 Oliphant returned to England in March 1945 , and resumed his post as a professor of physics at the University of Birmingham . He was on holiday in Wales with his family when he first heard of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . He was later to remark that he felt " sort of proud that the bomb had worked , and absolutely appalled at what it had done to human beings " . Oliphant became a harsh critic of nuclear weapons and a member of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs , saying , " I , right from the beginning , have been terribly worried by the existence of nuclear weapons and very much against their use . " His wartime work would have earned him a Presidential Medal of Freedom with Gold Palm , but the Australian government vetoed this honour , as government policy at the time was not to confer honours on civilians . 
