“What did your Dad die of?” asked Tony.
“Stomach cancer,” we all replied.
“And he stood on the rubble of Hiroshima? Only eight months after the Bomb was dropped?”
Suddenly, the connection was obvious.
I did some checking today. I discovered that members of the crew of HMS Vengeance, the ship in question, were allowed ashore to see the devastation of Hiroshima. In fact, in a letter sent from the ship my Dad wrote that he would be going on shore leave the following day for that very purpose. And, of course, lots of those who did go ashore took photographs. That photo of my Dad was not a figment of my or my brother’s imaginations, therefore. In its absence, I’ve posted above a couple of the many photos taken by the ship’s official photographer and later offered for sale to crew members.
I also discovered that over the years there have been frequent enquiries to the ship’s website (http://www.hms-vengeance.co.uk) by relatives of deceased crew members who died of cancer at an early age and in some cases whose offspring also contracted cancer-related diseases. All those enquiring have wondered whether exposure to radiation in Hiroshima was the cause. “Nothing has been proved” is the website’s stock response.
My Dad died just short of his 40th birthday. His stomach problems began in earnest about a year before. “It’s an ulcer,” said the two incompetent posh-boy doctors in the town at the time. “Here are some tablets for it. Stop frying your food. Eat fish boiled in milk instead.” Aye. The pain became so severe that they sent him into the local hospital for tests. When the hospital discovered that the so-called ulcer had spread across his stomach, they operated on him pretty much immediately, but a post-operative infection resulted in his death. Would he have survived if the cancer had been diagnosed much earlier? I don’t know. But it’s now looking increasingly likely that he was another casualty of the Second World War – twenty years after it ended.