All language subtitles for Hiroshima.and.Nagasaki.75.Years.Later.2020.English

(ENGINE STARTING)

PAUL TIBBETS:
Our job was to deliver
one bomb to Hiroshima.

We wanted pinpoint accuracy.

TIBBETS: It was inconceivable as to what we were looking at.

ROBERT FURMAN: One plane had completely devastated the city.

It wasn't there anymore.

NARRATOR: In the decades
that followed the bombings
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

the men and women
of the Manhattan Project,

gave a series
of candid interviews.

ROBERT. R. WILSON:
We did discuss
whether, perhaps,

what we were doing
was morally wrong.

NARRATOR: They talked about
building and using
the ultimate weapon,

and the secret mission
that came next.

PHILIP MORRISON:
The radiologist, he said,

"You Americans conducted
a human experiment."

NARRATOR:
As the city smoldered,

teams from
the Manhattan Project

went to Japan
to study the effects
of the bombs.

STAFFORD L. WARREN: The bodies, of course, of all the dead were in the rubble.

I'll never forget the stench.

NARRATOR: They were followed
by American film crews,

who recorded scenes
of such devastation,

the films were suppressed
for decades.

This is what the Americans saw and the Japanese lived through

at the end of history's
deadliest experiment,

seventy-five years ago.

(WOMAN SPEAKING JAPANESE)

J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER:
We have made a thing,

a most terrible weapon,

that has altered abruptly
and profoundly
the nature of the world.

REPORTER: It's war. Our enemies Japan, Germany and Italy are out in the open.

The nation prepares
to protect its traditions
and its way of life.

Our only cause now is victory.

NARRATOR: As the United States enters World War II,

a group of American scientists with the support of Albert Einstein

are secretly
developing a weapon

with the power
to destroy cities.

The atomic bomb.

Many of the world's leading physicists are German.

The Americans are terrified
that the Nazis will develop
a nuclear device first.

And believe their own
effort is lagging behind.

Codenamed
the Manhattan Project
after its first offices,

the American program
gets a new boss,

Brigadier General
Leslie Groves.

LESLIE GROVES: I started
to review the laboratories.

Columbia, Chicago, Berkeley,

to see just where we stood
scientifically,

and I was horrified to see
how far they were

from anything
that was essential for us
to do any construction with.

They just didn't
know anything.

Before that project,
none of them
had ever had to produce.

They did research.
If it didn't turn out,
well, nobody cared.

If they didn't
feel like working,

that's all right,
they went out
and went fishing,

or played golf
or sat around and talked.

There was none
of the feeling that

"The country depends on me."

NARRATOR: Sharing
an office with Groves

is Brigadier General
Kenneth Nichols.

KENNETH NICHOLS:
General Groves, I would say,

is the biggest son of a bitch
I've ever met, bar none.
(LAUGHS)

He was very cutting
in his remarks,

and in his treatment
of people.

He had the biggest ego of any individual I'd ever met.

Coupled with ego
he had guts.

When he made a decision,
he stuck with it.

You need that type of guy to get a thing like this done.

NARRATOR: One of the
program's scientists
is Samuel K. Allison.

SAMUEL ALLISON:
There was a good deal
of irritation and antagonism.

Groves couldn't
understand the fact

that there was practically
no respect for authority.

NARRATOR: To break
the deadlock,

Groves needs an ally
who can speak
the scientists' language.

His attention is drawn
to a Professor at Berkeley,

known for his
great relationship

with the younger physicists,
J. Robert Oppenheimer.

ROBERT BACHER: If one knew
Robert Oppenheimer
and knew Groves,

it would be hard to think
of two people

who are more unalike,
dissimilar.

ROBERT SERBER: You know,
Oppenheimer had
this inspirational quality.

You know, he spoke very well,

and he had
an appealing character.

GROVES: Oppenheimer's great
mental capacity impressed me.

I was appalled
by his ignorance
of American history.

He had no experience
in administration in any way.

NARRATOR: Nevertheless,
Groves saw something
in the professor

that made him override
any objections.

GROVES: Oppenheimer
was selected by me,

and the whole basis of it was that there wasn't a better man.

BACHER: The fact was,

I think Groves had very great
trust in Oppenheimer.

And when he was told things that were difficult for the project by Oppenheimer,

he'd cope with them
in a very responsive way.

NARRATOR: Now the most powerful scientist in America,

Oppenheimer's task is daunting.

OPPENHEIMER: The doubts
which then existed

were not
of a metaphysical quality.

NARRATOR: Struggling with
the theoretical problems
in designing a bomb,

the Manhattan Project
begins a massive
recruitment drive.

And young physicists
like Philip Morrison

suddenly find themselves
in demand.

MORRISON: We could see
the war was coming
closer and closer

to the United States
and we were fearful.

Hitler was running Europe.

Germany was the leader
of modern physics,

and seemed to have the threat
of a nuclear weapon.

MORRISON: Physicists
were drained out,
everywhere, they disappeared.

We knew very well
that something was going on
in Chicago about fission.

And a lot was going on in
Boston about microwaves.

And I imagined that
there was an atomic project,

a uranium project somewhere.

NARRATOR: That uranium
project is focused
at the University of Chicago,

where scores of scientists

experiment on ways
to create chain reactions.

MORRISON: In December '42,

Bob Christy who'd been
in my class in Berkeley,

asked me to come to Chicago.

And said,
"Now, what do you think
we're doing here?"

I said, "Well,
I don't really know,

"but it's pretty clear to me,
it's something
to do with uranium."

He said, "Yes.
We are making bombs."

This was the most
extraordinary thing

that I had ever heard
anyone say.

My life changed absolutely.

NARRATOR: It's late 1942,

and the Axis powers occupy
large portions of Europe,y.

