In the history of modern warfare,
one day stands out above all others,
the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
The mission, which annihilated a city,
and heralded the end of the Second World War.
This, is a dramatisation of events, as they unfolded,
on a day that shook the world.
Tinian Island, Southwest pacific.
Strategic centre of America's air war, against the Japanese empire.
In exactly twenty-four hours, a B-29 Superfortress,
the world's largest bomber, will take off from this island,
and fly seventeen hundred miles north, up the pacific ocean,
to the city of Hiroshima, in Japan.
It's mission, to drop a bomb unlike any other used in this, or any war.
A bomb which will change the world forever.
Three different cameras recorded, from six miles away,
these views of the most concentrated release of explosive energy,
in the history of mankind.
July sixteenth, nineteen forty-five, five twenty-nine AM.
The night sky of New Mexico was ripped open,
by anew and terrifying phenomenon, the atom bomb.
Codename Trinity, the test is so successful,
it's creators fear, it may crack the earth's crust.
Just four hours later,
an American destroyer, will leave San Francisco,
to sail half way round the world, to Tinian island.
On board, is another atom bomb, it's final destination,
a city whose name will forever be an emblem of the forces unleashed
by this new and terrible power, Hiroshima.
In a remote corner of Tinian airbase,
one B-29 crew starts the day like any other
of the several hundred crews on this island,
but these men are different.
Over the past year,
they've been training for a mission so secret,
only one of them knows what it is,
their leader, Colonel paul Tibbets.
For three months, he was checked out by FBI agents, before being selected,
by the head of the airforce, to lead this mission.
At the age of twenty-nine,
I had been entrusted with the successful delivery
of the most frightening weapon ever devised,
one that had been developed at a cost of two billion dollars,
in a programme that involved the nation's best scientific brains,
and the secret mobilisation of it's industrial capacity.
Even as all this began to sink in,
it never occurred to me, that I might not succeed.
If this bomb could be carried in an aeroplane,
I could do the job.
An innocuous weather report from Guam, a hundred and fifty miles to the south.
Prediction, that the weather over southern Japan,
is expected to improve in the next twenty-four hours.
The signal is handed to General Thomas Farrell,
deputy-head of the Manhattan project,
America's top secret programme, to develop and build the atomic bomb.
Seven days ago, Farrell received the authorisation to drop the bomb,
in the week after August the third.
The order came direct from president Truman.
The final date, is left to Farrell's discretion,
all that matters is the right weather conditions,
and today, they look perfect.
We're alright, we're alright, Hank covers that, you got your coffee...
The word came through Sunday morning, August fifth.
After three days of uncertainty,
the clouds that had hung over the Japanese islands,
for the past week, were beginning to break up.
Conditions were go, and today was the day.
Tibbets doesn't break the news, to his crew yet,
but after six months of training, all of them are ready.
His co-pilot, Bob Lewis, a tough twenty-six year old New Yorker,
and one of the most experienced B-20 pilots in the airforce.
Come on over here sarge, light this baby!
His tail gunner, twenty-one year old, sergeant Bob Karan,
who flew twenty-four missions, with Tibbets over Europe,
he's also a keen amateur photographer.
The key to success of any bombing mission is the man who drops the bomb,
and Captain Tom Fearby, according to Tibbets,
is the best damn bombardier in the airforce.
Although he does not know it yet, in exactly seventeen hours,
this twenty-six year old farmer's son from North Carolina,
who's greatest ambition is to play baseball for the Boston Redsox,
will press a button on his panel, and release a bomb,
which will kill over one hundred thousand people,
and destroy an entire city.
Dimple's estimated take-off time is 0-two-forty-five hours.
With it's unlikely code name, Dimples,
the mission is given a take-off time,
Farrell sends the message half way round
the world to the man in charge of the Manhattan project,
General Lesley Groves.
Seven thousand miles away, Groves passes the take-off time to a ship,
in the middle of the Atlantic to president Truman of the United States.
The decision has been taken,
the power of the atom is about to be unleashed on an unsuspecting enemy.
What happens in the next few hours, will determine the fate of the world.
An awesome responsibility rests on the president.
In his diary, Truman writes:
The weapon, is finally to be used against Japan.
