Phyllis Passmore

Today we remember Phyllis Hill, a nurse stationed with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan after the war. She witnessed the destruction caused by the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima and never forgot the devastation she saw.

Phyllis Passmore (née Hill) audio file (MP4 23.99 MB)

Phyllis Passmore (née Hill) audio script

75th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War

Audio actuality

“Fellow Citizens, the War is over” — (The Hon J B Chifley, Prime Minister of Australia)

On the 75th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War, Australia remembers Phyllis Hill, a nurse stationed with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan after the war.

She witnessed the destruction caused by the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima. And she never forgot her initial reaction to the devastation she saw around her.

Phyllis Passmore

When we get there, there wasn’t a building left; there wasn’t a tree; there wasn’t a lamp post. It was just razed completely to the ground.

We were invited to go to a Japanese hospital to see some of the people who had been affected by the bomb. And it was the most dreadful thing. The patient’s family came and nursed in the hospital, looked after them, and the medical staff just looked after their physical disabilities, et cetera.

But we saw people with no faces left more or less, arms and legs missing or completely burned right through. And the stench of rotting flesh and weeping flesh, in that it was terrible. They were the most horrific things I saw.

Saturday, August 15 marks the 75th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War. Let’s pay our respects to that amazing generation of Australians.