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In January 1946, when I was in the occupying forces in Japan, two Americans who were going in the direction of Hiroshima offered I me a lift in their jeep, if we wished to view the remains of the city — with the warning of danger.

It was approximately 5 months after the bomb had been dropped and I couldn’t believe what I saw. Hiroshima was a big city of about ¾ million, 90,000 of whom were killed. There was nothing left, hardly any buildings standing and the tramlines were bent up in the air, due to the heat. What glass was left in the ferro-concrete remaining buildings had melted and was running down the walls like icicles. All the mimosa trees had been burnt down and were flush with the road and what remained was orderly piles of radioactive red ash.
There were still one or two people visible in the ruins, probably salvaging anything useful or of value. It was an unbelievable sight and I left feeling shaken at the visible devastation created by one atomic bomb. The thought of more than one such explosion was disturbing and left an impression in my mind that is hard, even today, to forget, particularly with the proliferation of nuclear weapons across the world.

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