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00:00North Field, on the island of Tinian, in the Marianas, 1,500 miles south of Japan.
00:20In the summer of 1945, this was the biggest air base in the world.
00:31Here on August the 5th, the world's first uranium bomb was loaded into a B-29 bomber
00:36named Enola Gay, after its pilot's mother.
00:42The next morning, before dawn, the Enola Gay took off, its target, Hiroshima.
01:12In the morning of August the 5th, the world's first uranium bomb was loaded into a B-29
01:19bomber named Enola Gay, after its pilot's mother.
01:26In the morning of August the 5th, the world's first uranium bomb was loaded into a B-29
01:33bomber named Enola Gay, after its pilot's mother.
01:40In the morning of August the 5th, the world's first uranium bomb was loaded into a B-29
01:51bomber named Enola Gay, after its pilot's mother.
01:52On April the 12th, 1945, Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States, died suddenly.
02:02The nation mourned its lost leader.
02:11He had brought them from the depths of economic depression 12 years before.
02:16Now he had led them to the eve of victory in a world war.
02:22Two months before his death, Roosevelt had been at Yalta in Russia, laying the political
02:27foundations of the post-war world.
02:30Roosevelt and Churchill wanted to restore democracy to Eastern Europe, particularly
02:35Poland.
02:37They also asked Stalin to confirm that Russia would join the war against Japan three months
02:42after the defeat of Germany.
02:45In a cheerful atmosphere, the big three thought they had reached agreement.
02:51Well, Yalta was really the high point of the relationship between the three men.
02:56Victory was in the air.
02:57The Germans were in retreat.
03:01So there was a little more talk, in addition to military matters, of the future.
03:07Poland again became the most troublesome point.
03:12And it's interesting that both Roosevelt and Churchill felt they had an agreement with
03:18Stalin.
03:19The problem with Poland, as with all Eastern Europe, was that the Western leaders wanted
03:25a freely elected government there.
03:28The Soviets wanted a government friendly to Russia.
03:31They thought the West understood and accepted this.
03:36Poland, from their point of view, was not going to be an outpost of the West, nor any
03:42of the Balkan countries.
03:44They thought they'd had various agreements about spheres of influence with Mr. Churchill.
03:51They left Greece pretty much in British hands.
03:56They had certain proportional influences in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, particularly Poland.
04:04My impression at Yalta was that the Russians thought we had, in substance, accepted that
04:15demand.
04:17After Yalta, Roosevelt lived for only two months.
04:23Even by then, he and Churchill had become disillusioned by the interpretations the Russians
04:27were putting on what was agreed there.
04:30The very, very tough exchange of telegrams on both sides between Stalin and Roosevelt
04:35makes it very plain that Roosevelt, before he died, knew that Stalin was breaking his
04:40agreements.
04:41I think it went sour because the military developments strengthened Russia's hands,
04:50where the Russians had felt it necessary to be considerate of Western opinion.
04:55At Yalta, a few months later, they didn't feel any such necessity because the war was
05:01going so well for them, and therefore they swept aside some of the engagements they got
05:06into.
05:07That certainly applied particularly about Poland.
05:11Roosevelt had been seen as a friend by the Russians.
05:15His successor, Harry Truman, was an unknown quantity, both to them and to his own advisers.
05:20I left as soon as Roosevelt died to go back to see Mr. Truman.
05:26I wanted to be sure that President Truman understood the position of our relationships
05:31because there had been so much euphoria in the air about the warm relationships that
05:37existed with our gallant allies.
05:42And I got home within a week of the time Roosevelt had died.
05:47I found, in my first experience with President Truman, I found he was an avid reader.
05:53I found he'd read all the telegrams and understood from those messages the difficulty
06:00we were going to have.
06:03The arrival of their foreign minister, Molotov, in Washington on April the 23rd gave Truman
06:09a chance to prove, as he put it, that he would stand up to the Russians.
06:13Even as his arrival raised hopes on the thorny Polish question, the world learned that Russia
06:18had just signed a 20-year pact of friendship with Poland's Warsaw government.
06:23This Polish government had no pro-Western members.
06:25They were all pro-Soviet.
06:27The Western leaders were angry and upset.
06:30Molotov saw Truman and his Secretary of State, Stettinius, Alger Hisse's boss.
06:36By that time, the Polish situation had, to use a gentle word, crystallized.
06:44The Russians were moving forward.
06:47They seemed to be paying no attention to the kind of provisional government that the British
06:55and Americans had hoped for.
06:58Therefore, protests, angry protests, were going to the Russians about that.
