- 6 months ago
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Music
00:10Exactly 60 years ago last week, on the last days of World War II,
00:14in the Pacific, the USS Indianapolis was sunk
00:17in one of the worst naval disasters in US history.
00:20800 American sailors were lost at sea.
00:23President Truman confirmed his decision to drop an atomic bomb on Japan.
00:28And in Europe, Allied leaders ended their meeting at Potsdam.
00:32Exactly 60 years ago this week, Red Army troops storm into Manchuria
00:37as the Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
00:40An American POW in captivity for more than 1,000 days
00:44risks everything to document the brutality of his Japanese captors.
00:48And two atomic bombs are dropped on Japan,
00:51unleashing a wave of mass destruction and suffering previously unknown to man.
00:58August 5th, Tinian Island.
01:07Rumors have spread across the island like wildfire.
01:10Something extraordinary is about to happen, which will irrevocably change the outcome of the war.
01:29Despite Allied demands for unconditional surrender, Japan has steadfastly refused to admit defeat.
01:35The war in the Pacific has become a vicious and prolonged conflict.
01:40Truman's advisers estimate that an invasion of mainland Japan could result in up to 1 million casualties.
01:4660 years ago this week, facing mounting pressure to end the war and bring US troops home,
01:51Truman believes that his hand has been forced.
01:54His final decision to drop the atomic bomb stands.
01:58Truman's Secretary of State, James Burns, Jimmy Burns, was an astute politician from the Carolinas.
02:06And he said to Truman at one point,
02:08What will you tell the American people in 1946 at your impeachment hearing
02:12when they ask you why you had a weapon of war that you might use to shorten the war and you chose not to use it?
02:19Truman is backed by British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who supports the use of the bomb as both a military and political weapon.
02:27As Attlee's predecessor Winston Churchill warned early on, Stalin has demonstrated his imperial designs in Eastern Europe.
02:34Now the Soviet leader has his sights on territories in the Far East.
02:38Truman hopes the atomic bomb will not only bring a decisive victory over Japan, but also quell Soviet aggression with an overwhelming display of power and destruction.
02:49An entry into his personal diary reads,
02:52It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful.
02:57Americans during World War II, we believed we were on the side of the angels, and I won't dispute that.
03:03But we were willing to use the tools of the devil to win.
03:062 p.m.
03:09The top secret mission of the 509th Composite Group is confirmed for August 6th.
03:15The weather over three out of the four possible target cities shows signs of improvement.
03:21The typhoon that ripped through the Pacific over the past week has subsided.
03:25The 509th, under the command of Colonel Paul Tibbetts, has been training with specially modified B-29s on the island since May 29th.
03:33Just 24 hours ago, Tibbetts briefed his men on their mission.
03:38They were told they would drop something never before seen in the history of warfare.
03:42They will deploy the most destructive weapon ever made.
03:46The source of that weapons energy, however, has not yet been revealed.
03:50I said that it had a possibility of bringing the war to a conclusion.
03:55I showed them pictures of the Almogordo explosion, but never did I use the word atomic bomb.
04:02I just said this is a new device.
04:05It is a very powerful one, and we did mention the fact that it would have the force equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT.
04:15The largest bomb we had in the Second World War weighed five tons, carried five tons of explosives.
04:22The Hiroshima bomb carried 13,000 tons equivalent of explosive.
04:29So when they were briefed, they were shocked and even perhaps frightened.
04:34Now, just hours before takeoff, the 509th has still not been officially informed of the true nature of their mission.
04:41But by now, many of the crewmen have simply put two and two together.
04:46If you were in our 509th group and you had not figured it out it was an atomic bomb, you were pretty stupid.
04:54That's all I'll say.
04:56You knew you were training.
04:57They told you you were going to drop something that's going to destroy an entire city.
05:01That's number one.
05:03And at the same time, you were transporting a lot of the nuclear scientists around,
05:09but we never talked about it.
05:133 p.m.
05:1460 years ago today, the loading crew winches Little Boy, the uranium-based atomic bomb, onto a transport dolly.
