Page 207 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

But the cyclone was finished with us. The pilot came back to the bridge
from his cabin, and by daylight we were again properly berthed. It had been an
experience from which I learned much, a large part of which was that keeping a
cool head was one of the most important attributes of being a good seaman. Few
that I had ever heard of had been through the eye of a cyclone (or hurricane/
typhoon, whichever term applies), and been able to learn from the experience; all
of the officers matured that night.

Our passengers, of course, were mostly unaware of the night’s events, largely
because being in Tokyo Bay meant that no rough sea was experienced; even
the ferocious howl of the wind was inaudible from inside the ship. Thus, two
days later, all was shipshape. We sailed for Kobe; there I did not again try any
erotic manipulation, even a sauna, which some worthy told me was something
so pleasurable that I had to try the Japanese version before I met my Maker. I
disagreed – without even trying it. I never had another chance to see whether I
had wasted yet another of life’s sensual opportunities.

Nagasaki was our last port on this part of the run. Of this notorious city I did
not know what to expect, be it devastation, new buildings or pastoral tranquillity
(shortly after the bombing it was thought by some that in the vicinity of the blast,
no vegetation would flourish for nearly 100 years. However, nature prevailed). I
took the opportunity to visit Nagasaki Peace Park, where a special ceremony is
held every year on August 9th. One of the ironies of this memorial is that Nagasaki
was not even the intended target of ‘Fat Man’; too much cloud prevented its use
on Kokura, and in many respects (not least the rumpled terrain) limited the
Bomb’s effectiveness. However, though its power was not measured by the tens of
thousands of casualties, its effect was almost immediate, the emperor declaring
to the nation (which had never before heard his broadcast voice) on August 15th,
1945 that “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.
Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb.” (He was
not to know that the USA had no more ready bombs).

Discussion in the wardroom that evening was, of course, centered on the
morality, for want of a better word, of what had occurred so few years before, some
of the senior officers, including Captain Riddelsdell (who was not present in the
wardroom; he rarely was) having seen action in the Pacific. Though the British
contribution to the defeat of Japan was dwarfed by the American, the British
and Australian Navies had jointly made efforts to bring as many warships to the
theatre as was possible and had, of course, suffered substantial initial losses on the
way to victory. The general consensus was that there could really be no discussion
about it; the war had to be ended by the bomb if the weapon was available, and
talk of surrender by starvation was addled thinking. I certainly subscribed to this
view (I was brought up reading the Hammerton volumes, and their photographs
in particular made no bones about the propensity of the Japanese to fight to the

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