07:05And Truman decided to have a showdown at which he was gifted.
07:11On that occasion, as you know from what is now part of the history books,
07:19he accused Molotov, in effect, of violation of the agreements as early as that.
07:25This is a strange thing to do in the midst of a war, by no means yet won, with an important ally,
07:31but he did it.
07:34And it ended by Molotov saying, I've never been talked to like this in my life,
07:40and Truman saying, well, if you keep your agreements, you won't be talked to like that,
07:43just like a school teacher.
07:46Stettinius, who'd been in prison, told me the next morning that he was still shaken.
07:52He said, I thought the whole conference was over.
07:54Well, that was an unfortunate conversation.
07:58It was one of the first diplomatic conversations that Truman had.
08:03And I can only say that it was not a diplomatic statement on Truman's part.
08:10He used good, solid Missouri language, which was very definite,
08:14and Molotov had talked to other people that way, but had had no one talk to him that way.
08:21So he was very much upset, and I gained the impression that he thought this was a new voice,
08:27not Roosevelt anymore, but a more aggressive president.
08:32When he was sworn in two weeks earlier, Truman had said he would continue Roosevelt's policies,
08:37but his sudden harshness with Molotov now worried the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson.
08:42The day after the confrontation, Stimson told Truman about something he thought
08:47could transform America's dealings with Russia.
08:51Here's Stimson's biographer, McGeorge Bundy.
08:53Stimson wrote to Truman,
08:55I think it is very important that I should have a talk with you as soon as possible
09:00on a highly secret matter.
09:03I mentioned it to you shortly after you took office,
09:06but have not urged it since on account of the pressure you've been under.
09:10It, however, has such a bearing on our present foreign relations,
09:15and has such an important effect upon all my thinking in this field,
09:21that I think you ought to know about it without much further delay.
09:25The next day, April 25th, Stimson explained to Truman
09:30that his view of foreign policy, Stimson's,
09:34was dominated by the imminent prospect of atomic power,
09:39and the terms which might be got from Russia in exchange for sharing atomic secrets.
09:47This was Truman's first detailed news of the atomic bomb and its diplomatic potential.
09:52He asked Stimson to head a committee to decide its military use.
09:57By this time, in great secrecy, two kinds of atomic bomb had been developed,
10:02one based on uranium, the other on a man-made element, plutonium.
10:08The uranium bomb did not need testing, but there was only one.
10:13The plutonium bombs, easier to produce in quantity, would have to be tested before use.
10:18The first would be ready by July.
10:21A special unit of the American Air Force had begun practising the tactics involved
10:25in dropping one very large bomb with great accuracy,
10:28and then getting away as fast as possible.
10:31Its commander was Colonel Paul Tibbets.
10:34Up to this point, anything in the way of an error in bombing up to 500 or 600 feet
10:41was considered good bombing.
10:42So I told them then, if you have a 100-foot error from 25,000 feet,
10:46you're just a borderline case. I want it less than 100.
10:50I was told immediately, you can't do this.
10:53And so I said, I don't know why not.
10:56And they said, well, nobody's ever done it.
10:57But I said, that's no reason why it can't be done.
10:59I said, practise. They tell me it makes perfect.
11:02So I said, we'll practise, and you'll practise until you do it.
11:11From their forward bases in the Mariana Islands,
11:14American B-29 bombers were already attacking Japan's cities
11:17with more conventional weapons.
11:20To begin with, the results were poor.
11:26General Curtis LeMay developed a new tactic,
11:29low-level incendiary raids.
11:32With aerial photography, you could outline a general area.
11:38But not precisely.
11:41You just couldn't avoid doing collateral damage.
11:44And I'm sure we burned down a lot of Japanese buildings
11:48that had nothing to do with the war industry at all.
11:54This, of course, is one of the sad things of war
11:57that can't be helped.
11:59On March 9, 1945,
12:022,000 tonnes of incendiaries were dropped on Tokyo.
12:06Destroying 16 square miles of the city.
12:0980,000 civilians died.
12:12More that night in Tokyo than in the whole of England in the Blitz.
12:16Most suffocated in the firestorm.
12:19LeMay now attacked city after city.
12:22It looked as if the B-29s alone might defeat Japan.
12:25It wasn't until General Arnold asked the direct question,
12:28how long is the war going to last?
12:31And then we sat down and did some thinking about it.
12:35And it indicated that we would be pretty much out of targets
12:40around the 1st of September.
12:43And with the targets gone,
12:46we couldn't see much of any war going on at the time.
