British veteran: Hiroshima aftermath was ‘frightening’

70 years since the bombing of Hiroshima, British veteran Ernest Astley, 87, has been remembering the “frightening” scenes he met when visiting the devastated city in September 1946.

Despite being almost a year after the bombing, the flight mechanic, then 18, said the devastation in the country was still clear, with buildings flattened and “mounds” of green bottles and bicycles welded together.

Astley visited Hiroshima on three more occasions after that, and on his final trip in 1948 he spoke to a survivor “who agreed that it was the right thing to do” to save Japanese and Allied lives.

“Young girls were already there with sharpened bamboo to kill us with,” he said. “It was essential that they dropped the bomb because they never would have surrendered otherwise”.

This clip is originally from 5 live’s coverage of the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, on Thursday 6 August 2015.