William Franklin has vivid memories of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in Japan at the end of the Second World War.

The former Oxford man was just four miles away, a prisoner of war in a labour camp.

He writes: "On August 9, 1945, I was working deep in a huge dry dock, capable of handling the Queen Mary, close to the caisson (the gate to the sea), which meant instant death if it ever gave way.

"The A-bomb was detonated approximately four miles north of us, across the harbour.

"It created a blinding flash and as the blast passed over the dry dock, I became sealed in a vacuum, unable to move, in terrific heat.

"I was completely held in its clutches and when it released me, I had to run the gauntlet of some 900ft through falling debris that was crashing down from the installation above.

"Our guards gradually squeezed out a passage through the throngs of people trying to exit the dockyard and at the double, we PoWs arrived back in camp where we watched the mushroom forming above Nagasaki. Sixty-plus years later, I realise I might be the only man living after emerging from that ordeal."

Mr Franklin, who now lives in Canada, was born and bred in Oxford. After leaving New Hinksey School in 1933, he joined Alden Press, learning the trade of a paper warehouseman.

The bookkeeping skills he acquired earned him a position as equipment assistant with the RAF when he enlisted on June 1, 1939.

He joined No 2 Flying Training School, based at RAF Brize Norton, before being promoted and posted to 242 Hurricane fighter squadron.

He recalls: "In December 1941, we sailed on the Empress of Australia.

"It was the same day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour.

"After nine weeks at sea, we arrived in Batavia (now Jakarta) on the island of Java, the Dutch East Indies, as part of 266 Fighter Wing.

"When hostilities started, we were in Palembang, Sumatra, and our orders were to fall back to Java', where we eventually began to service any planes that came our way, until the Dutch capitulation on March 8, 1942."

Mr Franklin and his colleagues were put in various slave labour camps through the islands.

They later left Singapore and were taken to a camp in Nagasaki, where they witnessed the terrible consequences of the atomic bomb.

Mr Franklin has written a book about his experiences, Through Adversity to Attainment, which is available from Trafford Publishing, at 9 Park End Street, Oxford OX1 1HH, call 01865 722113 or order on line at www.trafford.com