Meet the Australian POW who survived the atomic bomb at Nagasaki

Allan Chick not only survived his ship being torpedoed and sunk during WWII and again when an atomic bomb blew him off a roof, but he went on to marry a Japanese teacher and live to 93.

Allan Chick at his home in Heyfield with a 1940 portrait of himself taken when he was 20 years old.

When Allan Chick’s ship was torpedoed and sunk during World War II, he was lucky to survive.

But it was when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and blew him off a roof that the Australian POW’s luck was truly tested.

Chick’s astonishing story of survival is told in the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters, with Australian War Memorial historian Meghan Adams:

Chick was captured by the Japanese in Timor in 1942 within weeks of deployment.

“The first task they’re given is actually to begin cleaning up amongst the dead on the island and many of their comrades among them,” Ms Adams says.

“So you can imagine that’s a very horrific and traumatic experience.”

Allan Chick before leaving Australia during WWII.

Private Allan Chick of the 65th Battalion, Australian Infantry Force, in Japan in 1947. Picture: Australian War Memorial.

In 1944, Chick was among more than 700 Allied POWs crammed on the Tamahoko Maru, one of the Japanese “hell ships”, notorious for overcrowding, beatings, starvation and disease.

Chick later described how the ship was struck by a torpedo from an American submarine.

“Within a minute, I felt the water in the hold up around my knee,” he recalled.

Chick hauled himself up onto the deck through a hatch cover and grabbed a raft as the ship sank bow first.

“The raft I was holding got caught in the wreckage, and I myself lost consciousness,” he said.

“When I regained consciousness, I found myself on a raft in the water with three other men.”

Ms Adams says Chick was incredibly lucky not to be killed.

“The ship sinks within about two minutes and it costs about 500 Allied lives, so he’s very, very lucky indeed to survive,” she says.

Allan Chick in 1948 with his workmates at the factory where he used to work as a POW in Nagasaki.

After the survivors reached Nagasaki, they became forced labourers at the Mitsubishi foundry, making ship parts and munitions.

When Allied forces dropped the bomb on Nagasaki in 1945, killing tens of thousands instantly, Chick was one of only 24 Australian surviving servicemen left in the POW camp, less than 2km from the epicentre.

He was working atop the framework of a single-storey building when the bomb hit.

“The next thing I remember, I was standing on the ground,” he later recalled. “I’d been blown clean off the roof.”

The remains of POW Camp 14 in Nagasaki, taken by Private Allan Chick. Picture: Australian War Memorial.

Chick realised how lucky he was after seeing the Chinese prisoners dead in their barracks 100m away.

“I touched one on the foot and he crumbled,” Chick said. “They were simply ash – they’d been burnt to a cinder.”

Allan Chick’s Japanese wife, Haruko Chick.

Allan Chick with his medals and a Japanese porcelain doll at home in Heyfield in 2005.

Despite the ordeal, Chick returned to Japan after the war and married a Japanese schoolteacher, Haruko.

They settled in Heyfield in Victoria – and Chick lived to the ripe old age of 93.

To find out more, listen to the interview in the free In Black and White podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or web.

See In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper every Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.