It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered.
Over the past year,
US troops have fought ferocious battles,
island by island, towards Japan.
Tens of thousands of Americans have died, fighting in these islands.
But the biggest challenge still lies ahead,
the invasion of Japan itself,
expected to cost a million American lives.
General Marshall, the US army chief of staff says:
The Japanese had demonstrated they would not surrender,
and they would fight, to the death.
It was expected that resistance in Japan, with their home ties,
would be even more severe, so it seemed quite necessary,
if we could, to shock them into action.
We had to end the war, we had to save American lives.
In a heavily guarded zone on the airfield,
the bomb, named "Little Boy", is wheeled out of its hangar.
With its coat of dull gunmetal paint, it was an ugly monster.
It seemed incredible that a single bomb,
should have the explosive force of twenty thousands tons of TNT.
Forty million pounds, surely the scientists were exaggerating,
this would equal two hundred thousand of the two hundred bombs
I carried over Europe and North Africa.
Watching the proceedings, are General Farrell,
and the man who will take charge of the bomb,
all the way to the target, William parsons.
A tough, brilliant Naval captain,
he is the world's greatest expert in the theory of atomic bomb ballistics.
In just a few hours, he will put that theory to the test.
But right now, parsons has a more immediate concern.
In the past twenty-four hours,
four heavily loaded B-29s have crashed on take-off.
Parson's greatest nightmare, is the catastrophic consequences,
of a similar crash, this time with a fully armed atomic bomb on board.
Disregarding months of planning,
he makes a last minute decision to attempt the arming of the bomb in the air,
and not on the ground.
Something which has never been tried outside the controlled,
sterile environment, of the laboratory.
Armed with just a screwdriver and a spanner,
he spends hour after hour, practising the techniques,
required to arm the bomb in flight.
The temperature inside the bomb bay, soars to over forty degrees,
but he continues, even as his hands start to bleed.
There is no room for error,
the next time he does this will be for real,
thirty-one thousand feet up in the sky, exactly two hours away from the target.
Seventeen hundred miles to the north of Tinian,
lies the city of Hiroshima.
Despite four years of war, it remains a city at peace.
Occasionally, in the past few weeks,
a single, high-flying B-29 has overflown the city, to the north.
But Mister B, as the Japanese call the B-29, has not visited today,
and even when he does, he never drops any bombs.
My thoughts turned at this moment, to my courageous red-haired mother,
whose quiet confidence had been a source of strength to me since boyhood.
Her name, Enola Gay, was pleasing to the ear,
It was also unique,
it would be a fine name for my plane, Enola Gay.
In the last moments of daylight, Tibbets is handed a special package.
So secret is this mission,
that if the Enola Gay is shot down,
every crewman faces the risk of interrogation, torture,
and possible execution.
He came to me and said,
I hope it's something that never comes up,
butjust in case, it would be easier to swallow a pill,
than to blow your brains out with a pistol shot.
He assured me that with cyanide, there would be no pain.
The capsules take less than ten seconds, to kill a man,
there are twelve of them, one for each member of the crew.
Tibbets tells none of them that he has the pills in his possession.
Five hundred metres from the T-shaped bridge,
Tom Fearby has selected for his aiming point,
twelve year old Rayko Wotonabay a first-year student
at Hiroshima's Municipal High School, studies at home.
Like all schoolchildren in the city,
she is conscripted to help the war effort,
the only schoolwork she is able to do, is now, at night.
Fifteen hundred metres from the same bridge,
little Chanichi Tetsutani, opens his birthday present,
a beautiful new tricycle, his is four today.
Tomorrow he will spend the day with his best friend,
Kimiko playing with his new toy.
But now, it's time for bed.
Two thousand metres from the aiming point,
Yoshito Matsosugar a photographer, with the local newspaper,
spends the night developing photos, for tomorrow's edition.
Most of the paper is devoted to expected invasion of the home islands,
by the American enemy.
As for Hiroshima itself, there is, as always, little news to tell.
Sixteen hundred metres from the aiming point,
on the other side of the city,
Kengo Nakawa settles down for the night,
his pocket watch with him as always, a special gift, from his son.
Gentlemen, tonight is the night we've been waiting for.
