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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny Harris on behalf of her late father Douglas Cox.

On August 6 1945 the ‘Little Boy’ Atomic Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It was the first time that atomic warfare had ever been used. The Japanese surrendered after the subsequent bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August. Douglas Cox was a Chief Officer on the RFA ‘Dingledale’ during the Pacific war
and recounts his experiences here:

……‘The RFA ‘Dingledale’ was the first British ship (and a merchant vessel at that) to anchor in Tokyo Bay where we were allocated an anchorage next to the ‘Missouri’ so we had a ‘grandstand’ view of the signing of the Japanese surrender terms which were carried out on board her. We sure were honoured. There was a galaxy of VIP’s aboard the ‘Missouri’, Lord Mountbatten, General Macarthur, Admirals Fraser, Nimitz and Halsey as well as our own Prince Philip who was then a humble lieutenant!

After the surrender we helped with the boarding of many prisoners of war which was a truly shocking task and one which I will never forget as long as I live. We were then ordered to call into Kure, the main Japanese naval base and port for Hiroshima, to see if it were practical to berth a tanker at the oil installation opposite the naval base which had been well and truly sabotaged. We proved it to be practicable to berth there and found no booby traps etc. We were to be there for five months helping to get it working again.

While there the American Naval Commander offered to take a few of us to look over what had been Hiroshima. There was literally nothing of what had been the largest city in Nipon. In one street there was a marble staircase and balustrade seemingly intact to what had been the first floor. I thought I’d go up to the top to get a better view. I stepped on the first step and it crumbled to ash under my foot. I grabbed the balustrade and that too disintegrated into ash. In one cellar a delicate Japanese porcelain tea set had survived — elsewhere everything was dust. The US Commander told us of a German priest in charge of a missionary chapel who was puzzled by the sound of a solitary plane overhead, instead of the usual waves of bombers etc. He opened his door to look around just as the bomb exploded. He was half way through the door. When they found him his right side was burnt black and his left side which was just inside the door was left untouched. And he lived to tell the story!

I shall never forget what one atomic bomb did. If everybody could have seen these things it surely must put a damper on this maniacal talk of nuclear warfare.’

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