Hi, everybody. It's John Bewin. Today, during this between-season's hiatus, I'm reposting an episode

from the C-On-Radio Archives on an important anniversary. 80 years ago now, on August 6, 1945,

the first use of an atomic weapon, by the United States, of course, against the first of

two Japanese cities. I don't know about you, but I think for a lot of people when we hear the word

Hiroshima, the first image that comes to mind is a mushroom cloud. We may not think much about the actual place, least of all the

modern post-war place, a city on Japan's Kewsou Island with a million people and office buildings

and markets and a pro baseball team. By now, the vast majority of the people who lived through August 6, 1945, in that

city, are gone. But three decades ago, many thousands of A-bomb survivors still lived in the city.

I went there then, in 1995, and interviewed some of them.

I'd lived in Japan for a couple years in the 1980s and spoke the language, kind of.

I went back in 95 to make a documentary for the 50th anniversary of the bombing for Minnesota Public Radio and Public Radio International.

Then, just about 10 years ago, I made a rebuilt version of that 1995 program for C-Non Radio.

That's what I'm sharing with you here.

Most of the voices you'll hear over the next half hour are silent now.

They are voices of Hiroshima.

The places where history happened often test the imagination.

You can put up a monument or a plaque, but that doesn't make it easy to picture a bloody battle or a disaster.

This place, this gleaming city with its shiny trains and green lawns and bright flowers.

It asks you to imagine Armageddon.

Hiroshima is.

The recorded announcement reminds passengers getting off the train.

Be careful not to forget anything.

...