North Africa and Asia.

In America,
the Manhattan Project

is finally making progress
in the race to build
an atomic bomb.

But it needs
a radiation specialist

to understand the vast
amounts of radioactivity
the bombs will unleash.

Working in Rochester,
New York State,

is Dr. Stafford Warren,

A pioneer in the use of X-rays to detect breast cancer.

WARREN: Late '42,
I was invited to lunch
at the country club,

and I met these two gentlemen
in civilian clothes.

Mr. Groves and Mr. Marshall.

And they said
"We'd like to talk
to you in private."

We got upstairs.

They looked in the closet,

and locked the door.

They said that
"We would like
to have you work

"on a secret program
in which we need a doctor

"who is familiar
with things that
you've been working with."

(CAMERA CLICKS)

I said, "This is radiation?"

He said, "I won't answer that
until we've tried you out."

Then the security people
came and they asked
all our neighbors.

They asked, "Does Mrs. Warren play bridge? Is she a gossip?"

How many children have we got.

Once you're in a highly
classified program,

your life is an open book.

NARRATOR: One of Warren's
first assignments

is to help Groves
build a secret city,

in a remote corner
of Tennessee.

At Oak Ridge,
factories will
be constructed

to refine uranium,
pure enough to fuel
an atomic bomb.

WARREN: Oak Ridge
was a large area
of very low-grade farming.

The topography
lent itself very well

to isolating three or four
big operations
in little valleys,

and it was difficult
to get there.

The only transportation
was a few taxis in Knoxville.

NARRATOR: Oak Ridge
is so remote,

it needs all the amenities
of a major city.

WARREN: "We've got
to build a hospital."

He said, "We'll also
have to worry about
recreation halls,

"and things like that
because this
is going to be classified.

"We'll have to have
all of the essential
elements here."

Anything that
was necessary
to keep them

satisfied with the job.

NARRATOR:
Brigadier General
Kenneth Nichols

is in charge
of the day-to-day
construction.

But the plumbers, electricians and carpenters he hires

won't be told
why they are building a city
that is not on any map.

KENNETH NICHOLS: We had recruiting teams out all the time, all over the country

to bring in the type of labor
that we wanted.

All right, I'll be there.

NICHOLS: Generally,
you told a man no more

than he needed to know
to do his job.

A carpenter didn't worry
what we were making.

He might be building
a dormitory here,

working in one of the plants,
but he didn't know
what it was going to be.

I just learned a secret.
It's a honey. It's a pip.

But the enemy is listening,
so I'll never let it slip.

'Cause when I learn a secret,
boy, I zipper up my lip.

NICHOLS: We would give them
a cover story, classified.

For example,
if we were making
a catalyst with gasoline

to extend the range
of bombers.

NARRATOR: 99% of
the people in Oak Ridge

will not find out
what they are
actually working on,

until after the war
has ended.

NICHOLS: We started
from scratch,

and built the fifth
largest city in Tennessee.

NARRATOR: At its peak,
Oak Ridge will house
75,000 people,

and consume more electricity
than New York City.

Built at a cost
of $1.2 billion,

it is funded directly
by the President,

and not even Congress know
about the vast expense.

As huge factories rise
out of the ground,

the scientists
hit a roadblock.

They don't have
enough uranium 235,

the key radioactive material
to make multiple bombs.

And so their focus shifts

to the newly discovered
element of plutonium.

MORRISON: I remember very well, the shipment was given to us.

This is the first shipment

in which the weight
of the plutonium

is greater than the paper
that goes with it.

NARRATOR: But to make
that plutonium

will require the building
of another massive facility

in the wilds
of Washington State.

GROVES: The whole design

of the plutonium chemical
reduction plant at Hanford,

there were two of them,

cost somewhere around
$50 million apiece.

It was based on
a millionth of a pound
of plutonium.

ALLISON: We decided
on the Columbia River
as the water supply

for the first power reactors
to produce plutonium.

The army was very fearful

that we might make
the water in the Columbia
River radioactive.

GROVES: What we were afraid of

was that the discharge
of radioactive material
would affect the fish.

NARRATOR: Groves calls
in Stafford Warren
to conduct a study.

WARREN: It appeared that

it'd be a good idea
to see whether
the radioactive materials

that were
in the discharge water

were of sufficient
concentration to be
a hazard to the fish.

Because we didn't want
anything to happen

that would give
a bad name to the...
Any stage of the process.

GROVES: We would
have been subjected
to terrific criticism,

if we destroyed
all of the salmon
in the river,

and we would have
scared the country to death.

NARRATOR: It's early 1943,

and the outcome
of World War II
hangs in the balance.

At Stalingrad,

Russia successfully
beats back
the Nazi onslaught

but it had cost
half a million men.

In the Pacific,

US forces suffer
several thousand casualties

as they take control of
the strategically important
island of Guadalcanal

from the Japanese.

And in the United States,

construction is underway
on the classified city
of Oak Ridge, Tennessee,

and the plutonium reactors
at Hanford, Washington State.

But the project needs
a centralized laboratory
for the final stage,

building the atomic bombs.

Oppenheimer suggests
Los Alamos,

which happens to be
near his vacation home
in New Mexico.

OPPENHEIMER: We had a ranch,
Sangre de Cristo, New Mexico.

It's about 3,000 meters high,

and it's 50 miles
by a very rough

and terrible trail
from there to Los Alamos.

GROVES: It was in an area
isolated enough

so that any experiments
wouldn't attract
the attention of people.

NARRATOR: At Los Alamos, there is a boys' school that is struggling financially.

GROVES: It was a school
for rich Easterners

who wanted their sons
to learn what it was

to have a horse
and to live outdoors.

We sort of looked
at it casually.

There were enough
buildings there,

so we could move in
and get started
without waiting.

