Most of us believe America's war with Japan ended because atomic bombs were dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But is that the truth? And at what terrible cost
A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness
to the enemy. That's one way to put it. There's a couple lingering questions here
What did the crew know and did they realize the scope of the mission? Part of that is easy to answer
According to navigator Theodore Van Kirk, you couldn't be in the 509th and not know
something was up. They told us that the weapon we were going to drop would destroy an entire city
Words like atomic and nuclear were never mentioned. The Enola Gay's tail gunner was then Tech Sergeant George Robert Caron
He was given a camera to photograph the explosion. At the same time, he told his crewmates what he was seeing over the intercom
His recollections in a later interview were chilling. The mushroom cloud was white on the outside, and it was sort of a purplish-black toward
the interior, and it had a fiery red core, and it just kept boiling up. I could see the city
and it was being covered with this low, bubbling mass. It looks like bubbling molasses, let's say
spreading out and running up into the foothills, just covering the whole city. The crew then turned around so they could all see what was happening below
That's when co-pilot Robert A. Lewis wrote on the back of an old War Department for him
I honestly have the feeling of groping for words to explain this, or I might say
my God, what have we done? I have walked and crawled through the bottom of hell
I should be dead, but it was my fate to keep on living. You might not know him by name, but Tsutomu Yamaguchi is one of the most well-known survivors of the bombings
Yamaguchi was 29 in 1945, working for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. He was just a few miles from the epicenter at the moment of the blast
He was badly burned and his eardrums ruptured. He found a few other survivors, spent the night in an air raid shelter
and the next day, headed to the train station. After swimming through a river clogged with the dead, he got on a train and headed home
to Nagasaki. He was treated by a doctor, a former classmate who didn't recognize him because of his burns
and he went to work on August 9th. As he was briefing the company director on Hiroshima, the second bomb hit
He dove underneath his desk. So he survived, but his colleagues lost their lives
His wife survived too, because she'd gone out to buy burn cream for him and wasn't at
home when the house was destroyed. Here's the crazy thing. You see, Yamaguchi gets brought up all the time, but he wasn't alone
It's thought that around 165 people survived both the bombings. They're called the Niju Hibakusha, which means the twice-bombed person
Throughout World War II, it was common practice to drop warning leaflets over target cities
before Allied bombers attacked, and this was done before the bombing of Hiroshima
They were called lame leaflets. They warned civilians that they lived in a city with military or industrial targets
and they should get out of town before the bombing began. It's unclear how many leaflets were dropped at Hiroshima, and the historical record is
iffy on the details but one survivor interviewed by Time remembered them Sachiko Matsuo survived the Nagasaki bombing She was just 1 kilometers from ground zero when the blast hit She said
American B-29 bombers dropped leaflets all over the city, warning us that Nagasaki would fall to ashes on August 8th
The leaflets were confiscated immediately by the Imperial Japanese Army. My father somehow got a hold of one and believed what it said
He built us a little barrack up along the mountain to hide out in. August 8th came and went, but in spite of some protests from some of her family
they stayed one more day after her father reminded them, the U.S. is a day behind, remember
Had more leaflets made their way into the hands of citizens like her father, and had those who saw them understood the international date line
the final death toll may have looked different. When most of us think of the atomic bomb, we picture the mushroom cloud
but those who were on the ground say that was just one part of it. Shinji Mikamo recalled
Suddenly I was facing a gigantic fireball. It was at least five times bigger and ten times brighter than the sun
It was hurtling directly towards me, a powerful flame that was a remarkable pale yellow, almost
the color of white. Then there was noise and the sensation that he'd been doused with boiling water
He was buried in the rubble of his house. After his father, Fukuichi, rescued him, and they began walking through the ruins, he described
gale-force winds that created a tornado which swept through the rubble. It began to rain, but it wasn't the sort of rain that would extinguish the fiery tornadoes
It was black and radioactive and sticky. When survivors tried to wash it from their blistered and burned bodies, they couldn't
Shinji and his father grew so weak that they were eventually unable to walk and began to crawl
Fukuichi ignored his son's pleas to stop, saying, We are in hell right now. No wonder we see demons
Somehow, they got separated, and Shinji was evacuated by the army. When he was strong enough, he went searching for his father, but never found out what happened to him
Survivors weren't just trying desperately to survive. they were searching for their loved ones, too. Sometimes they found him, and sometimes they were
left alone to try to properly, respectfully dispose of their remains. Yoshiro Yamawaki
and his twin brother survived the bombing of Nagasaki. They went searching for their father
and found his body. Speaking with the South China Morning Post, Yamawaki shared
"...to this day I will never forget the moment I saw my father's remains, no matter how hard I try. I pray that no one should ever have to experience what I did at
the age of 11." You have many nightmares about that. The brothers knew that it was up to them to make sure their father was laid to rest
so they attempted to cremate him. When they returned the next morning, though, intending on collecting his ashes
they found that much of his body was still intact and decomposing. Not wanting to leave him in the street, it was an older brother who suggested they observe
a Japanese funerary tradition in which they took a piece of his skull. Things went wrong, though, as Yamawaki told Time
Our father's skull cracked open like plaster and his half-cremated brain spilled out
My brothers and I screamed and ran away, leaving our father behind. We abandoned him in the worst