We've been training for months, and what happens after this,
will determine the success or failure, of that hard work.
We're gonna be carrying a weapon on board our bird,
that is unlike anything, you or I, or the world, has ever seen.
Our primary target, is Hiroshima.
The secondary target, Kokura. Alternate, Nagasaki.
Distance to target, seventeen hundred miles.
Flight time, thirteen hours there and back.
Three weather planes will fly one hour ahead of the strike force,
to each of the designated targets.
A directive from the president, authorises use of the bomb,
only when the target is visible.
Weather, chooses the target.
An hour later, our attack approach begins.
Three B-29s of the strike force
will fly exactly one hour behind the weather planes.
The Great Artiste, to carry scientific instruments,
Necessary Evil, to carry specialist observers.
Enola Gay, to carry the bomb.
Sergeant, first slide please.
Now, Captain parsons, the weapons specialist,
takes the floor, revealing the power of the bomb,
the crew will carry tonight.
It is the first inkling in six months of training,
of what they are about to drop.
This bomb is the most powerful weapon, ever devised by man.
We believe, that this bomb, will destroy everything,
within a three mile radius, of it's target.
It's powerful enough, to, crack, the crust, of the surface of the earth.
The observers...
The men sat there in shocked disbelief.
They were unable to imagine a single bomb, with such explosive force.
Frankly, neither could I.
The equivalent, of the centre of this bomb,
once it hits, is, one million, degrees, centigrade.
The light that it gives off, ten times more powerful than the sun.
So you could be blinded.
That's why, everyone, on this mission, in this room,
is going to be issued, special goggles, and you will wear them.
So that, you can, look your grandchildren in the eye,
and tell them, what happened this evening.
This bomb's gonna save lives.
Not only is this bomb gonna save lives, but it's going to end the war.
After this mission, you're gonna be famous,
you're gonna be more famous than Clarke Gable.
And everyone's gonna be reading about this mission,
in history books, for a hundred years to come.
Now had come the moment of truth.
More than a mile and a half of runway stretched before me in the darkness,
the blackened skeletons of four B-29s,
that had crashed the night before, had not yet been cleared away.
We were heavily loaded, seven thousand gallons of gas,
and the nine thousand-pound bomb.
I glanced at my wristwatch, it was two forty-five AM.
In the operations bunker on Tinian,
General Farrell immediately flashes the take-off time,
seven thousand miles across the world, to General Groves, at the pentagon.
In turn, Groves sends it on,
a further two thousand miles to the U.S. S Augusta,
sailing in mid Atlantic.
President Truman is just about to sit down to dinner,
when he receives the signal.
One obstacle has already been cleared,
Enola Gay, is safely in the air, the bomb is on board.
All the president can do now, is wait.
Enola Gay, climbs to four thousand, seven hundred feet,
as the island of Tinian, falls behind in the darkness.
Below, is nothing but empty ocean, for the next six hours.
One fifty-eight nautical miles, north, of Tinian.
Heading, three, three, eight degrees...
On board, the flight settles down to routine.
...indicated airspeed, two, one, three knots, repeat,
position, one, five, eight...
Tibbit's co-pilot, Bob Lewis, begins a log of the flight.
It is written in the form of a letter, to his parents,
half way round the world, in Richfield New Jersey.
Dear mam and dad,
at forty-five minutes out of our base, everyone is at work.
Colonel Tibbets, has been hard at work, with the usual tasks,
that belong to the pilot of a B-29.
Dutch Van Kirk, navigator,
and sergeant Stibberick, radio operator,
are in continuous conversion, 'cos they are shooting bearings,
on the Northern Marianas, and making radar wind runs.
Five fifty-one, the first signs of dawn.
That's a nice sight.
I think we will have clear sailing, for a long spell.
I think everyone, will feel relieved,
when we have left our bomb with the Japs, and get halfway home.
Or better still, all the way home.
With the rising sun,
Enola Gay starts the long climb,
to it's final operational altitude of thirty thousand, seven hundred feet.
A few miles ahead, lies the island of lwogema,
a harsh, volcanic rock in the pacific,
and a halfway point to Japan.
In his stateroom, president Truman, opens a dossier,
containing a prepared statement to the world,
on the first use of an atomic bomb.