Didn't take me long to say,
"Well, this is it."

NARRATOR: Within
a matter of weeks,

the finest scientific
minds in the country

are ordered to report
to the secret site
in the New Mexico Desert.

Among them is Philip Morrison.

MORRISON: I came to Los Alamos when many people came to Los Alamos.

Many of my old friends
were there

living in
a wonderful community.

Of course, we worked
around the clock,

six days a week
and Sundays too.

Because every day we read
of the battles

in which our friends
were being killed in droves.

And we were the bottleneck

in the manufacture of a weapon which if we didn't make first,

would lead to
the loss of the war.

NARRATOR:
In the fall of 1944,

ace pilot Colonel
Paul Tibbets gets
a call from the brass.

TIBBETS: I was called
to the office

of Commanding General
of the Second Air Force.

He told me that
I had been selected

to organize a unit

that will be capable of
employing this atomic weapon.

Needless to say that
I didn't comprehend
everything that was going on.

He said, "You've got to work
with General Groves,
you've got to satisfy him."

NARRATOR: The design
of the bomb
had not been finalized,

but it's anticipated
to be larger and heavier
than any before it.

TIBBETS: We were
not permitted
to use radar.

Meaning we were only allowed
to make a release
under visual condition.

So they gave us
some practice units.

The shape was
the actual shape
of the bomb.

Our particular job
was to deliver one bomb.

We wanted pinpoint accuracy.

NARRATOR: But at Los Alamos,

the scientists' faith
in building a real bomb
is about to be shaken.

Here it is,
General Groves,
plutonium.

NARRATOR: The bomb's design
is based on the scientists'
experiments with uranium.

But the material
Groves has spent

hundreds of millions
of dollars creating

is the lesser
known plutonium.

Well, that's the, uh,
first I've ever seen,

but, uh, after this,
if you don't mind,

I wish you'd hold
something under it,

because after all,

there's about
over $50 million
in that tube.

MAN: Cut.

NARRATOR: But initial
tests show this plutonium
is so volatile,

it can burn itself up
before the weapon
leaves the lab,

making it a dud.

MORRISON: The kind
of plutonium material
they were making

was too radioactive
ever to make a bomb

according to the design
that was then current.

NARRATOR: Physicist
Robert Bacher
witnesses the repercussions.

BACHER: That then caused
the whole project to have
an enormous crisis.

The nature of the explosive
charge just needed
complete re-design.

Groves, when
I told him first,

went just as white
as that sheet of paper.

NARRATOR: Uncertain now
if plutonium will work,

Groves orders the labs
to develop a uranium bomb

and a plutonium bomb
at the same time.

MORRISON:
There were two bombs,

in everybody's mind,
as soon as this
was discovered,

the Fat Man
and Little Boy.

NARRATOR: It will be
a race against time

to get a functional
plutonium design
before the war ends.

REPORTER: (ON RADIO)
The red army is
advancing street by street

through the burning
ruins of Berlin.

The war in Europe is ending.

On the other side
of the world
in the Pacific,

on the islands
and coral atolls,

the Japanese
are resisting fanatically.

The toll of United States dead and wounded on the beaches and the jungles is rising.

FURMAN: As it became apparent
that the Germans
would be defeated,

Groves began to talk
about targets in Japan
with Roosevelt.

NARRATOR: As the idea of using the atomic bomb to end the war gains traction,

Colonel Paul Tibbets,
who will drop the bomb,

is brought more fully
into the plan.

TIBBETS: I was called in
to a meeting in February
or March of '45,

here in the Pentagon
in which I was told

that certain targets
had been selected in Japan

that had not been bombed.

And the reason was
they wanted to be able
to make bomb blast studies

on virgin targets
once the bombs were used.

NARRATOR:
As the war progressed,

US planes had fire bombed the industrial cities that fed the Japanese military machine

but the loss of life
has been staggering.

In Tokyo, 100,00 perish
in a single night.

FURMAN: There was
a great problem
of trying to find targets

because we had bombed
so many cities.

They tossed around Kyoto
as a prime target

and that was thrown
out because
it's a religious center.

NARRATOR: The targets
shortlisted are Yokohama,

Kokura, Niigata, Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.

But suddenly the project
is faced with
an unexpected twist.

REPORTER: The grief
stricken nation
mourns the death

of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, President
of the United States.

Vice-President Harry S. Truman takes the oath of office as 32nd President.

NARRATOR: Groves is called
in to brief his new boss.

GROVES: As far as I know
and I've never heard
anything to the contrary,

Mr. Truman knew nothing
about this project

until he became President.

NARRATOR: Groves quickly
receives the backing
of the new president,

but whether the bomb
will actually work
is still in doubt.

NARRATOR: On July 16th,
as fighting continues
in the Pacific,

the men of the
Manhattan project

prepare for the first
test of the bomb

at a site in the desert
some 200 miles
from Los Alamos.

The entire team works
around the clock
to get the test ready,

but the most critical job
falls to Robert Bacher,

head of the so-called
"G Division."

BACHER: G stood for "Gadget".

It was a simple code word
for the bomb.

The problem of getting ready
was pretty rough.

NARRATOR: Designed
to be the most devastating
weapon in history,

how much destruction
the explosion will cause
is unknown.

Most observers are positioned
20 miles from the bomb site.

But Dr. Stafford Warren
fears that may
not be far enough.

WARREN: I was the only one
who had any worry
about afterwards.

So we began
to lay out a plan

for distributing
the people around

in case we were wiped out
at the headquarters.

There was a ditch there
which had some dry leaves
and some hay in it,

so we suggested that
everybody lie down
in the ditch.

Oppie, he was in the bunker
where a lot of the control
equipment was.

In 40 seconds
we'll know.