05:21It is concealed by a massive tarpaulin to guard it from curious onlookers.
05:28The 10-foot bomb is rotated 90 degrees and lowered into a specially prepared loading pit.
05:34These bombs were so big you couldn't roll them under the plane the way they do ordinary bombs or anything.
05:41And they loaded, put the bomb down in the pit, and then we backed the airplane up over it, and they raised the bomb up in.
05:47And there were guards around so that there weren't a lot of prying eyes looking at it or things of that type.
05:53We noticed this B-29 in an area unaccessible to the rest of us, and it had guards around it with Tommy guns.
06:03So, you know, I remember thinking to myself, I thought we were on the same team here. What is this?
06:08By evening, all preparations are complete.
06:12The bomb is ready, the planes are fueled, and all systems have been thoroughly checked.
06:17Tibbetts, the man chosen to pilot this mission, declares his B-29 officially loaded.
06:24The plane now weighs 65 tons, 15,000 pounds overweight.
06:29It carries 7,000 gallons of fuel and a nearly five-ton bomb.
06:34Tensions mount as the gravity of the mission sets in.
06:38Well, I think the only tension was, we've got to get this done and stop this war.
06:44We've got to, we can't goof on this.
06:47Tibbetts adds one last personal touch to his plane, a design on the nose of the aircraft.
06:52He names the plane after his mother, the Enola Gay.
07:05Having proven its worth in countless conventional bombing raids over mainland Japan,
07:09the B-29 was the logical choice for a mission of critical importance.
07:13With a wingspan of more than 141 feet, the heavily armed plane was powered by four 2,200 horsepower engines,
07:21could easily reach a speed of 360 miles an hour and operate at 30,000 feet.
07:27Fifteen B-29s were specially modified for the top-secret atomic bomb missions.
07:32They were stripped of gun turrets and ammunition in order to compensate for the massive weight of the new weapon,
07:38which was more than four times the plane's normal load.
07:42Faster-acting pneumatic bomb bay doors were installed,
07:45and additional modifications were made to allow the plane to fly at an altitude
07:49beyond the range of anti-aircraft fire.
07:52The planes arrived on Tinian Island in July 1945 as part of the 509th Composite Group.
07:58The Circle R insignia, the mark of the 6th Bombardment Group,
08:02was painted on the plane's tail in an attempt to throw off the Japanese and not arouse any suspicions.
08:08About a month later, the Enola Gay would embark on an historic mission.
08:12August 6th, 12 a.m., the 509th convene for their final briefing.
08:19Takeoff has been set for 2.45 a.m.
08:22Tibbetts reminds his 12-man crew of the awesome power of the bomb.
08:27The men were told to wear the polarized goggles they had been issued.
08:31Moderate winds are predicted with clouds over their intended drop zone.
08:35A chaplain delivers a final prayer.
08:38May the Almighty Father be with those who brave the heights of thy heaven,
08:42and who carry the battle to our enemies.
08:45Prior to the takeoff, it was sort of like a Hollywood premiere.
08:49They had, uh, lights and motion pictures and all this stuff.
08:55They had pictures of the crew before they took off.
08:58Uh, Tibbetts would wave out the window of his, uh, airplane.
09:02And, uh, it was just a big send-off.
09:05August 6th, 60 years ago, at 2.27 a.m., from the cockpit of the Enola Gay,
09:11Tibbetts gives the order, start the engines.
09:14They say there are people that can talk to horses.
09:25I think Paul Tibbetts can talk to airplanes.
09:28He just seems to understand them so well.
09:30He can do things with an airplane I've never seen anybody else even think of.
09:36Paul Tibbetts' love of flying was born when he was 12 years old,
09:40when he took his first ride in an airplane tossing Baby Ruth candy bars out in an advertising stunt.
09:46Even though his parents had hoped he would become a doctor, his passion could not be contained.
09:51In 1937, after studying medicine at the University of Florida,
09:55he enlisted as a cadet in the Army Air Corps at Fort Thomas, Kentucky.
10:00Tibbetts earned his wings one year later, graduating top of the class.
