Damascus; Jewel of the Orient
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its belly; a powerful cloud of dust and timbers shot into the
air. I became aware of two planes, not one. The one at my left
was dropping bombs while moving toward the open desert,
followed by the other. Would they circle as they had circled
Amman, and ring Damascus with bombs? In that case the
Grand Barada, and my room in particular, would be a prime
target, for we were only a block from the Hedjaz railway
depot, and adjacent to the main police station. Hastily I dug
out a camera, and from my window photographed history in
the making—the first Jewish bombing of Damascus—catching
two sets of dust clouds above the wreckage.
Ten minutes after the planes—four-engine American bombers—had disappeared into the desert, anti-aircraft guns shook
the waking city. Shouting police halted traffic, shoved pedestrians into doorways, and helped spread panic, long after the
planes had vanished.
Later, as I was going out, the hotel clerk called me aside:
"Be careful today, please. You have an American passport."
"Hold it for me till I come back," I said, taking it out.
"Do not go out now, please. Wait a few hours."
Suspicious at first, I realized that he had my welfare in
mind.
It was noon when I ventured out, heading in the direction
of the Parliament, which obviously had been the target. The
bombs, however, had dropped several hundred yards away, in
a thickly populated area. The death toll was twenty-two; one
hundred fifty-six were wounded, many seriously. Through
street after street I followed the planes' trail westward. They
had dropped their last load of bombs in a new residential area
only five hundred yards from the American Consulate. They
had killed the president of the Imperial Bank of Iran, and
wrecked the home of Clarence O. Eyer, an American official
of the Near East Foundation. Luckily, he had been visiting a
friend and his wife and children were in Beirut. Near by I saw
a policeman guarding what seemed to be a garbage can. I went
over to him, curious.