First-Hand Account of Hiroshima: Before, During, and After the Atomic Bomb Drop

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over the past few years, much has been written and created around Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project, but little attention is paid to those whose lives were ended or forever changed when the bombs dropped in Japan.

In this episode, we delve into the experiences of the hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. On that day the Enola Gay released its devastating payload, ushering in the nuclear age. The survivors, now with an average age of over 90, provide some of the last living testimonies of the horrors that unfolded in the seconds, minutes, and hours following the explosion.

Today’s guest is M.G. Sheftall, author of The Stories of Hibakusha. Sheftall has spent years interviewing those who were young adolescents at the time of the bombing, now elderly but still haunted by their memories.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's going to get here with another episode of the History Unplugged Podcast.
0:07.0	Hebakusha is a word in Japanese that specifically refers to the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
0:16.0	The vast majority of those who were within a few miles of Ground Zero died, whether immediately
0:20.3	or within days or weeks after radiation poisoning, but still hundreds of thousands
0:24.8	further away witnessed it and survived.
0:27.0	The Japanese government estimated about 650,000 and there is still over 100,000 alive today.
0:32.4	The survivors included children who are on
0:34.3	fire brigade duty, military enlistees who were maintaining order in Hiroshima, and they
0:39.2	almost all say that morning was eerily quiet, and families who were separated after the atomic blasts hoping
0:44.5	against hope that their relatives were still alive.
0:46.5	In today's episode, I'm speaking to M.G. Chef Hall, author of Hiroshima, The Last Witnesses,
0:51.0	and he spent years personally interviewing survivors who lived well into the 21st century
0:56.0	to concert portraits of what Hiroshima was like before the bomb and how the catastrophe changed citizens' lives forever.
1:01.8	We discuss accounts of what it was actually like to see an atomic bomb detonate,
1:06.0	what it was like in the immediate aftermath of the bombings,
1:08.0	and Chef Dahl says it was the most hellish scene imaginable outside of a concentration camp camp and what the survivors would say about
1:14.4	the experience at the very ends of their lives. Hope we enjoy this discussion with M.G. Chef Hall. And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for word from our sponsors.
1:30.0	We're going to look into all sorts of different survival stories of bomb dropping in Hiroshima.
1:36.0	And as a general overview, what was a common theme that you saw when you were interviewing Heba Kusha the witnesses to the atomic bombings of 1945?
1:47.0	Was there anything that surprised you or stuck out to you as you were talking to them?
1:51.0	Yes, two common themes that come to mind.
1:55.4	Being asked that question.
	...

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