10:05He went on to fly observation planes and B-10 bombers out of Fort Benning, Georgia.
10:10In 1942, Tibbetts was transferred to England as commander of the U.S. 340th Bomb Squadron, 97th Bombardment Group.
10:20Flying B-17s, Tibbetts was part of the first American flying fortress raid against occupied Europe.
10:26He completed 25 successful missions.
10:30In 1943, Tibbetts joined the U.S. 12th Air Force, serving under General Jimmy Doolittle,
10:36commander of the first bombing raid on mainland Japan.
10:40In September 1944, Tibbetts was briefed on the Manhattan Project,
10:44and appointed commander of the 509th Composite Group.
10:47He was charged with training the team that would drop the atomic bombs on Japan.
10:52From a top-secret location in Utah, Tibbetts worked closely with Los Alamos scientists,
10:57conducting bombing practices to ensure the success of his mission.
11:01Less than a year later in May 1945, Tibbetts and his hand-picked crew arrived on Tinian Island,
11:07a strategic U.S. air base in the Pacific.
11:11He got good men, and he told them what the job was, and they let him do the job.
11:16He was not a spittin', polished commander. He didn't check to see whether your shoes were shine.
11:21But when you got on an airplane with Paul Tibbetts, you better damn well know what you were doing,
11:26because he demanded perfection in an airplane.
11:29I think the fact that the 509th crew called this leader of theirs the old bull
11:35tells you how they thought of him, even though he was only 27 years old.
11:40He was a dynamic man and a very, very technically competent man.
11:45And he really worked as good commanders and leaders, too, for the men,
11:49to try to get them what they needed to live through these difficult periods of trainings.
11:55On August 6th, 1945, the men of the 509th would finally be put to the test.
12:02August 6th, 2.45 a.m.
12:06The Enola Gay lifts into the night sky.
12:09The crew has begun this 1,700-mile flight to mainland Japan,
12:13its designated Special Bombing Mission 13.
12:17Within two minutes, the Great Artiste takes off,
12:20carrying instruments to measure the effects of the blast.
12:23Two minutes later, number 91 takes off with scientific observers on board.
12:27Then finally, the standby aircraft Top Secret is launched.
12:312.55 a.m.
12:35The Enola Gay crosses the northern tip of Saipan at 4,700 feet.
12:40Tibbets is flying at a low altitude to conserve fuel.
12:43The green plugs which block the firing signal
12:46and prevent accidental detonation are still in place.
12:49Little Boy is not yet armed.
12:52Tibbets crawls through the plane's 30-foot tunnel to have a final briefing with his crew.
12:56The autopilot, nicknamed George, flies the plane.
13:00When Tibbets returns to his seat, he switches on the intercom and says,
13:04Well, boys, he was the last piece of the puzzle.
13:07The entire crew of the Enola Gay is officially informed that they are carrying the world's first atomic weapon.
13:145.52 a.m.
13:16The Enola Gay approaches Iwo Jima.
13:18The plane's flight path crosses the volcanic island, where more than 5,000 Americans died in a bloody siege roughly six months ago.
13:26Tibbets climbs to 9,300 feet to connect with the observation and photography planes.
13:32The crew is roughly three hours from bombs away.
13:357.30 a.m.
13:37Weapon Air Deke Parsons and Lieutenant Jepson arm the bomb, activating its internal batteries and declare it ready for action.
13:45Tibbets begins the final 45-minute climb to an altitude of 30,700 feet.
13:518.30 a.m.
13:53The weather plane at Hiroshima reports in.
13:56Our primary is the best target.
13:58Tibbets reports to the crew.
14:00It's Hiroshima.
14:02Hiroshima was a city filled that day, August 6, 1945, with about 300, 350,000 people.
14:14Many of them refugees from other parts of Japan because we had been firebombing systematically one Japanese city after another, burning out large parts of those cities or entirely the cities.
14:28Unlike many other urban areas, it has suffered relatively little from Allied bombings.
14:33Many of its buildings are still intact.
14:35The primary criterion for the targets was that they be undamaged because we wanted to see what weapons effects these bombs would have.