12:57By the spring of 1945, Japan was helpless
13:00in the face of American air and naval power.
13:05Most of the Japanese merchant fleet and navy had been sunk.
13:10An effective blockade had cut off Japan from her overseas armies,
13:15grounded most of her air force for lack of fuel,
13:18and threatened her population with starvation.
13:21American fighter-bombers roamed at will,
13:24backing up the devastating firewaves.
13:29Many Japanese politicians realised
13:33that their country could not hold out much longer.
13:40April 1st, American troops land on Japanese soil, Okinawa,
13:44only 350 miles from the mainland.
13:47They face fierce resistance.
13:52But as the battle starts, the growing Peace Party in Japan
13:55secure the appointment of a new cabinet led by Admiral Suzuki.
14:00When the Suzuki cabinet came into existence,
14:05the military situation was deplorable.
14:08Moreover, the economic plight of our nation was quite apparent.
14:17The military commander tried to squeeze the last drop,
14:24so to speak, of the nation's blood
14:29in order to prosecute further the useless war.
14:33But it became evident to any sensible man
14:38that we were at the end of a tether.
14:46The younger officers in the army, the extremists,
14:50thought that we should fight to the bitter end
14:53until every man had been killed.
14:57Japanese Prime Minister General Anami didn't agree.
15:00He thought that if we fought on
15:03till the Americans invaded the mainland
15:06and then hit their forces hard on the beaches once,
15:09we could then negotiate peace on terms more favourable to Japan.
15:17But Truman would not negotiate.
15:20He told Congress so in May after Germany's defeat.
15:24And it remains unconditional surrender.
15:31I want the entire world to know
15:35that this direction must and will remain
15:39unchanged and unhampered.
15:45Truman now faced two major problems,
15:48how to deal with the Russians in Europe
15:51and whether to ask them to fulfil their pledge
15:54to join the war against Japan.
15:56In Germany, Russian and Western troops exchanged toasts.
15:59But already Churchill was sending urgent messages to Truman
16:02warning that an iron curtain was being drawn down in Europe by Russia.
16:06The big three must meet quickly before, as he put it,
16:09the armies of democracy melted.
16:12And Truman had a new Secretary of State, James Burns.
16:16Burns wanted to finish the war against Japan
16:20so the Russians could join in
16:22and cause problems for the Western Asia too.
16:25It was ever present in my mind
16:28that it was important
16:32that we should have an end to the war
16:36before the Russians came in.
16:39But Stimson wanted to avoid hasty decisions in Europe
16:42or the Far East before the bomb was ready,
16:45he wrote to Truman.
16:48With such a large tangled weave of problems,
16:51the atomic secret would be dominant.
16:54It seems a terrible thing to gamble
16:57with such big stakes in diplomacy
17:00without having your Mastercard in your hand.
17:03Truman reassured Stimson
17:06the big three meeting was postponed
17:09until the 15th of July
17:12on purpose to give us more time.
17:16The man whom Stalin trusted
17:19was sent to Moscow at the end of May
17:22to take the heat temporarily out of the Polish issue.
17:25He reported back that he had smoothed things over.
17:28Stalin had also promised, unprompted,
17:31to join the war against Japan on August the 8th.
17:34While Hopkins was in Moscow,
17:37Stimson's committee reached its decision.
17:40The committee studying the atomic bomb
17:44against a major Japanese military establishment.
17:47Only this, Stimson thought,
17:50would provide the psychological blow
17:53which might induce Japan to surrender.
17:56Although he agreed with some of Truman's advisers
17:59that the Japanese should be given an ultimatum
18:02which made it clear that they could keep the Emperor,
18:05he opposed announcing this
18:08until after the bomb had at least been tested.
18:12But after the war, he wrote,
18:15it is possible, in the light of the final surrender,
18:18that a clearer and earlier exposition
18:21of American willingness to retain the Emperor
18:24could have produced an earlier ending of the war.
18:29June the 18th, Washington.
18:32General Eisenhower is given a hero's welcome
18:35after his victory in Europe.
18:38In the White House that day,
18:42he was asked to approve his Joint Chiefs of Staff's plans
18:45to invade Japan in November.
18:47We gathered up our papers and started to go out.
18:50Mr. Truman spotted me and he said,
18:53Mr. McCoy, nobody gets out of this room
18:56without voting, without expressing himself.
18:59Everybody else has.
19:01Do you think I have any other alternative?
19:04I looked over at Colonel Stimson.
19:07He always liked to be called Colonel.
19:11I looked over at Stimson and he nodded and said go ahead.
