Comments on: Hospital ship Haven in Nagasaki, Japan, 1945

By: Derek

Derek — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:52:44 +0000

An interesting article, thanks for posting it.

My grandad was a British POW liberated from camp Fukuoka #2 on Koyagi Island by Nagasaki in September ’45. He’d been there since October 1942 working in the Kawanami shipyard.
He was 4 miles from the epicentre of the Atomic blast and lived to the ripe old age of 88.

Cheers,
Derek Robertson.

By: Wendy Beaird Harrison

Wendy Beaird Harrison — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 07:14:50 +0000

Hi Robin…
Thanks for posting this story…it’s really good. My father was on the USS Haven on that voyage to Nagasaki in 1945 – he was a pharmacist mate. To me, it’s interesting to read the various stories of that voyage – I think your dad’s is the best I’ve seen.

By: Steve Jones

Steve Jones — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:35:17 +0000

Fascinating and sobering stuff, especially in light of the news that North Korea has tests an A-bomb of very similar yield to the one used at Nagasaki. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the bombs hadn’t been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – not, in terms of what would have happened in the resolution of WWII. Opinions vary on that. No, I wonder what would have happend in the forthcoming Cold War. The effects of these two relatively modest A bombs on two Japanese cities were devastating – more so than even the greater loss of life of the fire-bombing of Tokyo, simply because this was just one, single event. Truly a game changer.

Those images were burnt into the consciousness of a a least two generations. The wartime generation and that of mine, born in the decade or two after the war. That post WWII era always had those images and the apocalyptic novels and films that ran through the period. Nevil Shute wrote “On the Beach”, Walter M Milmr jr wrote “A Canticle for Leibowitz” and Stanley Kubrik filmed Dr Strangelove. All the whils there were those images – was it that which stopped the Cuban Missile Crisis running out of control? Was it that which allowed the politicans to reign in General MacArthur in the Korean war?

With the first hand experience of these events fading away, I wonder if “A Canticle for Leibowitz” will prove prescient – that human beings are ultimately unable to control organised agression and that we are bound to repeat our mistakes. The history of conventional warfare rather supports that notion.

By: Lyca

Lyca — Tue, 26 May 2009 12:51:18 +0000

Robin,
Thanks for sharing this, it really makes you put things in perspective.
Lyca

By: Kosta

Kosta — Tue, 26 May 2009 05:01:21 +0000

This was one of the best memorials I have read today. Thanks Robin! Your insight into the real world is remarkable.

By: Boyd Waters

Boyd Waters — Tue, 26 May 2009 04:59:29 +0000

Thanks very much for these memories on this Memorial Day!

I can’t imagine what my grandparent’s generation lived through — but they could not, perhaps, imagine the international zoo of people that I have lived with, worked with, and consider dear friends.

Let us hope that we can continue the work to make the world better for us all.