s completely wiped out from zero point two the church at the foot of the hills a mile away. in the bed of the creek is the dome that was blown from the top of the church. the gasworks was blown into a mass of twisted steel. 2 concrete walls, the remains of 2 factory buildings. bridges showed greater destruction and nagasaki than hiroshima. even close to zero point, the downward force of the blast they'll to damage roads and railroads due to the height at which the bomb was debt native. the main north-south street of novice hockey was in use shortly

after the disaster. a typical residence on the outskirts of nokia sake, a mile and a half from zero point. survivors are busy working at the restoration of their homes. this is endless man powers of work. 2 b-29's. 2 atomic bombs. 2 cities. a tabulation of that record speaks for itself. ♪ >> next on american artifacts to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of p roche not a sake japan we visited an

exhibit at the american university museum in washington, d.c. >> i am the professor he of history at american university and the director of the american universities nuclear institute. i began the us the two in 1995. the institute was born in the controversy around the exhibit that would be held at the air and space museum at the smithsonian institute but was canceled. this was an attempt by this missoni and to do an honest and balanced exhibit about the decision to drop the bomb and the consequences of the bombing. this was the 50th anniversary in 1995. decided with one of my students, whose mother and grandmother survived the atomic bombing, and whose grandfather died in the atomic warming, we did something special to commemorate the 50th

anniversary. we would teach two classes on campus and bring students to kyoto. the museums in hiroshima and nagasaki asked to bring some of the artifacts to american university and do an exhibit on the 50th anniversary. that was the first time the hiroshima-nagasaki a ball museum did an exhibit outside of japan. it was the 20th anniversary of our exhibit and the 70th anniversary of the original bombing, we did it again. we combined artifacts from nagasaki with six of these fabulous panels. these are historic panels. they can be compared to the picasso or other classic paintings of that sort. this is the first time they have

been to the united states anywhere since 1995. we brought them here and put them with these artifacts. we also put them a children's drawings on the elementary school in hiroshima. that was the origin of the exhibit in 1995. 20 years later we have a more elaborate exhibit that is the most elaborate exhibit on the atomic bombings it is overwhelming. this is one of the most famous images out of nagasaki. a young girl holding a rice ball a rescue party has given her. there is blood on her face. she has a look in her eyes, a distant gaze.

she did not know what happened to her. the people who have lived through the bombing, they were sure the bomb had landed on their house. they figured that's what happened. they went outside and saw all of nagasaki was ablaze, fires were coming towards them. you will see what it was like. next to this, we have a crucifix. there were a lot of crucifixes that are considered symbolic especially in nagasaki. the bomb missed the original target by almost two miles and landed above the cathedral. nagasaki had not been bombed before this. there was a small bombing in 1944, but it had been preserved in pristine condition because

the americans wanted it to be a pristine target to show the effects of the atomic bomb. people in nagasaki thought they had not been bombed because it was the christian capital of japan and east asia. they were in for a big surprise. the drum bob -- bomb dropped right above the cathedral. you see the stopwatch showing acorn 15. a very popular image. -- acorn 15 -- 8:15. it dropped at acorn 8:15. many of those replicas were the original artifacts. some of them were so fragile that the museum decided not

to let them out of japan anymore. almost everything is the original artifacts. what we've got here are the famous mushroom clouds photographs of the mushroom clouds in hiroshima and nagasaki . the descriptions of them from people on the plane, like a pillar of flame shot up into the air and kept expanding. from the top of the column, the pillar, you see these additional bursts, 40,000 feet into the sky. the crew of the unit only gay said they could see the cloud from four hours away. you could still see the cloud looking back, it was so high. there was a lot of radioactive debris swept up in the cloud.

some came down as black rain. here, we see the view of hero shema -- hiroshima city. they thought the pilots would be able to see the bridge clearly from the sky. the bomb drifted and missed the target and landed over here about the hospital. this is the most famous symbol the old industrial prefecture building now called the atomic bomb dome. there was debate about whether to preserve it. this has all been built up. this part here and here have been preserved. you can see everything is devastated. almost two miles in each direction was totally destroyed.