state possible Testimonies are filled with descriptions of burn victims pleading for water and some like Inosuke Hayasaki stopped to help them He told Time I decided to look for a water source Luckily I found a futon nearby engulfed in flames
I tore a piece of it off, dipped it in the rice paddy nearby, and rang it over the burn
victims' mouths. There were about 40 of them. I went back and forth. Among them was my dear
friend Yamada. Water, he murmured. I rang the water over his mouth. Five minutes later, he was dead
After the bombing, it didn't take long for warnings to be passed by word of mouth
Survivors were told not to drink water or give water to other victims because it would kill those who were begging for a drink
According to Dr. Hiroo Doei of the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital and Atomic Bomb Survivors Hospital
this was because drinking water increased blood flow. For wounded burn victims, that could be deadly
For survivors like Hayasaki who tried to help the other victims and are left with lingering doubts
he confided, According to Newsweek, around 2,000 children between the ages of 6 and 11 years old had
been evacuated from Hiroshima ahead of the bombing. Tragically, when they returned
most realized very quickly that they were orphans. With no one to care for them
they tried to survive on the streets. Some died within months of returning to the ruined city
According to one survivor, Shoso Kawamoto, some were so hungry they died with stones in their mouths
Some locals set up stalls where they could go for food, but the terrible fact was that there wasn't
enough food to go around, and the smaller, younger children were left with whatever scraps they could
find. Kawamoto was one of the lucky ones. He found a home with a foster family, but many weren't
nearly as fortunate. In the wake of the bombing, Kawamoto saw the Yakuza seize opportunity and move
into Hiroshima. He saw many of the young orphan girls sold to the Yakuza, where they were forced
into a life of sex work. Many orphaned children did what they needed to do in order to survive
Those who survived the dropping of the atomic bombs are called hibakusha. Being officially
designated hibakusha comes with certain valuable benefits, like access to government subsidies for
health care. But there were also other not-so-nice ramifications. For a long time, they faced almost
unthinkable discrimination. Take Hiroko Tanaka. She survived Hiroshima, but when it came time for
her to apply for official government status as a hibakusha, she waited five decades. Her husband
explained why to the independent, saying, She kept her status hidden from me. At the time
there were all sorts of rumors. People in Tokyo said, Don't marry someone from Hiroshima. You will
be contaminated. Many hibakusha have similar stories. When Nagasaki survivor Katsuko Kanamori
left the remains of her home and moved to Gifu, she quickly learned to make up stories about her
past. In relation to everything from seeking employment to marriage, no one wanted a hibakusha
They were afraid the radiation was contagious. Shoso Kawamoto found that out at the age of 23
when he met and fell in love with a girl he wanted to marry. Because of his hibakusha designation
his fianc family forbade the marriage He was understandably devastated and left the city vowing to remain single for life When the bombs were dropped nobody really knew what the consequences would be for survivors
According to research done by Claremont Graduate University Professor of History Janet Farrell
Brody, censorship by occupying U.S. forces made things even more difficult for those
trying to treat survivors. Brody says that while the U.S. publicized information about the bomb's destructive
power, they kept other things, like the brutal effects of radiation, quiet
Even as medical personnel struggled to treat patients and document the effects
officials seized everything from medical case notes to biopsy slides, photographs, and film
That information, which undoubtedly would have been useful had it been shared among the medical
community, was then sent back to the United States, where it was classified. American forces
even went as far as restricting any criticism of American activities in Japan and completely
denied there were any lasting effects from the radiation. As a result, some survivors waited a
long time for help. Doho Minako survived Nagasaki, but as late as 1949, her wounds were still unhealed
and her hair still fell out as soon as it grew in. That was when the Atomic Bomb Casualty
Commission showed up on her doorstep and promised to help. Unfortunately, help wasn't what she got
She was taken to a U.S. facility, photographed, and sent home. The ABCC was under strict orders
not to provide medical treatment, permitted only to document survivors' injuries for further study
Minako was so ashamed of her condition that she remained shut in for years
We were used as guinea pig twice, first as a target, second as an object of medical research
We've heard again and again that the dropping of the atomic bombs is what led to Japan's
surrender, but some historians have a very different opinion. According to Greg Hurkin, emeritus professor of history for the University of California
Merced, new research into Japanese records shows it was far more complicated
On August 8, the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan. They'd previously honored a non-aggression pact with the country, and Japan still hoped
the Soviets would act as something of an intermediary between themselves and the Allies
With the Soviet attack, though, things changed, and Japan surrendered. The Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs points out that, yes, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki were the proving grounds for atomic weapons, but the U.S. had actually bombed
68 Japanese cities in 1945. When it comes to casualties, Hiroshima is second
Compare that to the March 10, 1945 bombing of Tokyo, when the Allies dropped cluster bombs and napalm on the city
Around 105,400 people were killed, and a fifth of the city was reduced to ruin
Devastating as they were, atomic bombs were just more bombs, while the Soviet Union's entry into the fray was an escalation
The Carnegie Council puts it this way, The Soviet declaration of war was decisive, Hiroshima was not
Is that a controversial Monday morning quarterbacking of the bombing? Well, yes
Ultimately, the bombings and subsequent surrender will be debated for a long time, including
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