SAW ATOMIC BOMB FALL

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23372, 1 December 1945, Page 4

SAW ATOMIC BOMB FALL

Tremendous Flash But No Noise Sixty Thousand Dead In 10 Minutes Timaru Man’s Experience In Japan "It Burst on a Tuesday morning in August of this \rar al 10.55 o clock, and within 10 minutes 60,000 Japanese! were dead,” said Signalman lan Shipman, of Timaru. who was one of the two New Zealanders who witnessed the bursting at Nagasaki, Japan, of the second atomic bond). Now fully recovered from the effects of bomb blast, he was reluctant to recall the incident which in an interview yesterday he described as “particularly grim, and best forgotten,” but the comments he made gave testimony of the appallingly destructive nature of civilisation’s latest war-weapon. When the bomb burst he was in a P.O.W. camp six miles from Nagasaki, on Japan's southern island of Kyushu. In this camp were from 180 to 200 prisoners, mostly English, but there were also two Australians and two New Zealanders. They were all employed by the Japanese on dock work. “It was a beautiful, clear, sunny morning- that Tuesday,’’ said Signalman Shipman. “I was in camp-with some other fellows and we saw a solitary 829 fly over the camp in the direc-

tion of Nagasaki. We recognised it as an American plane, and guessed that it was on a bombing mission, because since January planes had constantly passed over us to bomb the shipyards, petrol and ammunition dumps and the hydro-electric works at Nagasaki, six miles over the water at Kyushu. None of us realised, of course, that this Diane carried any bomb out of the ordinary. “Suddenly, i saw a tremendous white flash like a giant magnesium flare shoot up over the whole area of Nagasaki. Two seconds later the most terrific blast you could imagine struck me on the chest and bowled me over. That blast smashed windows, blew doors in and hurtled through the camp buildings, leaving a wake of damage. When I picked myself up and gathered my senses I saw over Nagasaki a concentrated ball of smoke floating slowly upwards. As I watched, it burst, and cut of it came dense smoke which spread all over the city. Then fire broke out in Nagasaki, causing still more smoke, and it was 10 days before it all disappeared. When I saw that white flash, and immediately afterwards telt the blast, I heal'd no noise of an explosion. I don't think there was any.

"The blast was like a powerful one from a furnace, with a lot of heat in it,” explained Signalman Shipman. “None of us thought it was a bomb at all. We thought it was some other explosion in the city. When the chaps returned to camp from the dockyards, w e talked about it- One said he thought it was an oil tank going up, another that it was an ammunition dump. The fellows couldn’t agree, and someone else suggested that it might have been the hydro-electric works. There was much argument about it and we were all extremely mystified.

Effect on Japanese “Next day the Japanese came‘to our camp and tried to tell us that a new bomb had been invented and dropped on them. We didn’t believe it. We ciidn t think the world had advanced to that extent. The Japanese didn’t seem to know what to say or do They seemed confused, but they suddenly became particularly friendly with us and seemed eager to get on good terms with us.”

An English doctor, once of Guy’s Hospital, London, and an American dentist—both prisoners of war—eventually came to the conclusion that the oomb must have had something to do with the splitting of the atom, added Signalman Shipman. It did not convey much to the other prisoners. About 12 days later a fighterbomber flew over the camp. The men set out a ground signal, using blankets, asking for information. The plane circled the camp twice and then dropped a medical kit, in which a note scribbled on a page torn from a pad was found. It read as follows: “Courtesy of 345 Bomb Group, 500th Bomb Squadron, Air Apaches. ’War is over Japanese surrender unconditionally to Allies. ‘Atomic bomb’ dropped on Nagasaki. and after Russia entered the war against Japanese. MacArthur will arrive Tokio few days to accept Hirohito's surrender. American troops soon be here to free you.” About a month later a portion of the American Fleet came to Nagasaki and liberated the mi-oners of war.