Due for release,
just sixteen hours after the bomb has been dropped.
The name of the city, has been left blank.
In just over an hour,
the three weather planes, will reach their respective destinations,
only then, will the city have a name.
Three hundred miles to the Japanese coast,
and Captain parsons, the weapons specialist,
prepares for his toughest moment.
In the next few minutes,
he will enter the bomb bay, and arm the bomb,
just the way he practised all yesterday afternoon.
I am now entering the bomb bay.
To access the detonation system at the rear of the bomb,
parsons must negotiate a catwalk, just one foot wide.
Only the bomb doors,
separate him from thirty thousand feet, of thin air.
The temperature inside the bomb bay, is minus fifty-seven degrees,
colder than the coldest Arctic winter,
as he prepares the intricate business, of arming an atomic bomb.
Fourteen hundred miles to the south,
General Farrell, waits for a signal from the strike force,
that the bomb, is finally armed.
Nobody wants to consider the implications, if parsons makes a single mistake.
One by one, parsons must insert four cordite charges into the fusing system.
He is now effectively handling volatile explosives,
in close proximity, to nuclear sub-assemblies.
I am now going to insert, the first live, detonation plug.
This is the most dangerous part of the whole operation.
Each of the three plugs,
is part of a chain, activating the bomb's circuits.
Despite every precaution,
nobody knows exactly what will happen,
the moment parsons inserts the final plug and the detonation circuits activate.
From the strike force,
a coded signal is flashed to General Farrell on Tinian,
the code name, is "dog".
Farrell immediately opens the sealed document which accesses the code.
At this point,
nobody knows whether parsons efforts have been successful, or catastrophic.
He checks the code word, the bomb is armed and ready.
The coded signal is immediately flashed to General Groves in the pentagon.
Thirty-two minutes from the Japanese coast,
"Little Boy" is live.
Captain parsons, has put the final touches on his assembly job, we are now loaded.
The bomb is now live.
It's a funny feeling, knowing it's right in back of you, knock wood.
Outside, it is a very beautiful day.
We are now about two hours, from bombs away.
But even now, as Enola Gay, approaches the Japanese coast,
no-one on board knows it's final destination.
One hundred and fifty miles to the north, Hiroshima basks in sunshine,
a perfect, cloudless, summers morning.
At exactly seven thirty-one,
Straight Flush, the B-29 weather plane, appears overhead the city.
Despite triggering a yellow alert,
very few of the cities inhabitants bother to look up.
B-29s have been passing this way, for days.
And who wants to hide in an air raid shelter,
on this perfect summers day?
This perfect summers day.
Almost exactly the description which Straight Flush,
thirty thousand feet above,
is sending back to the men,
in Enola Gay, forty-five minutes behind.
"Two tenths cloud cover, lower middle...
Seven thirty-one, we receive a report from our radio operator,
that our primary, is the best target.
We have started our second climb, to our final altitude.
With everything going well so far, we will make the bomb run on Hiroshima.
We are now only twenty-five miles, from the Empire.
Everyone, has a big hopeful look, on his face.
Like many schoolchildren her age in Hiroshima,
Rayko Wotonabay prepares for another day of fire prevention work,
under the student mobilisation order.
By this stage of the war,
her lunch of boiled rice and peas is a rare feast,
a special treat from her mother.
After a long night in his darkroom,
Yoshito Matsosugar sits in his garden, enjoying the glorious weather.
An opportunity to play with his camera, in the perfect light conditions.
Nav to pilot, heading two six four, wind,
one seven zero degrees, eight knots, estimated time,
to aiming point, sixteen minutes,
time check, zero, seven five niner.
Undisturbed, by flak or fighters, Enola Gay reaches the Japanese coast.
The crew take up their battlestations.
Taking his camera, tail gunner Bob Karan
moves to his isolated position in the rear of the plane.
As Enola Gay dives away from the target after the drop,
he will have a grandstand view of the blast,
his intention, is to capture the moment for posterity.
We have now set the automatic pilot for the last time until bombs away.
I have checked with all concerned, and all stations report satisfactorily.
Well folks, it won't be long now.
Bomber to pilot, visual with target.