19:14So I started in and I said that I thought
19:17we ought to have our heads examined.
19:20If we didn't at this point begin to think
19:23in terms of a political culmination of the war
19:26rather than a military culmination.
19:29I said I'd give them some terms.
19:32I'd send a message over to them.
19:35I'd spell out the terms, just what they were.
19:38I hadn't quite prepared for the actual dictation
19:41of the surrender terms at that point, but I started in.
19:44I said in the first place I'd say you can have the Mikado,
19:47but he's got to be a constitutional monarch.
19:50You've got to have a representative form of government from here on.
19:53You can have access to, but not control over,
19:56raw materials so that you can have a viable economy.
19:59I spelled it out as best I could.
20:02I'd say besides that we've got a new force
20:06of a new type of energy
20:09that will revolutionize warfare,
20:12destructive beyond any contemplation.
20:15I'd mention the bomb.
20:18Even that late date in that select group
20:21was like they were all shocked
20:24because it was such a closely guarded secret.
20:27It was comparable to mentioning skull and bones at Yale,
20:30which you're not supposed to do.
20:34Mr. Truman said this is just the sort of thing I was trying to reach for.
20:37Get that all spelled out.
20:40At that point Stimson did come in and join and support my position,
20:43but then later on Mr. Burns, who was then Secretary of State
20:46and was not present, vetoed
20:49the idea of offering them the Mikado.
20:52One can only speculate
20:55as to whether it would have happened
20:58if we had put the message to the Japanese government
21:02in the form that I indicated, including the Mikado.
21:05I've always had the feeling and view of some of the information
21:08that we've had since of the tendency
21:11on the part of some of the real military hotheads in Japan
21:14to think that this was perhaps the best way out,
21:17that we might have been able to avoid
21:20the dropping of the bomb.
21:23By this time the battle for Okinawa is almost over.
21:2612,000 Americans had died.
21:30A bloody foretaste of what invasion of the mainland might cost.
21:35For the Japanese, the lesson was harsher still.
21:40100,000 died.
21:43And for the first time in the war,
21:46their soldiers surrendered in thousands.
21:52As the last resistance ended on June 22nd,
21:55the new Japanese cabinet made its first move towards peace.
22:00Ultimately, we had to conduct negotiations
22:03with our military opponents,
22:06that is to say, America and Britain.
22:09But the high command refused categorically
22:12to entertain any idea
22:15of starting a conversation
22:18with the enemy powers.
22:21The only great power left
22:24out of the enemy camp
22:28was the Soviet Union
22:31because of the fact that nominally
22:34there existed still the Neutrality Pact.
22:37And so this was the only window open
22:40for peace endeavors.
22:44And this window looked toward the north.
22:47And so we argued it out
22:50with the military command.
22:53And the military command finally
22:57reluctantly acceded to our request
23:00that we start negotiations
23:03with the Soviet Union
23:06in order to arrive at the final destination,
23:09which was Washington and London.
23:13But it was the Chinese foreign minister,
23:16not the Japanese, that Stalin had been meeting.
23:19A huge Japanese army still occupied parts of China,
23:22including Manchuria.
23:26The Russians and Chinese were negotiating terms
23:29under which Stalin would attack that army.
23:32When Truman sailed to Europe on July 7th
23:35for his meeting with Stalin and Churchill,
23:38he knew, through intercepted messages,
23:41that Japan wanted an end to the war,
23:44but not unconditional surrender.
23:47Truman and Burns now had several options open to them.
23:50They could modify the surrender terms.
23:53They could attack Manchuria.
23:56They could demonstrate the atomic bomb.
23:59They could invade Japan itself.
24:02But Truman decided that he would drop atomic bombs on Japan
24:05without warning.
24:08This alone, he hoped, would end the Pacific War quickly
24:11before the Russians joined in.
24:14And it would immensely strengthen
24:17American bargaining power in Europe.
24:21The next morning, just before dawn,
24:24at a remote desert site in New Mexico,
24:27Robert Oppenheimer and the team
24:30that had designed and built the bomb
24:33witnessed the first atomic explosion.
24:36I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture,
24:39the Bhagavad Gita.
24:42Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince
24:45that he should do as he is told.
24:49He should do his duty,
24:52and to impress him,
24:55takes on his multi-armed form
24:58and says,
25:01Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
25:06I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
25:09The plutonium bomb exploded
25:12with a force of 20,000 tons of TNT.
25:16The desert, at the point of the explosion,
25:19was turned into glass.