14:47In order to have undamaged cities, they had to be taken off Curtis LeMay's Air Force target list or they would already have been destroyed.
14:56Why would they selected to be taken off the target list?
15:00From the Air Force's point of view, because they were the least military cities available.
15:06So, ironically, the military at least didn't consider these very serious targets.
15:12You have to balance that against the fact that when President Truman announced the atomic bombings, he said they were military targets.
15:20There was a military barracks in Hiroshima, and indeed Hiroshima was going to be the center for the defense of the southern islands of Japan,
15:29and when the United States and the British invaded.
15:31So, in that sense, it was a military target.
15:3460 years ago today, in Hiroshima, it's hot and humid.
15:40The skies are clear, the morning calm.
15:448.40 a.m.
15:46The Enola Gay levels out at 31,000 feet.
15:50The outside temperature at this altitude is negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit, a sharp contrast to the warm city below.
15:56The aircraft is pressurized and heated.
15:59The plane is now just 12 miles from its intended target.
16:02In central Hiroshima, a T-shaped bridge spanning the Ota River is Bombardier Tom Ferebee's chosen aiming point.
16:09Japan's 2nd Army Headquarters is based nearby.
16:13And Tom says, yeah, that's right, I see it, I see it, I see it.
16:169.13 a.m.
16:18A loud blip on the radio notifies the Escort B-29s.
16:22The bomb will drop in two minutes.
16:26August 6th, 9.13 a.m.
16:2860 years ago today, the world's first atomic bomb will be dropped in two minutes.
16:33A continuous tone counts down to deployment.
16:38The observation planes prepare their cameras and gauges to capture the detonation and measure Little Boy's explosive yield.
16:46The bomb bay doors open, and suddenly the radio tone ends.
16:529.15 a.m., bombs away.
16:57The Enola Gay shoots up, now nearly five tons lighter.
17:01Tibbets immediately executes a 155-degree turn to put as much distance as possible between his plane and the imminent nuclear explosion.
17:109.16 a.m.
17:13Little Boy explodes 1,900 feet above ground.
17:28The first sign of success is a blinding flash.
17:32It is followed by two shock waves, first thought to be enemy ground fire.
17:37Everybody called out FLAC, and the tail gunner by that time called up and says it wasn't FLAC, it was a shock wave, and here comes another one.
17:45The Enola Gay shakes violently.
17:48Diving, the plane misses the first fireball, but then circles back.
17:53A large mushroom cloud has risen above the earth.
17:56Around the base of that cloud, the entire city of Hiroshima is covered with smoke and dust and everything of that type.
18:03You can make no visual observation whatsoever.
18:06It looked like a, somewhat like a pot of boiling oil down there.
18:11Within four minutes, the cloud reaches 23,000 feet, turning different colors as it rises.
18:16It is estimated that for a microsecond, the temperature at its core reaches 15 million degrees.
18:22The Enola Gay is 360 miles into the flight back to Tinian, before the crew finally loses sight of the mushroom cloud, still rising ominously over Hiroshima.
18:33There was some discussion on the way about what this bomb would mean, and I think there was a general feeling that this war was over.
18:42We could see how anybody could stand up to a weapon like that.
18:46And then the rest of the way home, it was very, very subdued. We were all very tired.
18:53They were, I think, dazed and perhaps even a little horrified by the sheer scale of what had just happened.
19:04These men understood that in some sense they probably ended this long and painful and terrible war.
19:10On the ground below, an unimaginable nightmare is unfolding.
19:15Little Boy has exploded with a force of 20,000 tons of TNT, 2,000 times the power of the largest bomb previously known to man.
19:24The enormous blast is followed by a violent, howling wind, which destroys everything in its path.
19:30It was intended to be used not for radiation bombing, which would be a kind of extra heinous way to use the bomb, but simply as had been before for blast and fire.
19:43Hence it was set off high in the air above the city.
19:46At ground zero, the temperature generated by the fireball hits an inconceivable 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
19:53People within a half mile of Little Boy's explosion are reduced to smoking black char in a fraction of a second.
