POTSDAM -- The 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima took place earlier this month, prompting the memories of a former Potsdam doctor who later treated the bomb victims.

Dr. Robert Collins was a Navy lieutenant who spent time in the Phillipines, Okinawa, Tokyo and Yokohama before Hiroshima. He was part of a U.S. Navy force in the Pacific Theater during World War II, according to old news clippings recently received by Canton-Potsdam Hospital.

Three days after Hiroshima was bombed, U.S. forces dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, which prompted the Japanese to surrender shortly after.

Thousands were killed and sickened with radiation poisoning from the two attacks.

After the war, Collins worked at Potsdam Hospital before it became the present-day CPH.

He has since died, and the clippings were passed onto CPH’s public relations department by his widow.