The stakes
are pretty high.

ISIDOR ISAAC RABI:
It's going to work
all right, Robert,

and I'm sure,

we'll never
be sorry for it.

MAN: (ON RADIO)
40, 39, 38, 37...

26, 25, 24, 23...

Nine, eight, seven, six,

five, four, three,
two, one, now.

WARREN: At first, of course,
there was a feeling
of great heat,

as if you had just opened
a great big furnace door.

BACHER: It was even
more impressive

than most everybody thought
it was going to be.

SERBER: It was as if somebody
had set off a flashbulb
right in your face.

You got completely blinded
for about 30 seconds.

Then gradually,
your vision cleared.

OPPENHEIMER: I remembered
the Hindu scripture,

"Now I am become death
the destroyer of worlds."

MORRISON:
I really thought
it would be terrible.

But, you know,
we were committed
by that time.

REPORTER: During
a series of meetings
in Potsdam, Germany,

the final doom of Japan
is settled by the big three
and their advisors.

Delivering an ultimatum
of unconditional surrender
to the Nipponese war lords.

NARRATOR: The day after
the test explosion
in New Mexico,

Truman meets his Soviet
and British allies

to discuss how to end
the war in the East.

Let's not forget

that we
are fighting
for peace.

NARRATOR: Although
it does not talk openly
of a nuclear device,

the Potsdam Declaration warns

that if the Japanese
do not immediately surrender,

they will face prompt
and utter destruction.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile,
the first atomic bomb,

the enriched
uranium Little Boy,
leaves Los Alamos

under the watchful eye
of General Grove's assistant,
Robert Furman.

FURMAN: When the
bomb was ready,

General Groves sent me
out to pick it up,

and I remember
the authorities in Los
Alamos wanted a receipt,

so I signed a receipt
for an atomic bomb.

Then they decided
it was too secret for me
to keep the receipt.

And they actually developed
a receipt for the receipt
that I had just given them.

(LAUGHS)

Then I took
the bomb in a convoy
down the mountain.

And then we had a flat tire.

Very secret,
very important project

stood by the side of the road
while some GI fixed a tire.

(LAUGHS)

In Albuquerque,
I got on a plane
with the bomb.

There was a plane
ahead of me
and one behind me,

and we flew without incident
over to San Francisco,

and took the bomb aboard
the Indianapolis,

which then sailed
the Pacific.

What I carried was
really half the bomb.

Because if I had
the whole bomb the thing
would blow up at any time.

So the other half
was flown over.

NARRATOR: The warship
USS Indianapolis

carries Furman
and the bomb

across the Pacific
to the island of Tinian
in record time.

But only three days
after depositing
its precious cargo...

The Indianapolis is sunk
by Japanese torpedoes

in shark infested waters.

Of the nearly 1,200
men onboard,
only 316 survive.

At the same time
at Los Alamos,

the scientists are having
second thoughts
about their experiment.

MORRISON: Once it became clear the Germans were beaten,

the original sense of fear
and anxiety disappeared
from the project.

At Los Alamos,
there was certainly concern

whether somehow the project
was no longer necessary.

NARRATOR: Young physicists
like Robert Wilson

are deeply concerned
by the ethics.

WILSON: I organized a small meeting at Los Alamos.

The title was "The Impact
of The Gadget
on Civilization".

In between
30 and 50 people came.

We did discuss whether perhaps what we were doing was morally wrong.

MORRISON: There was
a great deal
of feeling of hesitancy,

but there was a great deal
of feeling it was not
our responsibility to decide.

NARRATOR:
With trademark charm,

Oppenheimer
intervenes to keep
the scientists on track.

MORRISON: Oppenheimer's view
was that unless we found out

if there was such a thing
as nuclear weapons,

you could hardly build a peace in which nuclear weapons were not recognized.

WILSON: On that logical basis,

we all decided that
that was right,

and that we ought to go back
in the laboratory,

and work as hard
as we could to demonstrate
a nuclear weapon.

NARRATOR: But that does not
entirely settle the matter,

as over 100 scientists
from Oak Ridge
and the Chicago lab,

dispatch a secret letter
to the White House,

insisting that the bomb
should not be dropped

without prior warning
to the Japanese.

NARRATOR: The idea
is rejected by the military.

Not least the man whose job
will be to drop the bomb,

Paul Tibbets.

TIBBETS: When we
were on the island,
I heard certain things.

One of the things suggested
was that we drop this weapon

where they could see it explode,

and from that realize
that we had a terrible
weapon of destruction.

I would liken this
to the fighter
in the prize ring.

I don't see any reason
to telegraph your blow.

FURMAN: Everybody
on the military side
wanted to see it dropped.

From where we sat,
the Japanese were determined

to fight to the very end.

The whole country was being
directed by the military,

and the military
would not give up.

REPORTER: At Okinawa alone,
50,000 American casualties.

The military is determined
to fight to the death.

Their plans are carried out
by the Kamikaze pilots.

Sworn to give their lives
for the Emperor
and the honor of the nation,

they carry on the only
air war left to Japan.

GROVES: If we didn't
use the bomb,
it would have come out.

Sooner or later,
in a congressional hearing,
if nowhere else.

And then every mother
whose son

was killed after such
and such a date,

the blood is on the head
of the President.

NARRATOR: The debate ends.

And a few days before
the bomb is to be dropped,

scientists Robert Serber
and Philip Morrison

are dispatched
across the Pacific
to help arm the bomb.

TIBBETS: The night
before we took off,

the people from Trinity
had arrived in the Marianas,

and they had with them
colored photographs

of the Trinity explosion
in New Mexico.

So we got the gang together.

TIBBETS: Gentlemen,

when we met
at Wendover

for the first
time about ten
months ago,

I told you at that
time that I had
great hopes

that the mission
that we are about

to undertake
could end the war.