20:01People close to the bomb were literally incinerated. I mean, there were little bundles of charred material left.
20:08People who were between the bomb and a solid object often had their negative shadow burned into the granite behind them.
20:18It is believed that up to 75,000 people are killed in an instant. Some are vaporized.
20:28Eerie silhouettes of where they once stood are etched in concrete. Birds ignite mid-air.
20:34Farther away, the flash of light leaves dark pigmentation, like a shadow deep in people's skin.
20:40Raised hands are emblazoned across startled faces. That pigmentation would later be called the Mask of Hiroshima.
20:47Sixty-three percent of the city's buildings are obliterated.
20:51Nearly all medical personnel in the city are killed or disabled.
20:55The air is full of lethal shards of flying glass and fragments of splintered wood.
21:00Bloated bodies are floating in the city's rivers, now contaminated by poison.
21:05Peeling skin hangs like rags from the faces and bodies of those that survive.
21:10Many are blinded, suffering severe burns to their eyes.
21:14All around me people were shouting water, help me, I'm in agony.
21:21They were crying for their mothers.
21:23I heard their voices and then suddenly everything was silent and I knew this meant they had died.
21:29Then large drops of rain started to fall heavily on us.
21:35We didn't know then that the rain was contaminated with radiation and the rain was black.
21:42Others will die within weeks from the unknown effects of radiation sickness.
21:46The outcome would be hair loss, hemorrhaging, vomiting, infections, leukemia and other types of cancer.
21:54By the end of 1945, the number of casualties reported at Hiroshima would reach 140,000.
22:01Five-year deaths related to the bomb would top 200,000, about 50 percent of the city's original population.
22:09Destroying a city so completely destroys more than simply bodies and buildings.
22:16It also breaks up the network of relationships that humans have.
22:21Every Girl Scout troop, every Kiwanis club, every political party, every doctor's clinic.
22:32Those relationships between human beings are also destroyed.
22:37And the breakdown then makes it very difficult afterward to save those who are injured.
22:502.58 p.m. 60 years ago today, the Enola Gay returns to base. Mission accomplished.
22:57After we landed and went through the, what we call debriefings and made out our reports and what have you, we, there was a big party.
23:07General Carl Spotts, commanding officer of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Force, decorates Tibbetts with a distinguished service cross.
23:16Later, each member of the strike force is also presented with a medal.
23:20August 6th, 2 p.m., Washington.
23:27Sixty years ago today, General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, calls the program's supervising scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, to inform him of the developments at Hiroshima.
23:38Groves tells his lead scientist that he is proud of him and the efforts of his team, declaring it went with a tremendous bang.
23:47He relayed his congratulations, but Oppenheimer was less enthusiastic, saying simply, I have my doubts.
23:54Oppenheimer is not alone in his reservations about the bomb he has helped to create.
23:58Leo Szilard, the first scientist to conceive of how an atomic bomb might work, wrote,
24:05The nation which sets this precedent may have to bear responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale.
24:14But others who had been working feverishly on the bomb for months take solace in their achievement, knowing they helped to spare countless lives.
24:21The press release issued by the White House called the atomic bomb, the greatest achievement in organized science in history.
24:29News of the blast is also flashed to President Truman on board the USS Augusta while sailing back to the U.S. from the recent Potsdam conference in Germany.
24:41Sixteen hours later, he issues a statement informing the public that the basic power of the universe has been harnessed.
24:47A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy.
24:58The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor.
25:03They have been repaid many fold, and the end is not yet.
25:08With this bomb, we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction.
25:14A warning is sent to Japan.
25:18Admit defeat or face more of the same.
25:21But officials in Tokyo have not yet fully realized the sheer scale of the destruction.
25:25It took at least 24 hours for Word to begin to get out from Hiroshima because all the railroad lines were torn up, all the telephone lines were burned down.
25:39I think it was at least 24 to 36 hours before Word reached the emperor in Tokyo.
25:45Still, the Imperial Command remains unwilling to accept unconditional surrender.
25:50The Japanese military, at the end of the war, was determined to continue fighting until the emperor's system was saved, to the last life, as they said at the time, until we eat stones.
