Eighty years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, David Blair has revealed how the devastating event directly led to his existence.
His grandfather was among the prisoners held by Japanese forces in Singapore when the bomb fell on August 6, 1945.
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Blair explained that his grandfather was being held captive thousands of miles from Hiroshima at the time of the bombing.
The prisoner’s liberation came as a direct consequence of Japan’s subsequent surrender.
“At the moment the bomb fell, my grandfather was a prisoner of the Japanese in Singapore,” he said to Martin Daubney on GB News.
“We know he was surviving on just a few handfuls of rice a day. The men were emaciated and starving. He had no reason to believe he’d be going home any time soon, he probably thought he’d be there for months, maybe years to come.
“Then suddenly, 3,000 miles away in Hiroshima, everything changed. Because of that bomb, my grandfather was home by Christmas. There were tens of thousands of others in the same position.”
Speaking to Martin on the 80th anniversary of the bombing, Blair said his grandfather’s survival meant he went on to have twin daughters, one of whom is Blair’s mother.
“There will be millions of people like me, descendants of prisoners who were released as a result of Japan’s surrender on August 15, 1945,” he said.
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“We’re scattered across the world. I’ve been in touch with some of them today. All of us can trace our existence back to that extraordinary event.”
Martin Daubney said the story had changed the way he viewed the events of 1945.
“I’m obsessed with the Second World War,” he said. “I’ve watched The World at War four times in its entirety. I’ve got volumes and volumes of books. And yet I had never thought about this.”
Blair added that his grandfather, who weighed just six and a half stone when he was released, was one of as many as 37,500 British and Commonwealth troops freed after Japan’s surrender many of whom had been held in brutal conditions across Asia.
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His grandfather was held in brutal conditions
Asked whether it felt like a double-edged sword to owe his life to such a horrific event, Blair replied: “Yes. It’s a terrible thing. And I don’t really like to dwell too much on what happened on this day 80 years ago because it was so horrific.
“You can quantify, sadly and tragically, the number of people killed on this day 80 years ago. But you can’t quantify the number of people who are only alive today because it happened.”
He added: “The ordeal of the prisoners who were held by Japan across Asia — not just my grandfather in Singapore — should be weighed in the moral balance when we’re judging whether it was the right thing to do.”
Daubney described Hiroshima as “one of the gravest, most significant decisions ever made in human history” and asked Blair whether he believed nuclear weapons were still needed in today’s world.
Blair replied: “Alas, tragically, I think we do. If we were to relinquish our own deterrent today, there’s only one person who would benefit and that’s Vladimir Putin.
“He would feel free to do whatever he wished. So it’s an awful, terrible necessity.”