We didn't use the word
atomic bomb.

We did not use that.
But we said, "Okay.
Now this is the bomb."

This is what will happen

when we make
our flight tomorrow.

This is what
we're gonna see.

NARRATOR: As the
Americans prepare
to use the weapon,

citizens of Hiroshima, like school girl Fumiko Amano,

go about their lives
as best they can
against the backdrop of war.

(FUMIKO AMANO
SPEAKING JAPANESE)

NARRATOR: It's the early hours of August the 6th.

On Tinian Island,
pilot Paul Tibbets

assembles the crew
of his plane the Enola Gay.

After months of practice
in the Utah desert,

final preparations
are being made for
the first atomic mission.

The culmination
of an experiment
years in the making.

No mistakes can be made.

TIBBETS: Take-off was somewhere around 2:00 in the morning.

It had been agreed
that we would not take off
with the bomb armed

because, should there be
an accident of any kind,

the chances of losing
half of the island existed.

NARRATOR: Among the planes
accompanying the Enola Gay,

are two carrying scientists
from Los Alamos

there to survey
the biggest explosion
in history.

TIBBETS: We climbed up
to our altitudes,

started on our way
to our rendezvous
at Iwo Jima.

NARRATOR: With 1,500
miles to Japan,

Tibbets must level
with the crew.

TIBBETS: Once we were airborne,

I called back
where the enlisted men were,

poured some coffee,

and I told them actually
what we were doing
and what we were carrying.

NARRATOR: One concern
is the aftershock
could knock the plane

out of the sky.

TIBBETS: About 30 minutes
from our landfall on Japan,

the weather being clear
at our primary,
which was Hiroshima,

there was no decision left.

(BELLS TOLLING)

NARRATOR: Oblivious
to what is coming,

Hiroshima residents like
six-year-old Takako Kotani

wake to a beautiful
summer's morning.

(TAKAKO KOTANI
SPEAKING JAPANESE)

NARRATOR: Takako's family are planning to leave the city,

believing they will soon
be a target for conventional
bombing raids.

(TAKAKO KOTANI
SPEAKING JAPANESE)

NARRATOR:
Having circled the city
at 8:15 a.m.,

the Enola Gay reaches
its release point.

(TAKAKO KOTANI
SPEAKING JAPANESE)

TIBBETS: The bomb blast hit us in two different shockwaves.

We continued our turn
to head directly back
towards Hiroshima.

It was kind of inconceivable
as to what we were
looking at there.

This explosion was so big
that it seemed almost unreal.

NARRATOR: Exploding 1,870
feet above the ground,

the bomb unleashes a shockwave

that spreads 15 miles
within a minute,

and a ball of fire
one mile high.

(FUMIKO AMANO
SPEAKING JAPANESE)

PRESIDENT TRUMAN:
A short time ago,

an American airplane

dropped one bomb
on Hiroshima

and destroyed
its usefulness
to the enemy.

That bomb has more power
than 20,000 tons of TNT.

It is an atomic bomb

loosed against those
who brought war

to the Far East.

NARRATOR: To the leader
of the Manhattan Project,

this mission
has been successful.

GROVES: After I got
the first news
of the dropping,

this was about
11:30 at night,

I went right to sleep.

Oh, no, I never had
any trouble sleeping.

MORRISON: When the aircraft
came back from the raid,

as soon as the pilot
leaped onto the ground,

a big medal was pinned
on his chest.

And that was
the time of triumph.

A large party which lasted
for a long time.

I think we did not understand the full novelty of our weapon.

NARRATOR: In Tokyo,
the newspapers report

that Hiroshima
has been attacked
by a new type of bomb.

There are no details
and the government
is skeptical,

as Japanese war-time leaders
will later explain.

HISATSUNE SAKOMIZU:
President Truman
first mentioned

that it was
an atomic bomb,

but we didn't believe
what he said.

COLONEL SABURO:
On the following day,
August 7th,

General Arisue,
of Japanese intelligence,

headed an investigating team,

including the nuclear
physicist Dr. Nishina

and flew to Hiroshima
to investigate.

GENERAL ARISUE:
When the plane flew
over Hiroshima,

there was but
one dead tree

and it looked like
a great claw.

There was nothing there,

but for that dead tree.

GENERAL ARISUE:
But Dr. Nishina,
the nuclear physicist,

said it's the atomic bomb.

NARRATOR: But in spite
of this discovery,

the Japanese
do not surrender.

And three days later,

the plutonium-fueled Fat Man
is loaded onto a B-29.

The bomb
is due to be dropped
on the city of Kokura.

But bad weather forces
the pilot to divert

to Nagasaki.

Exploding over Nagasaki
at 1,650 feet,

but slightly off target,

it's effect is nearly
as devastating

as the uranium bomb
in Hiroshima.

NARRATOR: In spite of pressure from his generals to continue the war,

Emperor Hirohito
decides to surrender.

(HIROHITO SPEAKING JAPANESE)

NARRATOR: In Hiroshima,
the surrender
has come too late

for Takako Kotani
and her family.

(TAKAKO KOTANI
SPEAKING JAPANESE)

NARRATOR: At Los Alamos,
news of the bomb's explosion

is initially greeted
with a sense of satisfaction.

But at this point,
little is known
about the effects

of the atomic bomb
experiment.

Awaiting news

is Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Stafford Warren,

the project's
radiation specialist.

WARREN: Well, I think
it was about August 12th.

I suddenly was tracked down
by a GI in a car

who said General wanted
to talk to me.

And he said
he was offering me,

not ordering me,

because the situation
was pretty delicate,

the chance to lead a party
into Nagasaki and Hiroshima

to study the casualties

and, above all,
what contamination

of radioactive material
was on the ground.