26:06And as far as they were concerned, the atomic bombings were no different from the fire bombings, which really, in terms of destructive force, they weren't.
26:15They had great hopes, misled hopes to be sure, that the Russians would somehow help them negotiate a surrender.
26:23And this, of course, was a bitter irony, because Stalin was not about to help them. He was just stringing them along until he could put his forces into the war.
26:33August 8th, Japanese Foreign Minister Togo appeals to the Soviets to mediate terms with the Allies. His attempt is futile.
26:41Since receiving word of the atomic bomb, Stalin has accelerated his own war plans. In the wake of the attack on Hiroshima, the balance of power between East and West has fundamentally shifted.
26:54The dropping of the bomb also says, we don't hesitate to use the big stuff. That was a phrase that was used, the big stuff. You know, we forget that that was a very powerful element in the conduct of diplomacy, to tell the Russians, we don't hesitate to play hardball.
27:17This very day, exactly three months after the surrender of Germany, the Soviets declare war against Japan, citing the Imperial Command's refusal to accept the Potsdam Declaration issued on July 26th.
27:30August 9th, 1 a.m., Stalin launches Operation August Storm. 1.6 million Soviet troops, supported by 5,500 tanks, 3,900 planes, and 26,000 field guns, attack the weary Japanese army along the Manchurian border.
27:48Japanese troops who have occupied the country since the 1930s are taken by surprise.
27:54They fall back, confused and disordered, as Soviet bombers target strategic points well behind the front lines.
28:02As the Soviet forces, commanded by Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky, advance, Japan's once-elite Guangdong army is defeated and demoralized.
28:11The Red Army now turns to North Korea. Fearful the Soviets will use Korea as a stepping stone into mainland Japan,
28:20Truman believes he must act swiftly and decisively to impede Stalin's aggression in the Far East and avoid Soviet involvement in post-war Japan.
28:29Truman reckoned that he could finish the war without the Soviet Union becoming involved.
28:36He moved very swiftly to make sure that the Soviet Union should be excluded from the final operations against Japan.
28:46Fat Man, the second atomic bomb originally scheduled to be dropped on August 11th, is now set for the 9th.
28:53Tibbetts has decided to take advantage of favorable weather conditions.
28:57U.S. officials also strategize that the sooner the second bomb goes off,
29:01the more likely the Japanese will assume the U.S. has a large stockpile of these weapons.
29:07August 8th, 10 p.m.
29:10This evening, Fat Man, a 10,000-pound plutonium-based atomic bomb, is loaded into the forward bomb bay of a B-29 named Boxcar.
29:19Boxcar was named for its usual pilot, Captain Fred C. Bock, but today, Major Charles Sweeney is the pilot charged with this mission.
29:26Sweeney's own airplane, the Great Artist, is configured to measure the atomic blast, so Sweeney and Bock have switched planes.
29:35The crew's primary target is Kokura, home to a massive military arsenal on the northern tip of Kyushu.
29:42The secondary target is Nagasaki, the city in which the Mitsubishi torpedoes used in the attack on Pearl Harbor had been built.
29:49August 9th, Tinian Island, 3.47 a.m.
29:54Boxcar takes off in the midst of a tropical storm.
29:58Unlike Little Boy, Fat Man is fully armed at takeoff so that Sweeney can cruise above the storm at 17,000 feet.
30:06To complicate things even more, a faulty fuel pump had been discovered shortly before takeoff.
30:11The Boxcar crew will have access to 600 gallons less fuel than planned.
30:15And Colonel Tibbetts said, that is no problem.
30:21If you execute this mission properly, you don't need that gas.
30:27Boxcar's crew believes they have enough fuel to return from the mission safely, but once in flight, everything changes.
30:33Everything changes.
30:3510.44 a.m.
30:37Boxcar arrives over the primary target of Kokura, but heavy ground haze and smog obscure the mark.
30:44It was obvious there was a lot of smoke and haze in the area.
30:50So as we approached the target, finally Captain Behan says, I can't see the target, no drop.
30:56So the problem was what to do next.