25:22By July 1945, Japan's economy was crumbling
25:25and her cities were defenceless against the B-29 raids.
25:28Although her army remained virtually intact,
25:31Japan's war industries were smashed.
25:38One million civilians had died.
25:41Millions more were homeless.
25:45The U.S. Air Force had no doubts
25:48that surrender was only weeks away.
25:51It was a hopeless situation for them,
25:54and the B-29s were flying over Japan at will,
25:57and they couldn't do anything about it.
26:00We could destroy any target at will
26:03without much opposition.
26:06So with this hopeless situation facing,
26:09they just didn't have the will to continue.
26:13As a matter of fact,
26:16they'd been trying to get out of the war
26:19for about three months before they actually did.
26:22And they had asked the Russians
26:25to be an intermediary
26:28to try to negotiate them out of the war.
26:31And the Russians had been stalling
26:34until they got the Airborne War finished
26:37so they could get into the Pacific War
26:41Stalin and Molotov refused to see
26:44the Japanese ambassador before they left Moscow
26:47for the last big three meeting for ten years.
26:50Also at Potsdam was Secretary of War Stimson.
26:53He passed on detailed news of the atomic test
26:56to Truman and Burns,
26:59who, he noted in his diary, were immensely pleased.
27:02The president was tremendously pepped up by it
27:05and spoke to me of it again and again when I saw him.
27:09He said it gave him an entirely new feeling of confidence.
27:12And when Stimson told Churchill
27:15about the successful test the next day,
27:18Churchill said he now understood
27:21how this pepping up of Truman had taken place
27:24and that he felt the same way.
27:27The British and Americans now debated
27:30whether to tell the Russians about the bomb.
27:33Some argued that its full weight as a diplomatic lever
27:37had been dropped on Japan.
27:40After one of our meetings, just as we adjourned,
27:43Truman went up with his interpreter to Stalin
27:46and told him briefly what we had discovered
27:49and what the effect of the atomic bomb would be.
27:52And all Stalin did was to nod his head
27:55and say thank you quite curtly
27:58and his expression changed in no way
28:01and that was all there was to it.
28:07It was a tremendous disappointment.
28:10We thought he would be flabbergasted at this thing
28:13but he just passed it off as an incident.
28:16Whether he knew about it,
28:19whether he didn't want to show any great emotion in regard to it,
28:22I don't know.
28:25All I know is that he took it very much in his stride
28:28and somewhat to our disappointment
28:31went on to the next item in the agenda.
28:34We were dismayed, Stimson,
28:37because he thought that once having disclosed this
28:40there would be immediately a great rush
28:43on the part of the Soviets
28:46to sit down and talk to us
28:49about what the future implications of this thing
28:52and what the future uses of it would be
28:55but he got no encouragement at all.
28:58Stimson's tactics had misfired.
29:02And Stimson feared that from now on
29:05Secretary of State Burns would use the bomb
29:08to try to lever direct concessions from the Russians.
29:11I rather think that Mr. Burns had something of the thought
29:14that this would be a sort of a point of leverage
29:17in diplomatic exchanges
29:20whereas I think Mr. Stimson
29:23or Colonel Stimson
29:26had a different idea of the use of the bomb.
29:30He wrote to the President to urge direct negotiation
29:33on the nuclear issue
29:36and argued that relations with Russia
29:39may perhaps be irretrievably embittered
29:42by the way in which we approach
29:45the solution of the bomb with Russia
29:48for if we fail to approach them now
29:51and merely negotiate with them
29:54having this weapon rather ostentatiously on our hip
29:58their suspicions and their distrust
30:01of our purposes and motives will increase.
30:04With the atomic weapons now almost ready for use
30:07it was time for Truman to issue
30:10a final ultimatum to the Japanese
30:13and again Stimson's advice was rejected.
30:16Truman and Burns decided not to modify
30:19the unconditional surrender formula
30:22by offering the Japanese the chance to keep their emperor.
30:26But the people of Japan will now realize
30:29that further resistance to the forces of the nation
30:32now united in the enforcement of law and justice
30:35will be absolutely futile.
30:38There is still time, but little time
30:41for the Japanese to save themselves
30:44from the destruction which threatens them.
30:49The very purpose of it was to assure them
30:52that they would have the decision
30:56and at the same time
30:59not start a controversy among ourselves
31:02about the position of the emperor.
31:08When the Protestant proclamation was issued
31:11Foreign Minister Togo and I
31:14worked together
31:17many sleepless nights
31:20and I took this proclamation
31:24to the attention of the Foreign Minister
31:27and explained the substance of it.