NARRATOR: When
planning the bomb,
physicists calculated

that if it exploded
above a certain altitude,

the dangerous by-product
of radiation

would simply
be blown away.

It would be Stafford's job
to find out

if this really
had been the case.

WARREN: The expectation had
been with the high detonation

of the two bombs,

that there would
be almost none
on the ground to study.

NARRATOR: Allowed only
one call to his wife,

Warren heads
to San Francisco

to begin
the long journey west.

WARREN: There were
about 20 of us.

GIs and officers, medics.

When we left San Francisco

everybody was looking
out the windows

to be sure that
they got a good view,

as it might be their
last view of the States.

We had no idea
what to expect.

NARRATOR: The mission
comes with risks.

Although the Emperor
has announced
the Japanese surrender,

no formal peace
has been reached.

Landing at Tinian,

Warren is joined
by scientists Robert Serber
and Philip Morrison

whose job will be to explore
the physical impact

on the bombed cities.

MORRISON:
I was frightened.

They had a terrible war.

We burned the hell
out of them.

I was especially afraid
because we went ahead
of the occupation troops.

NARRATOR: In the first
week of September,

the American mission
arrives in Tokyo

and is divided
into two groups.

One will go to Nagasaki,

the other,
led by Stafford Warren,

will go to Hiroshima.

For the traveling
scientists and medics,

the scenes
are apocalyptic.

Images captured by
the first American cameramen
in color footage,

large sections of which
have never been
publicly broadcast

and are shown now
with black and white footage,

confiscated from
Japanese film crews.

WARREN: We headed
to the middle of Hiroshima.

(FLIES BUZZING)

There were flies everywhere.

They were so bad
that we had to close up
the windows to the car

to keep the flies out.

Then you would see
a man or a woman

with what looked like
a polka-dot shirt,

but when you got up close,
it was just a mass of flies.

The bodies, of course,
of all the dead
were in the rubble.

And the stench
was just something awful.

I'll never forget
the stench.

NARRATOR: 185 miles
to the southwest,

the second American team
nears Nagasaki.

Their radiation doctor
is Navy reservist
Shields Warren.

He's had no prior involvement
in the Manhattan Project,

but on hearing news
of the bombs,

he lobbied his superiors
to send him to Japan.

SHIELDS WARREN: I thought that we had grave responsibility

to get medical teams
into the area

and that it was
very urgent

that the atomic
bombs survivors
should be studied.

NARRATOR: As he
approaches Nagasaki,

he is unprepared for
the destruction he sees.

SHIELDS WARREN:
We had come from Isahaya,

winding over
terraced hillsides

and entered a tunnel
through the mountains.

When we came out
the other side,

we shifted from a view
of a peaceful countryside

to utter devastation.

NARRATOR: In Nagasaki,
the survey discovers the bomb

has damaged or destroyed 88%
of the buildings in the city,

over an area of
40 square miles.

SHIELDS WARREN: A large
portion of it was essentially
squashed flat.

The steelwork
of the Mitsubishi
shipbuilding plant

looked exactly as though

a giant had simply
smeared it with his hands.

You could see grass
and plants

that had been burned
into the wood

by the intense heat
of the bomb.

NARRATOR:
Back in Hiroshima,

a nervous Stafford Warren
and his team

settle in under
the watchful eye
of their Japanese hosts.

WARREN: We were the first
ambassadors of the country.

The Japanese had us
bivouacked into what was
a very famous hotel.

It was about five miles
down the harbor.

MORRISON: There were guards,
armed guards.

We couldn't understand
them very well.

But I said,
"It's very strange
to be here

"if somebody decides that
we are the very culprits

"that blew up their cities."

WARREN: We all decided
the best thing
was to act nonchalant,

but sleep on our guns.

NARRATOR: The next day,
they'll meet the victims
of the bomb

for the first time.

It's been less than
24 hours since
they arrived in Hiroshima

and the American team
prepares to meet

Japanese victims
of the bomb.

WARREN: The second morning
we began to be aware
in the bushes

were vague forms
with white bandages.

It turned out that here were
probably 10,000 casualties

being treated in
a kind of outdoor hospital.

We asked, "Are there any
of these that we could
do anything for?"

Because we had
penicillin with us,

but they said, "No."

NARRATOR: The Japanese
have agreed to cooperate
with the American survey

on the condition that they do not interfere with the work of local doctors.

They are here
only to observe and record.

SHIELDS WARREN:
Under the terms
of the treaty,

we were not allowed to treat
any Japanese ourselves.

Of course, sooner or later
this broke down

and we were treating them
just like the Japanese were.

And lots of things,
we ought to have done
but we just couldn't do.

NARRATOR: Initial estimates have put the fatalities from Hiroshima at more than 70,000,

but the death toll keeps rising

and the doctors' job
is to decipher

what it is about
the atomic bomb that
has caused these injuries.

SHIELDS WARREN:
One of our main tasks
was to try to decide

how many of the casualties
were due to radiation,

how many to other injuries
instant to the explosion.

It was singularly difficult
to get adequate
eyewitness accounts

as the survivors
were overwhelmed.

Time and again they would say,

"I saw a bright flash
and then a cloud rolled
over my mind."

NARRATOR: Among the survivors
is Akira Nakamura,

a 14-year-old factory worker
in Nagasaki.

(AKIRA NAKAMURA
SPEAKING JAPANESE)

NARRATOR: The accounts
of the explosion

confirm the medics'
expectations

about the immediate effects
of the bomb blast,

but what they are really here
to discover is the invisible
effect of the radiation.

WARREN: We weren't
particularly interested
in skin burns.

Skin burns and things
like that were common
to all warfare.

We'd divide our day in half.

In the morning,
we would see casualties.

