Hiroshima Day, 1983: Auckland, NZ

There were handbills and posters seemingly everywhere inviting people to come to the rally against the Texas on Hiroshima Day. We were told to stay as far away from it as possible, but one of the guys in my engineroom saw the gathering from down the block. Breathlessly he estimated there were 100,000 -- no, 200,000! -- people out there, all hating America and showing how ignorant they were about nuclear power. I wasn't about to trust the crowd estimate of a guy who never left the Oklahoma panhandle until he joined the navy; the cattle in his hometown outnumbered people by 2 to 1. But I only replied that people in the States were pretty ignorant about nuclear power, too.

The NZ Herald had the story on the next day's front page. What I liked was the big discrepancy in the crowd estimate: 30,000 (organizers) or 15,000 (police.)

On my way into a pub the next night, I was accosted by three punkish guys about my age who told me, among other things, to get off their effing island and take my radiation with me. They were just getting up a good rant when a middle-aged couple emerged from the pub and interceded for me, telling the punks to mind their manners and treat the guest -- me -- with some respect and had they forgotten the bloody Battle of the Coral Sea? Why, they would be speaking bloody Japanese if it weren't for American sailors, the couple said. When the punks moved on, the husband apologized and offered to buy me a beer to make up for the "bloody poor hospitality." I declined and thanked them and then they thanked me for winning the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Loved or hated, we were minor celebrities for two weeks. Mostly, we were treated with kindness and generosity. And, coming from Norfolk, where they had only recently outlawed signs that said "No sailors or dogs allowed" but weren't in a hurry to change the corresponding attitude, life was more than good. I even asked about New Zealand's requirements for immigration.