31:30Togo at once said that this was acceptable
31:33and he immediately went to the palace
31:36and asked for an audience.
31:39The emperor approved Togo's judgment
31:42that this should be accepted
31:45and war be terminated at once.
31:49Foreign Minister Togo said in the cabinet meeting
31:53that we can stop the war
31:56without the question of the emperor.
31:59We can keep the emperor right.
32:02But at that time, the Japanese government
32:05asked for some intermediary mediation
32:08to the Russia.
32:13So many cabinet ministers said,
32:16well, let us see the situation for a while.
32:19Prime Minister Suzuki announced
32:22that Japan would ignore the ultimatum.
32:25Perhaps Russia would save Japan's honor.
32:28After all, the Potsdam Declaration
32:31had not been signed by Stalin.
32:34He might still mediate.
32:37Stalin told Truman about the Japanese approaches.
32:40Truman knew all about them.
32:43The Japanese codes had been broken.
32:47With no response from the Japanese,
32:50he authorized the Air Force
32:53to drop the atom bomb as soon as they were ready.
32:56The Japanese Foreign Minister Togo
32:59in desperation cabled his ambassador in Moscow,
33:02since the loss of one day
33:05relative to this present matter
33:08may result in a thousand years of regret,
33:11it is requested you immediately have a talk with Molotov.
33:15On August 6th, two days before the Russians
33:18had said they would attack the Japanese,
33:21the Enola Gay set off on its 1,500-mile journey.
33:24I noticed when I taxied out
33:27that there were several hundred people
33:30that were in the area that the aircraft were parked in.
33:33There were some in front of the control tower.
33:36And people were out there standing to look
33:39and see what was going on
33:42without really knowing what they were looking at.
33:45But it was something different, so they wanted to be a part of it.
33:48They wanted to see what was taking place.
33:51Now there's one bomb, and one airplane is going to carry that bomb,
33:54and that's the group commander, that's then Colonel Tibbets,
33:57with his full crew.
34:00My crew was assigned to fly in formation
34:03on his right wing during the bombing for a couple of reasons.
34:06Somebody had to fly there, and I was scheduled by him
34:09if there were to be a second mission.
34:12We would have a third aircraft flying on the left wing
34:15who would drop back just before the bombing.
34:18He was equipped with cameras.
34:21We would fly unseen by each other for the first 3 hours
34:24and to make rendezvous at 8,000 feet
34:27over Iwo Jima at 6 a.m.
34:30This was the plan.
34:33We made the rendezvous quite successfully,
34:36and we had about an hour and a half or a little over that
34:39to go along in a lazy formation on a beautiful night
34:42out over the Pacific with moons and cloud puffs that looked like powder puffs.
34:45It was a quiet, peaceful evening, believe me.
34:48Nothing much went on.
34:51A little bit of talk in the airplane,
34:54but that's always normal on a mission.
34:57But then you'd get a quiet period, and while we were going along there,
35:00I guess everybody was dreaming or something because it was quiet.
35:04At 8.15, on the morning of August the 6th,
35:07the Enola Gay, flying at 32,000 feet,
35:10released its bomb over Hiroshima.
35:13As soon as the weight had left the airplane,
35:16I immediately went into this steep turn,
35:19as did Sweeney and Marquardt behind me,
35:22and we tried then to place distance
35:25between ourselves and the point of impact.
35:28In this particular case, that bomb had 53 seconds
35:32from the time it left the airplane until it exploded.
35:35That's how long it took it to fall from the bombing altitude, 53 seconds.
35:38And this gave us adequate time, of course, to make the turn.
35:42Now, we had just made the turn
35:45and rolled out in level flight
35:48when it seemed like somebody had grabbed a hold of my airplane
35:51and gave it a real hard shaking
35:54because this was the shock wave that had come up.
35:58EXPLOSION
36:05This was something that I was glad to feel
36:08because it gave me a moment of relief
36:11after all, having worked on that bomb for well over a year.
36:14That 53 seconds time while I'm turning the airplane,
36:17I'm wondering, is it or is it not going to work?
36:20And, of course, the shock wave hitting us
36:23was an indication it had worked.
36:26Therefore, I felt that success had been achieved.
36:30When the bomb came, I saw the yellowish flash
36:33and I was buried in the darkness.
36:36The two-storied wooden building that was my house
36:39with eight rooms in it
36:42was blown down to pieces and covered me up.
36:48When I regained consciousness,
36:51everything was pitch dark all around me.
36:54I tried to stand up, but my leg was broken.