In the afternoon,
we would look
over the destruction

and try to make measurements

what the downwind
contamination might be.

NARRATOR: While Stafford Warren and his medical team explore the human costs,

physicist Robert Serber
studies the effect on
buildings and infrastructure.

SERBER: Bill Penney and I
wandered around Nagasaki

and Hiroshima, now,
for several weeks.

Completely alone.

The thing that was really
astonishing about
the whole thing was,

we had no difficulty at all
with the people.

We wandered around the ruins

among the people
whose families
had all been killed.

We had no feeling
of danger at all.

NARRATOR: The scientists
want to establish

how the blast effects
in an atom bomb compare
to conventional weapons.

To do this, they must
verify the height
at which the bomb exploded.

Serber needs
to find a building

that is still standing
which was directly in line
with the bomb.

SERBER: It's a piece of a wall

of a schoolhouse in Hiroshima,

about half a mile from where
the bomb went off,

and it's flash burned,
scarred by broken glass.

You can see the shadows
of the window sash

and the chord of the shade.

And from the angle
of which this
shadow was cast,

we could measure the height
at which the bomb went off.

And this was the evidence,

that it really went off
at the height of what
was supposed to be Hiroshima.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile,
Philip Morrison
searches the city

to quantify the effects
of the radiation.

MORRISON: I went around
just as Bob Serber did

and tried to look
for significant clues,

measuring, confirming,
the Japanese measurements
out on the site.

NARRATOR: But with a month
having elapsed since
the initial detonation,

he needs local help.

MORRISON: I discovered
the man called Kimura.

Kimura lived
in a little,
one-room shelter.

And he had
a very nice electrometer

and a stopwatch,
and a slide rule,

and many, many,
foils that he had collected

with phosphorus on them from the bones of the victims.

And he had measured
these radiation doses,

and done the right calculations all over the city.

NARRATOR: Contrary
to American expectations,

Kimura's results show
vast quantities

of highly toxic
radioactive matter fell

in doses up to
1.5 million times greater

than that judged safe
for a medical X-ray.

NARRATOR: It's six weeks
since the bombs were dropped.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki
have been decimated
by the blasts.

And the US scientific mission
is finding people

in both cities
suffering the effects
of radioactive fallout.

Throughout
the Manhattan Project,

Stafford Warren has conducted
radiation experiments
on animals and fish.

These studies
will provide clues

to how much radioactivity
has been absorbed
by the Japanese people.

WARREN: We had expected
from our animal
experiments to find

a great deal
of gastrointestinal damage

as well as bone marrow damage
and blood count reductions.

In the dogs, we had extensive
information about the timing.

We didn't know what the timing of these clinical changes

would be in the human because there was no prior experience.

NARRATOR: While the team
had guessed most deaths would
come from the bomb blast,

the radiation is causing
a second wave of fatalities.

Sawako Tamura is one of the nurses who witnessed it.

(SAWAKO TAMURA
SPEAKING JAPANESE)

NARRATOR: These survivors
continue to turn up weeks
after the bombing,

puzzling the US
scientific team.

WARREN: Day after day
we would come and look
at these people

and they would have
purpura, bleeding spots,

about eighth of an inch
in diameter, on various
parts of the body.

Mostly face, chest, and arms.

Any place that got
slightly bruised had
a hemorrhage underneath

and they would be
a sickly yellow color.

And we did a few
white blood counts

and found 50 cells
instead of 5,000.

The next day we'd come back
and they'd be gone.

They had been
incinerated overnight.

NARRATOR: Across the city,
people who survived the bomb,

like 20-year-old Aoki Shigeru, are afraid they will develop the same symptoms.

(SHIGERU AOKI
SPEAKING JAPANESE)

NARRATOR: One theory why many
continue to show symptoms

is that two hours
after the bomb fell,

a storm broke over Hiroshima,

the falling water mixed
with radioactive dust
from the explosion,

creating a toxic "black rain"
that fell on the survivors.

(MAKOTO NAGAHARA
SPEAKING JAPANESE)

NARRATOR: Though the radiation has killed tens of thousands,

in a rare case, Shields Warren encounters a doctor

who has actually benefited
from the bomb.

SHIELDS WARREN:
One remembers
little oddities.

The professor was suffering
from leukemia,

and he was actually helped
by the bomb.

He got about 300 R
and it shrank
his spleen appreciatively.

NARRATOR: It's a singular case of good fortune.

The team discovers radioactive fallout extends for 30 miles beyond the city.

In the final toll
it's estimated

140,000 people died
from the initial explosions,

but a further 60,000 die from
radiation sickness between
August and November.

As the team is ordered home, talk turns to the helpful role of the local Japanese.

SHIELDS WARREN:
By the 26th of September,

we had located
most of the survivors.

Without the wholehearted
cooperation of the Japanese,

we wouldn't have been able
to accomplish a fraction
of what we did.

I was tremendously impressed
by the cooperation

that we had, not only
from the scientific Japanese,

but at every level.

MORRISON: The only

nuanced but clearly
present resistance

that I found
from any Japanese,

in my entire tour
through Japan,

the radiologist Suzuki

from the University of Tokyo,

very distinguished.

He said the following thing
which I'll never forget.

Very polite,
quite good English,

"Dr. Morrison."

"Yes."

"I have some experience
in radiation,
whole body radiation,

"but mine was only

"a few dogs.

"You Americans conducted
a human experiment."

NARRATOR: October 1945,
and the scientific mission

to study the effects
of the bombs
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

returns to America.

On landing in Santa Fe,

Stafford Warren
is immediately taken

by General Groves
to Los Alamos

for a grand ceremony

celebrating the success
of the bomb.

WARREN: The E ceremony,

a capital E
for excellent performance

during the war.