two miles away, you would be badly burned. your house could have been destroyed. this was by modern standards a tiny, primitive little bomb. it could have been 16 kilotons. the bomb that dropped on nagasaki was 20 times. -- kill at times. we've developed bombs that are so much bigger, by 1954, projects on dia sundial with plans for bombs 700,000 times as powerful as the nagasaki bomb. -- 20 kilotons.

this bomb was a little bit bigger, but the casualties were smaller. nagasaki was surrounded by this mound on both sides. the effect of bomb was contained by the mounds. nagasaki was in the valley. the hiroshima bomb, 200,000 dead by 1950. the estimates for nagasaki are 7000 dead by the end of 1945 100 40,000 dead by 1950 -- 140,000 dead by 1950. they were different kinds of bombs. here, we've got some of the more human artifacts, in a way. you've got the shoe of a young

student, 13-year-old boy who was killed in the bombing. you've got the hat of a junior high school student who was killed. you have the water bottle of a young boy 13-year-old who was killed by the bomb. here, we've got one of the replicas. a replica of the lunchbox from a 12-year-old girl who totally disappeared. no trace ever found upper. inside, carbonized rice and t. -- tea. back in 1995, if they wanted to cancel the big funeral at a visit -- you know likeenola gay visit,

we suggested to artifacts. the enola gay and this lunchbox. that was the last thing they wanted to display. they wanted artifacts about the victims, photographs of the victims, statements by american military leaders. they want that controversy. here was a more historical panel. i would like a whole examined about the context about the decision to drop the bomb. -- a whole exhibit about the context. this has the important information about the manhattan project. they started to build the bomb in case the germans built the bomb.

we built the bomb as a deterrent against germany. they did not anticipate it might be used against japan. this is a survey of the bombing targets. these are potential targets. the united states had been firebombing japanese cities since march 10 when we firebombed tokyo. three quarters of our bombs were incendiary. we bombed over 100 japanese cities. we ran out of important major cities to bomb -- the destruction reached 99.5% of the city -- some of the american leaders were appalled.

another top general described this as one of the most ruthless and behringwerke -- barbaric killing of noncombatants in history. this is about the decision to drop the bomb. the reasons for using the bomb. the official narratives has states drop the bomb to expedite the end of the war without having to -- an american invasion would cost a half billion lives. the number keeps going up. there is no record of that anywhere. that is the official narrative. we dropped the bomb to avoid an invasion. there is no truth to that.

bury little truth to that in terms of truman's mind. the japanese from the battle of saipan onward new they cannot win. they hoped to get one more victory for better surrender terms. the big obstacle was the emperor. they wanted to make sure they can keep that for a. across the southwest, pacific command issued a report in 1945 that says the hanging of the emperor to them would be like the crucifixion of christ to us. all would fight to die. almost every advisor of truman urged him to change the surrender terms. that was in america's interest. america planned all along to keep the emperor, but we refused to single -- we were calling for unconditional surrender. what else would end the war?

roosevelt finally got a promise from stalin that three months after the end of the war in europe, a big massive red army was going to come to the work against japan. truman met with churchill and stalin to make sure the soviets were coming in. he got agreement from the soviets the first day of the conference. stalin will be in the japanese war by august 15. he writes home to his wife the next and says the russians are coming in, the war will end a year sooner. think of all the boys who won't be killed. he says the japanese are trying to surrender. he describes the intercepted telegram as the telegram from the japanese emperor asking for peace. they all knew the japanese were finished. american intelligence reported repeatedly that the entry of the soviet union into the war will

convince all japanese that complete defeat is inevitable. the question is, why truman who is not bloodthirsty that she did not take pleasure in killing people. why would he used the atomic bomb knowing they were not militarily necessary? what we assume mass historians is that a big part of his motivation was that he was sending a message to the soviets. if the soviets interfered with american plans in europe or in asia, this is the fate they would get. the soviets interpreted it that way. suddenly, the day of judgment was tomorrow. it has been ever since. that is the reality we were confronted with. that's what makes the atomic bombing so important.