31:01It was considered crucially important that these bombs be dropped with visible sight conditions, not by radar.
31:10We wanted to know when, whether they went off and so on.
31:15Boxcar makes three unsuccessful approaches to its primary target.
31:18All this time we're burning fuel.
31:22So after the third pass, we still couldn't see the target.
31:27So then the decision was made, we had to go to Nagasaki.
31:3060 years ago today, after three unsuccessful approaches over the primary target of Kokura,
31:36Boxcar carrying the Fat Man atomic bomb proceeds to its secondary target, Nagasaki.
31:40Having been thwarted by cloud cover, Boxcar is now faced with another dilemma, dwindling fuel supply.
31:48If we didn't get the bomb off on that pass, we were really in trouble because we didn't have enough fuel aboard
31:55to haul that 10,000 pound bomb to the nearest friendly field, namely Yontan Field on Okinawa.
32:02Now flying 28,900 feet over the city, visibility is low.
32:07At the last minute, a hole opens up among the clouds, giving bombardier Kermit Behan a 20-second visual on a stadium
32:15he believes is a racetrack several miles away from the original target.
32:19He picked up a target. It was a stadium, but as far as he was concerned, it was a racetrack.
32:26I'm going to synchronize my bomb sight on that and drop it on that racetrack.
32:31And that's exactly what he did.
32:33All of a sudden he says, I've got it, I've got it.
32:34He gave me a signal for a quick right turn, which I made, and he had in his sight the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, and the bomb was released.
32:4511.02 AM, the bomb explodes 1,650 feet above the city. The force is estimated at 22 kilotons.
32:58In the blink of an eye, a large stretch of Nagasaki is annihilated.
33:04I was 14 and had just started work at the Mitsubishi Arms Factory. I was 4 kilometers from the center of the blast, digging ditches.
33:17When I saw the flash, the upper part of my body was burnt. Many of those digging with me were burnt, and I could see a lot of people running away to the hills.
33:30So I set off in the same direction. When I got there, there were hundreds of others, faces blackened or completely blown off.
33:38It is estimated that up to 35,000 people die instantly. But the city's steep hills confine the blast, which causes less damage than its predecessor, Little Boy.
33:50They dropped it through a hole in the clouds above the steep valley part of the city, and that deflected the blast.
33:58So even though the Nagasaki bomb was considerably more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, it caused about the same amount of damage and loss of life.
34:10August 9th, 60 years ago this week, with the successful bombing of Nagasaki, Boxcar's crew unwittingly spares the lives of allied POWs
34:18who had recently been moved to a Japanese prison camp in Kokura. Among them is one U.S. Marine who had been stationed in China during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.
34:31He has been imprisoned by the Japanese for more than 1,000 days. During that time, he resourcefully and heroically risked life and limb to document the brutality of his captors.
34:42His name is Terence Kirk.
34:48Terence Kirk.
34:51Imprisoned by the Japanese for 1,355 days, Terence Kirk witnessed firsthand the torture of allied POWs throughout the war.
35:01Born in Harrisburg, Illinois in 1916, Kirk joined the Marines in 1937 at the age of 21.
35:08Four years later in 1941, he would find himself as a prisoner of the Japanese.
35:13Kirk was moved from camp to camp and forced into hard labor.
35:19He and other POWs were routinely beaten and starved.
35:24They picked the biggest guy they could find and beat him until he was unconscious.
35:31And then they wouldn't let the other prisoners help the guy until they gave him permission and sometimes he'd lay there for a whole day.
35:42Sometimes they'd die.
35:45Many became infected with malaria, beriberi, and other deadly diseases.
35:50Thousands of men held in Japanese POW camps would die of malnutrition, disease, and torture.
35:58As months passed, Kirk was forced to watch strong young men disintegrate before his eyes.
36:04Their bodies carted off to Japanese crematoriums, only to return his ashes in small crockpots.
36:09But Terrence Kirk never gave up hope.
36:14The people who didn't have hope died.
36:17If they gave up, they died.
36:19It was very easy for them to do that because they were all so weak.
