Dick Büchel van Steenbergen, born in 1920 in the Dutch East Indies, serves with the KNIL. In 1942 he was made prisoner of war by the Japanese and taken to a concentration camp. Together with hundreds of fellow-sufferers, he was transported by ship to Japan. The men barely survived the torpedo attacks of allied submarines on a stormy sea.

Once in Japan, Dick is used as a forced laborer to keep the war industry going. He ends up at the Mitsubishi shipyard in Nagasaki. There he worked under appalling conditions on the construction of three ships.

On 9 August 1945 Dick sees the atomic bomb descending by parachute. The impact is nearby and he has to run for his life. As if by a miracle he survived the destruction. Tens of thousands of people are killed, many of them forced laborers.

After the Japanese capitulation, Dick is repatriated to the Dutch East Indies. There he ends up in the chaos of the Indonesian war of independence. All these years Dick has rock-solid confidence that he will survive!

Annerose has been back to Indonesia together with her father. In Indian 'smells and colors' she tells the story of her father.