In any case, the Manhattan
Engineer District
job was done.

It had delivered the bombs,

better than they had
expected from the
military standpoint of view.

I got home
about 9:00 that night

and I slept
almost three days solid.

NARRATOR: One month later,

Groves is called
before a Senate Committee

in Washington DC

convened to understand

whether the billion-dollar experiment has been a success.

GROVES: The atomic
bomb mission
which we had overseas

made no attempt
at Nagasaki and Hiroshima

to secure or estimate
the exact casualties

because the mission
did not survey the cities

until over a month

after the dropping
of the bombs.

The best overall estimates
come from the Japanese.

At Hiroshima,
the casualties,
dead and missing,

were somewhere
between 70,000 and 120,000.

The injured between
75,000 and 200,000.

At Nagasaki,

the dead and missing
were between 40 and 45,000,

and the injured about 40,000.

The atomic bomb

made it impossible

for the Japanese
to continue the war.

Senator, in answer
to your question

as to what are the prospects
of an effective defense

against the atomic bomb,

I would state

that there are
no prospects

at the present time
of an effective defense.

NARRATOR: At the hearing,
the Senate accepts
Groves' declaration

that because the bombs
ended the war,

hundreds of thousands
of Japanese and American
lives were saved,

but he makes no disclosure

of the mission's findings
on radiation.

And the team
who went to Japan

are given no time
to write up their results,

as leading members are asked

to help plan the testing
of new bombs.

WARREN: Unfortunately,
when I got home,

I had those two problems,

one was the unwinding
of the military operation,

and the other
was the Bikini preparations.

I was transferred
to the Joint Task Force

by General Groves

very soon after I got back,

before I could do
any writing up.

MAN: Three, two, one.

WARREN: The only write-up
is the Army Historical Unit's
report of my office,

and that is rather sketchy.

And then Shields Warren was appointed as my successor.

SHIELDS WARREN:
Eventually, a monograph
on the acute effects

of the atomic bomb
in Japan came out.

This was delayed

for a long time
through red tape

and did not appear
until 1951.

NARRATOR: The film footage
and medical reports

were stored in warehouses

and classified,

deemed too sensitive to be
viewed or shared for decades.

To the future head
of atomic safety,

Shields Warren,
it became clear

that most people
wanted to draw
a line under the bombings.

NEWSREEL:
Washington is jubilant

and in Chicago

more than a million sing
and dance in the streets.

SHIELDS WARREN:
I was in and out
of Washington enough

after the Hiroshima bomb
had exploded

to know that there
were no plans to follow
up study, medically.

It was quickly apparent
that the general tendency
in government,

and indeed the public
as a whole,

once the war and immediate
post-War period was over,

was to go back
to things as usual

and not realize

the entirely new type
of scientific world

into which the development

of the atomic bomb
had thrust us.

NARRATOR: The war
may have been over

but there was great regret

amongst team members
like Philip Morrison.

He'd been part of the atomic
experiment from the beginning

but had also witnessed
the huge impact

the bombs had
on a civilian population.

MORRISON: I was
pretty conflicted about
the whole history of the war.

It was such
a terrible thing to do,

but we never saw
that it could be avoided.

In two years
the whole society changed,

and the world changed,

to the murder
in some obscure way

of a whole city.

Nobody really understood
our weapon,

nobody could see
what the future meant,

how great it would come to be,

how numerous
they would come to be.

NARRATOR: In the years
that follow the bombing
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

deaths continue to grow
with 60,000 more
people perishing

from radiation related
illnesses across
the next seven decades.

The morality of dropping
the bombs continues
to be debated,

but for those
who built them,

its success remains
a necessary evil,

to end a war that had already
cost millions of lives.

Well, the Manhattan Project
is a tremendous project.

It built three
or four cities.

It managed research
in six or seven universities.

It's a miracle that
the bomb was developed.

It's wonderful that
we were able to use it
to end the war.

The dropping of the atomic bomb

started the Atomic Age.

It's the biggest thing
that we have to manage.

NARRATOR: A message reiterated by the architect of the bomb,

J. Robert Oppenheimer.

I have been
asked whether

in the years to come
it will be possible to kill

40 million
American people

in the 20 largest
American towns

by the use of atomic bombs
in a single night.

I am afraid that the answer
to that question is yes.

NARRATOR: Oppenheimer
will spend
the rest of his life

speaking publicly
about the dangers
of his invention.

OPPENHEIMER: Members
of the academy,

some of you will
have seen photographs

of the Nagasaki strike,

seen the great steel girders
of factories twisted
and wrecked.

Some of you will have seen
pictures of the people
who were burned.

We have made a thing
that by all standards
of the world we grew up in

is an evil thing.

A most terrible weapon.

It has altered abruptly
and profoundly

the nature of the world.

During our lifetime,

atomic weapons could be either a great or a small trouble.

The pattern of the use
of atomic weapons

was set at Hiroshima.

They are weapons
of aggression,

of surprise and of terror.

For not even
a better understanding
of the physical world

should make us content
to see these weapons

turned to the devastation
of the earth.

If they are ever used again,

I think that it will not help
to avert such a war

if we try to rub the edges
off this new terror

that we have helped
bring to the world.

I think the only hope

for our future safety

must lie in
the collaboration

based on confidence
and good faith

with the other peoples
of the world.

NARRATOR: 75 years
after the dropping
of the bomb,

the message is echoed
by the Japanese survivors

for whom the experiment
never ended.

(SHIGERU AOKI
SPEAKING JAPANESE)

(TAKAKO KOTANI
SPEAKING JAPANESE)

NARRATOR: Every year
on August 6th,

Japanese gather with lanterns
to remember the dead

and remind the world
of the scars of the bomb.

(SAWAKO TAMURA
SPEAKING JAPANESE)