36:24By 1944, Kirk knew that he had to find a way to tell their stories.
36:28That's when he decided to build a camera, something his brother taught him to do as a child.
36:35Using cardboard he found lying around, tape he stole from an equipment room, and plates smuggled into the camp with the help of a Japanese-American interpreter.
36:44Kirk constructed a pinhole camera right under the noses of the Japanese guards.
36:49They had no idea what I was doing.
36:51And in addition to that ad incest injury, I was using their bathtub as a dark room.
37:01Kirk used his camera to document the brutality of the Japanese, hoping they would be used as evidence in war crimes trials.
37:08I took three pictures of the, uh, the, uh, starving, dying POWs.
37:21I took a picture of the company street.
37:24Then I climbed up on a machine gun nest when the soldier was at lunch and took a picture of the power plant that they were using our camp as a human shield.
37:35They are their only pictures taken during the war, behind enemy lines, and in Japan.
37:44That makes them special.
37:47Risking his life and the lives of those in his pictures, Kirk hid the photos under his sleeping mat inside the camp until the end of the war.
37:56After the war, Kirk turned his photos over to the FBI and the US military.
38:00But for reasons unknown, Kirk was made to sign a gag order and his pictures were never released.
38:06What they did with him, I'll never know.
38:09But the sad part of it is all of those, or most of them now, are buried with the thoughts of terror that they had in Japan.
38:21It wasn't until 1983 that Terrence Kirk would finally tell his story.
38:29He wrote a book entitled The Secret Camera, a lasting tribute to the POWs who died in the Japanese camps.
38:35If the mark of a man is to die without a whimper, it wasn't a boy or a mother.
38:51August 9th.
38:52In the past three days, about 200,000 Japanese people have been violently killed in two atomic blasts.
39:00In my mind, it was the end.
39:05But I don't quite mean the end of World War II.
39:09I've now come to realize that what I meant was the end of all World War.
39:15Because here is a weapon that man can't fight against.
39:19It's so big, it's so enormous, you just can't use it.
39:22It has become painfully clear to the Japanese emperor that if surrender is not immediate, one city after another would suffer the same fate as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
39:36August 9th, Tokyo.
39:39Following the bombing of two Japanese cities and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan,
39:44Emperor Hirohito urges the Supreme War Council to admit defeat and surrender.
39:50But discord erupts among the Imperial High Command.
39:55Now amid the turmoil and destruction, the allies resume airstrikes over Japan.
40:00August 10th, 60 years ago today, U.S. and British planes attack enemy airfields on Honshu, destroying nearly 400 planes and crippling another 320.
40:10The Japanese hit back, but managed to bring down only 34 allied planes.
40:17This very day, the Japanese government informs the allies that they will accept the Potsdam Declaration,
40:23but only if Emperor Hirohito was allowed to remain on the throne.
40:27The Japanese, again, with a lot of division in the government and no assurance that this was actually a possibility,
40:36the Japanese were proposing various methods of ending the war that included retaining the Emperor,
40:44which was something of tremendous emotional importance to the Japanese people.
40:50August 11th, James Burns, U.S. Secretary of State, declares that,
40:54if Japan surrenders, the Emperor will be granted no special privileges.
41:00He will be subject to the rule of General MacArthur in the same way as every other Japanese citizen.
41:05It is even suggested that Hirohito be tried as a war criminal and, if found guilty, sentenced to death.
41:12Upon hearing this, General MacArthur is enraged.
41:14He says that to the Japanese, hanging the Emperor would be akin to Christians crucifying Christ.
41:21A Tokyo radio broadcast condemns the allies as the destroyers of justice and mankind.
41:27As this week draws to a close, the allies await word of Japan's surrender and step up plans for a mainland invasion.
41:33The Japanese and the Japanese and Japanese can turn into a war with Japan.
41:34The Japanese are the soldiers present in the same way as theетрuts of Japan.
41:39This is a 36-13-21-99.
41:40The Japanese are the members of the Japanese.
41:42The Japanese are the Japanese.
41:43The Japanese are the Japanese are the Japanese.
Be the first to comment