Hiroshima

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This is the story of the first ever

use of a weapon of mass destruction

Very recently the weapon we are about to

deliver was successfully tested in the States.

We've received orders

to drop it on the enemy.

It is the most destructive

weapon ever produced.

The target was an empire

with its own secret weapon...

...the suicide bomber.

I trained myself

that I could die at any time.

On the 6th August 1945,

a bomb unlike any other

fell from the skies above Hiroshima.

The bomb was designed by

some of the world's finest scientists.

Using it was one of the most

momentous decisions ever made.

Soldiers and sailors are the target,

not women and children.

This is the story of the Aircrew who

flew the mission, and dropped the bomb.

I'm not thinking about the people

who got killed or hurt,

I'm thinking about the ones

that did not get killed or hurt.

And it's the story

of the people of Hiroshima

who were the first ever

victims of a nuclear attack.

When something as devastating as

a nuclear weapon is used,

people are powerless,

just like ants, or insects.

The entire city of Hiroshima

was annihilated in just a few seconds.

The bomb helped bring

the Second World War to an end,

and it marked the beginning of

a new chapter in Human History.

July 14th 1945.

At the top-secret research

facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico,

a heavily armed convoy

was loaded with parts for a new kind of bomb.

This was the start of ajourney

that would end in Hiroshima.

This bomb was the product

of three years' research,

and had cost $2 billion to develop.

But at this stage,

the technology was still completely untested.

Two days later,

there was a chance to find out.

In the desert of New Mexico,

the scientists and soldiers

of the Manhattan Project

gathered for the first ever

test explosion of an atomic bomb.

A hundred to one,

we crack the earth's crust,

and destroy the whole world.

Fifty to one we ignite the atmosphere,

and only destroy New Mexico.

Someone shut Thirmy up,

he's frightening the MPs.

Ten to one it fizzles out.

If that weapon fizzles out,

each of you can look forward

to a lifetime testifying in front of

Congressional Investigation Committees!

Six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.

The explosion vaporised the stainless

steel tower holding the bomb.

The intense heat

melted the desert sand,

leaving an area of glass.

The force of the

explosion was estimated

to be the equivalent of

67 million sticks of dynamite.

The bomb had originally been

intended for use against Nazi Germany,

but its backers now

had another target in mind.

- I'm very proud of you!

- Thank you.

Well done.

The war's over, General.

Yep! As soon as we've dropped

a few of these things on Japan!

Good work.

For Scientific Director,

Robert Oppenheimer,

it was a moment of terrible truth.

Now I am become Death,

the destroyer of worlds.

By July 1945,

the war in Europe was over.

Nazi Germany was defeated.

But in the Pacific,

the war against Japan was raging on.

After the surprise attack

on Pearl Harbor,

American forces had fought

their way back across the Pacific,

island by island,

with savage hand-to-hand fighting.

But Japan's main armies

were still intact, and undefeated.

The Americans had tried firebombing

the Japanese into submission.

City after city was reduced to rubble,

but still the Japanese

refused to surrender.

So the Allies now faced

the prospect of a full-scale invasion.

With some estimates putting their losses

as high as a million casualties,

and many more Japanese.

In Japan, at the time,

the Emperor was Head of State,

and also a living god,

but day-to-day power rested with

the Special War Direction Council.

Prime Minister Suzuki

and Foreign Minister Togo

were considering

a negotiated settlement.

But Army Minister General Koretchika Anami

was determined to fight on.

Anami's plan was for an all-out,

final battle.

In Hiroshima, as in the rest of Japan,

soldiers and civilians were being

prepared for the coming invasion.

The Japanese military were relying

on a powerful weapon:

people's willingness to die

for the Emperor.

Ordinary soldiers learned

how to strap bombs to their bodies

and throw themselves under tanks.

Dr Shuntaro Hida was working

at the Army Hospital in Hiroshima.

One of his duties was to train

medical orderlies as suicide bombers.

The soldiers were trained

to strap bombs to their bodies,

and throw themselves against the tanks.

At the military hospital

we had to teach this.

The officers, in particular,

were resigned to the fact

that once we had gone to the Front,

we would not return, we would die.

I trained myself that I could die,

at any time.

The whole population was to be

part of the battle against the invaders.

Even schoolgirls were trained to attack

American soldiers with sharpened bamboo spears.

A bloodbath seemed inevitable.

The man who would have

to authorise the invasion was

American President, Harry Truman.

On 16th July he had just arrived

in Berlin for the Potsdam Conference,

where he was meeting

his fellow Allied leaders.

That very night, came news of

the successful New Mexico bomb test.

Listen to this. Operated on this morning,

the results seem satisfactory.

The test has already

exceeded expectations.

They did it!

Now the boys may be spared

an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands.

I'll drink to that.

But before going ahead

with the new bomb,

Truman gave the Japanese

one last chance to surrender.

The Americans had broken

the secret Japanese codes,

and could decipher military

and diplomatic cables.

So, they knew their demands for total,

unconditional surrender had been seen

as a threat to the Emperor.

Now they decided to alter the terms,

and give the Japanese a way out.

On Truman's staff was a young

naval lieutenant, George Elsey.

The last surviving witness

to these events.

The Potsdam Declaration called

upon unconditional surrender.

It was modified in the light of this,

what we were learning from the intercepts,

to read, unconditional surrender

of the armed forces of Japan.

We call upon the government

of Japan to proclaim

now the unconditional surrender

of all Japanese armed forces.

That left the door open for

a retention of the Emperor.

The modified ultimatum

was broadcast to Japan.

But ironically,

the softening of the surrender terms

seems to have backfired.

Prime Minister Suzuki announced

that his government would

ignore the Potsdam Declaration.

He used the word, nokusatsu,

meaning, to kill with silent contempt.

From that moment,

the dropping of the bomb

on Hiroshima was inevitable.

The bomb left San Francisco on

board the USS Indianapolis, two hours

after the successful

Trinity test in New Mexico.

It travelled across the Pacific

on a ten-day voyage

to the island of Tinian,

just six hours flying time from Japan.

The island was the biggest

air base in the world,

with four large runways,

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