大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from 大象传媒 Radio Berkshire on behalf of Gerald W. Goldney and has been added to the site with his permission. Gerald fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was in the Royal Navy, a supply assistant on board H.M.S. Pheasant, Part of the British Pacific Fleet. The atom bomb had just been dropped on Hiroshima and the Japanese had surrendered. After a few days of waiting the fleet steamed towards Japan and a few days later we were passing between the cliffs decked with very conspicuous white flags and into Yokohama Bay. I shall never forget the sight of the American Fleet anchored in the bay all around us. There seemed to be hundreds of ships and I doubt if there will ever be so many war ships in one place again. We anchored in our allotted place. We were still wary of the Japanese and so each ship was a certain distance from its neighbours in case they attempted to place impact mines on the hulls. At night the sea round the ships was floodlit and all the ships lit up (again to deter the Japanese from a sudden attack) and this was a spectacular sight.

We were told the Japanese would make the surrender on board the U.S.S Missouri and on the afternoon in question I watched through binoculars. The party of Japanese in their long black coats and top hats boarded the battle ship from the small tug-boat which had bought them from the dock side. Only then did we believe the war was over. We were very happy as we hoped that it would not be long before we would be on our way home.

The next few days were somewhat of an ante-climax. Parties of seamen were sent ashore to search for prisoners of war, and the sight of these pitiful skeletons of men made us realise how dreadful war was. Aircraft carriers had been cleared of their aircraft and men were placed between decks. Once full they sailed for Australia. Some days later we weighed anchor and sailed to Hong Kong to Help bring that city back to life.

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