでは日本名を使う
Karafuto (樺太)　Sakhalin サハリン
Toyohara (豊原)　Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk ユジノサハリンスク
Oodomari(大泊)　Korsakov　コルサコフ