Heading, two, six, four, repeat, heading two, six, four...
Now it was up to Tom and me.
We were only ninety seconds from bomb release,
when I turned the plane over to him on autopilot.
My eyes were fixed on the centre of the city,
that shimmered in the early morning sunlight.
Wind, one seven zero degrees, eight knots.
Two minutes to drop.
This time, there are no sirens.
OK, I got the bridge.
The moment Feobe activates a high-pitched warning tone,
the crew know, they have one minute, before the bomb is released.
Exactly forty-two seconds later, "Little Boy" will explode.
Eight fifteen,
there will be a short intermission, while we bomb the target.
The first shock wave hit us.
The whole aeroplane cracked and crinkled, from the blast.
Where before there had been a city with distinctive houses,
buildings, and everything you could see from our altitude,
now you couldn't see anything,
except the black, boiling debris down below.
No one spoke for a moment, then everyone was talking.
I remember Lewis pounding my shoulder saying,
look at that, look at that.
He said he could taste atomic fission, he said it tasted like lead.
In the tail of Enola Gay,
Bob starts taking photos, of the huge mushroom cloud.
The column of smoke is rising fast, it's nearly level with us and climbing.
It has a fiery, red core, it's all turbulent,
fires are springing up everywhere,
like flames shooting out of a huge bed of coals.
The city, must be below that.
Eight eighteen, my god, what have we done?
If I live for a hundred years,
I'll never get these few minutes, out of my mind.
One millionth of a second after detonation,
Hiroshima ceases to exist.
Later tests, reveal the full force of a nuclear shockwave,
as it tears through buildings, cars, and flesh, at the speed of sound.
Over one hundred thousand people,
and forty-seven thousand buildings are, quite literally, obliterated.
Five hundred metres form the bridge, Tom Feobe selected as his aiming point,
Reiko Watanabe is instantly incinerated by the blast.
Fifteen hundred metres from the bridge,
Chanichi Tetsutani and his best friend, are also killed,
his new tricycles steel frame,
twisting and melting in the million degree heat.
Sixteen hundred metres from the epicentre,
Kengo Nekawa is exposed to the same intense heat,
but his watch survives, it's hands forever frozen,
at the exact moment "Little Boy" explodes.
Within minutes of the explosion,
Hiroshima's fate is signalled around the world,
to the men who devised it.
The culmination of three years work,
and two billion dollars expenditure, is transmitted in one sentence of code
On board the U.S. S Augusta,
president Truman is just about to have lunch, when he receives the message.
He says, "this is the greatest thing in history."
Miraculously surviving the blast,
Yoshito Matsosugar, the photographer, moves directly towards the epicentre.
He takes just five photographs,
the only ones ever taken of Hiroshima, on the day the bomb fell.
The scene, I saw through the viewfinder, was too cruel.
Among the hundreds of injured persons,
you couldn't tell the difference, between, male, and female.
There are children screaming, it's hot, it's hot,
and infants crying over the body of their mother, who appeared to be already dead.
I tried to pull myself together, by telling myself,
I'm a news cameraman, and it is my duty to take a photograph,
even if, it's just one,
even if, people take me as a devil, or a cold-hearted man.
I finally managed to press the shutter,
but when I looked through the finder,
a second time, the object was blurred with tears.
Three days later, a second atom bomb is dropped on Nagasaki,
killing eighty thousand people.
On August the fourteenth,
exactly eight days after Enola Gay's mission to Hiroshima,
the Japanese, finally surrender.
Chanichi Tetsutani was buried in the front garden,
where he was playing on the day he died.
Because his father felt
that laying a four year old in a grave, alone, was too pitiful,
he buried his tricycle, with his son.
Thirty years later,
Chanichi 's bones were dug up, and placed in a formal grave.
Reiko Watanabe's body was never found.
For two days,
her father, mother, and sister, searched the city ruins in vain,
but all they ever found was her lunchbox, buried under a fallen mud wall,
it's contents, carbonised by the heat of ten suns.
Kengo Nakawa died from burns, two weeks after the bomb fell.
Many years later,
his son donated the watch
to the Hiroshima peace Museum,
where it remains to this day,
a symbol of the moment the world changed forever.