36:57I tried to speak
37:00and I found that six of my teeth had been broken.
37:03Then I realized that my face was burnt
37:06and my back was burnt.
37:09There was a slash right across from one shoulder down to the waist.
37:12I crawled to the riverbank
37:15and when I got there, I saw hundreds of bodies
37:18come floating down the river
37:21and I realized with a shock
37:24that all Hiroshima had been hit.
37:30The day was clear when we dropped that bomb.
37:33It was a clear, sunshiny day
37:36and visibility was unrestricted.
37:39So as we came back around,
37:42again facing the direction of Hiroshima
37:45where we saw this cloud coming up.
37:48Within two minutes, the cloud was up at our altitude.
37:51We were 33,000 feet at this time
37:54and the cloud was up there and continuing to go right on up
37:57in a boiling fashion.
38:00It was rolling and boiling.
38:03The surface was nothing but a black boiling
38:06only thing I could say like a barrel of tar.
38:09Probably the best description that I can give.
38:12This is exactly the way it looked down there
38:15You could see distinctive houses, buildings
38:18and everything that you could see from our altitude.
38:21Now you couldn't see anything except this black boiling
38:24debris down below.
38:27We took pictures as rapidly as we could.
38:30My immediate concern after that was
38:33it's time to get out of here.
38:36I encountered a long and ceaseless line of escapees.
38:39All of them had no cloth
38:42whatsoever on their bodies
38:45and the skin
38:48from their faces
38:51arms and breasts
38:54peeling off and hanging loose
38:57and yet without any expression
39:00in deep silence
39:03they are escaping.
39:06I thought it was a procession of ghosts
39:10The words went back basically to the effect that
39:13the bombing conditions were clear
39:16the target had been hit
39:19the results were better than had been anticipated
39:22and that message was sent on back.
39:25From there on it was just a proposition of letting everybody
39:28talk for a few minutes and get it all out of their system.
39:31The excitement was over.
39:34Pretty soon it became a rather routine flight back home.
39:37As a matter of fact it was routine enough that
39:40I let Bob Lewis and the autopilot fly that airplane
39:43I went back and got some sleep for about the first time in 30 hours
39:46and I was ready for it.
39:49The long drawn out war you begin to get casualties from
39:52the side effects of
39:55exhaustion, privation
39:58disease and things of that sort.
40:01So getting it over with as quick as possible
40:04is a moral responsibility
40:07of everyone concerned.
40:10It's true that we knew the war was over
40:13and if we just waited a little while it would be over
40:16because the Japanese were negotiating
40:19and we knew this by the fact that we'd broken our code
40:22and were listening to the communications.
40:25But I believe that President Truman
40:28made the proper decision to use it
40:32because it probably hastened the negotiations
40:35and even if we just saved one day
40:38to me it would be worthwhile. You have to do it.
40:41I thought it was absolutely
40:44unnecessary because by the time
40:47the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima
40:50we were conducting negotiations
40:53with the Soviet government
40:56looking towards an early end of hostilities
41:00and we were completely exhausted
41:03and the Navy and the Army
41:06too were
41:09slowly becoming
41:13more amenable
41:16to the idea of peace.
41:19An appalling subject to talk about
41:22and the United States has
41:25consciously and unconsciously
41:28a little bit of a guilt complex about its use
41:31but Truman made the decision
41:34on the basis of the military necessities
41:37and I think an impartial analysis
41:40particularly from the Japanese themselves
41:43more evidence is coming out
41:46that they would have fought on fanatically.
41:49You know they did fight on fanatically
41:52in some of the islands even in spite of the surrender
41:55the emperor wouldn't have had the courage
41:58to have called it off or wouldn't have had the support to call it off.
42:01When I heard about the atomic bomb
42:04I was so astonished
42:07and I frankly say
42:10the American people is brutality.
42:13I wondered if
42:16American people really civilized
42:19but at the same time
42:22I thought this maybe
42:25become a key for Japan to
42:28end the war.
42:34It was two days before the Japanese government realized
42:37what the atomic bomb was and what it had done.
42:4170,000 had died in Hiroshima.
42:45Another 70,000 were injured.
42:4897% of the city's buildings were destroyed
42:51or severely damaged.
42:54President Truman, on hearing the news
42:57called it the greatest thing in history.
43:00The peace group in the Japanese cabinet hoped
43:03that the bomb might persuade the war faction to accept surrender.
43:07As the cabinet met on the morning of August 9th
43:10it received further shattering news.
