08 Capt Cheshire Witnesses Nagasaki Bombing

At the time of the explosion we were wearing Polaroid welders glasses. They were so dark that even the tropical sun showed through them was nothing more than a vague pinpoint of light. Even then the explosion, when eventually it came, was so bright that it had the same effect as if night had been turned into day.

A few seconds later, when it was safe to take off our glasses, We looked out towards the target and saw a vast ball of fire. It was about 2,000 feet in the air and half a mile in diameter.

This fire, which generated almost 10 million degrees of heat, began rocketing up into the heavens at a speed of something like 20,000 feet a minute. After 15 seconds, the flame had died out and turned into a cloud.

Exactly what their cloud looked like, I do not suppose any words will ever describe. Unlike any other phenomenon the world has ever seen, it was possessed of some diabolical activity, as though it were a horrible form of life.

Its heat was so great that even at a range of 20 miles we could see the dust from the earth being sucked up into the air like a vortex. The cloud rose to a height of 60,000 feet in less than five minutes, and there it stayed.

On flying close to it, we saw that its colour was a sort of luminous yellow, like sulphur. Throughout the whole time it remained a boiling turbulent mass, and continued expanding until it reached some two miles across.

We knew from what we had been told that its activity would destroy anything that came within its reach and therefore we stayed out of range some five or six miles away.