TOP SECRET

by Victor Sullivan    © 2010

How a Great Moment in World History was unexpectedly revisited.

Essex, England in 1959 and I was being entertained in my girlfriend's home by her parents.

While preparations for dinner were being made in the kitchen, I sat beside my future father-in-law, Horace Mansfied, watching a documentary programme on a black and white TV set. The subject was the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaaki in 1945.  

Hod Mansfield, a tall, handsome man, addicted to cricket and crosswords, had never told his family or friends what he had been doing during World War 2 other than that he had been a wireless operator at an RAF ground station. He never spoke of what his wartime duties involved and, if asked, he would display a little silver fish badge pinned behind the lapel of his jacket. (Fish do not speak).

The TV programme concluded with vivid black & white images of the two devastated cities and the formal Japanese surrender to General Douglas McArthur on board the American Naval ship, Missouri, in Tokyo Bay on 2 September, 1945. The narrator's concluding words were:

 "..... a message was sent to London saying Japan has capitulated."

Suddenly my future father-in-law, slapped his knee loudly and shouted, "I decoded that message! I knew the war was over before Churchill or the King." 

It was the first and the only indication that he had ever been engaged in anything unusual or exceptional during his wartime service. The only additional information he disclosed was that the hardest part about it was keeping the momentous news a secret. He could not tell anyone what he knew while the entire world continued to live in ignorance of the situation. The official public announcement was not made until two days later.

After Horace Mansfield's early death a few years later, the family requested access to his Service Records. They were informed that no records were available. All the pages had been neatly cut from his Log Book.