43:14The previous evening in Moscow
43:17Molotov had finally received the Japanese ambassador
43:20who told him that Russia was about to declare war on Japan.
43:24Eight hours later, exactly three months after the defeat of Germany
43:27just as Stalin had promised
43:30Russia attacked the Japanese army in Manchuria.
43:34Japanese hopes of Russian mediation were at an end.
43:38American hopes of finishing the war before Russia became involved
43:41were thwarted.
43:44Later that same morning
43:47the Americans dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki.
43:51It killed 60,000 people.
43:54But even now the Japanese militants held out
43:57for a surrender without an occupation.
44:01The peace party wanted only to preserve the emperor's position.
44:05For the first time to break the deadlock
44:08the emperor Hirohito was forced to surrender.
44:11For the first time to break the deadlock
44:14the emperor Hirohito was called in to decide.
44:18He chose peace.
44:22I shall never forget the emotion of that time.
44:26Everybody started to cry.
44:30So I looked at the emperor's face.
44:34He just kept silent
44:37He wore a white glove on his hands.
44:43He wiped his own face several times.
44:51So we could know that
44:55his majesty the emperor himself was crying.
45:01I shall never forget
45:05the emotion in this room at that time.
45:12On August 10th the Japanese made it known they would surrender
45:15if the emperor were allowed to stay.
45:19On August 12th the Allies sent a non-committal reply.
45:23By this time Japan's army was near revolt.
45:30Even if a thousand atom bombs had been dropped
45:33and even if Japan had been completely devastated
45:37you must remember that Japan's honour was at stake.
45:41The pride of the Japanese at that time
45:44who felt that the only honourable way out of the war
45:48was not to surrender but to die to the last man.
45:53The Americans dropped leaflets urging the Japanese to surrender.
45:57These almost upset the delicate maneuverings of the peace party.
46:01That could have caused a lot of trouble.
46:05Civilians and soldiers all over the country
46:09were completely unaware of what was going on.
46:13If they had found out that the government was actually
46:17negotiating peace with the United States
46:21the situation would have become impossible.
46:25It might even have led to a revolution.
46:28To do that we had to reach a final decision as fast as possible.
46:38Once again on August 14th the emperor met a divided supreme war council
46:43and told them they must accept the Allied ultimatum.
46:47He himself would broadcast the next day.
46:51That night a group of junior officers invaded the palace
46:54and tried to seize the recording of the emperor's message.
46:58They couldn't find it. The coup failed.
47:02At noon on August 15th the Japanese people
47:06heard their emperor's voice for the first time.
47:14The war, he told them, has developed
47:18not necessarily to Japan's advantage.
47:22Moreover, the enemy has begun to use a new and most cruel bomb.
47:27Should we continue to fight
47:31it will not only result in an ultimate collapse
47:35and obliteration of the Japanese nation
47:39but also the total destruction of human civilization.
47:43We must therefore endure the unendurable.
47:47When the emperor addressed the nation at large
47:51through his broadcast
47:55I know that 99 men out of 100
47:59were taken aback.
48:03They expected the emperor to urge them to fight on.
48:08So the shock was tremendous.
48:11And those army officers
48:15particularly the younger ones
48:19who said that they had to fight to the bitter end
48:23were naturally disillusioned.
48:27Some even tried to demonstrate
48:31with the decision taken by the cabinet
48:35for surrender.
48:39In a way it could be said that the atomic bombings
48:43and Russia's sudden attack on Japan
48:47helped to bring about the end of the war.
48:51If those events had not happened
48:55Japan at that stage probably could not have stopped fighting.
49:09The war had ended, but not the dying.
49:13And radiation sickness, which the Americans had not foreseen
49:17would kill thousands more in the years to come.
49:29The morning of September 2, 1945
49:33the United States battleship Missouri is anchored in Tokyo Bay.
49:37The new Japanese foreign minister Shigemitsu
49:41limps on board to sign the surrender document.
49:56The Allied commander, General MacArthur
50:00I now invite the representatives
50:04of the Emperor of Japan
50:08and the Japanese government
50:12and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters
50:16to sign the instrument of surrender at the places indicated.
50:20The foreign minister's aide, Kasei, watched the ceremony.
50:24I saw many thousands of sailors
50:28everywhere on this huge vessel
50:31and just in front of us were delegates
50:35of the victorious powers
50:39in military uniforms glittering with gold.
50:43And looking at them I wondered
50:47how Japan ever thought she could defeat all those nations.
51:01We'll preserve it always.
51:05These proceedings are closed.
51:31To be continued...
52:01To be continued...
52:31To be continued...