not just hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children were killed. the fact that the human species has this hanging over our has ever since. we still have 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world. we've had this conflict with the russians over ukraine. u.s. and russia still have thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at each other. we are not playing games here. that is still real, which is why we wanted to do this exhibit. there were apparently several people carrying cameras in hiroshima on august 6. only one is known to have taken photos. he was a photographer with hiroshima's newspaper. he had enough film to take my four photos.

it was too horrible. -- 24 photos. he ended up taking seven photos and developed five of them. he was very respectful. he did not want to show horrible burns or horrible suffering. he shows people at the relief stations. you can see the fire in the background, destruction of work. this was 1.5 miles from the hypo center. he says it was like walking through hell. he could not take photos. it was too horrific and too intrusive on people's privacy and suffering. there were no medical supplies. the hospitals were destroyed the nurses were killed. what you see here are people in these relief stations -- there was no medicine, nothing to treat them.

they put oil on the burns. people were putting magnets on the wounds. -- maggots on the wounds. a photo from nagasaki people lying on mattresses. a woman breast-feeding her baby. women carrying around that babies on their backs. you have images of charred corpses. people who were near the hypo center, their internal organs boiled away and they quickly turned into charcoal and became carbonized. you see the bodies, about the bodies -- clothes burned off the

bodies. people with kimonos had patterns burned into their skin. he was sitting there -- one friend speaks to our group. he survived, obviously. he writes down the names of all of his family members and how far they were. not a single one was injured or burned by the bomb -- one by one, he crosses them out. over the next couple weeks, one by one would die from radiation poisoning. you would get these purple spots all over your body, terrible diarrhea, your hair would start to fall out. i know of cases in which family

members or friends came into hiroshima looking for relatives or friends and within several days after, they would die of radiation sickness. some experts say the effects of radiation were going quickly. there's a lot of evidence to suggest that was not the case. this is the hospital. the hospital where the bomb detonated. this is the elementary school in nagasaki. almost all the teachers and students were killed. i take my students now every year on the morning of august 9 go to a private ceremony at the elementary school. all the children who now attend the elementary school come there

and have this special piece commemoration ceremony with this school filled with elementary school students. you realize that's who the victims of the atomic bomb more. after the war congregants of all souls church, unitarian church said art supplies to students at an elementary school in nagasaki. students used the art supplies at a time when they were very -- there were very little supplies of any sort. you see so many reports of students living as orphans without shelter. they had makeshift shelters. just getting our supplies was a huge thing for these kids.

ingratitude, they sent back drawings and paintings to the congregation. -- in gratitude. these were lost for a long time and then rediscovered. now, the members of the church who went back to hiroshima recently and met with some of the kids -- there is a nice documentary about this. >> [speaking japanese] ♪ >> i thought it would add a nice touch to the exhibit. a human side and a different light of americans who reached out to the people of hiroshima

and the gratitude on the part of the children who received those gives. the famous japanese artists who came into the city of hiroshima three days after the atomic bombing, sophomores -- saul the horrors and decided to do a series of panels. the first one was called ghosts. what it shows is the image of hiroshima afterwards. people who experienced it said they felt as though they were walking through hell. fires everywhere, people naked walking with her arms held in front of them to lessen the pain. skin hanging down, people's close burned off. this procession of naked people. you could not tell men from women as they were walking.

you see the shock, the horror, the suffering in hiroshima after the bombings. the second panel we have here is called "fire." it shows the reality was the fire was everywhere, spreading rapidly. people tried to escape the fire. escaping the firemen the, they would have to leave others behind. they would have to ignore cries for help from people trapped under beams and in houses. people who were injured, in order to escape that so many tragic stories of children leaving their parents behind or parents leaving their children

behind when flames were encroaching. the folks at the gallery tell me i can choose any six of the 15 panels i want. i decided i wanted to complicate the narrative. not just portray the japanese as victims of the atomic bomb, but put anin a different context that there's a possibility for them to be victims and victimizers at the same time. i wanted to panels to show that. the first one here is called "pros pick up inse." there were 43,000 japanese soldiers, 45,000 korean slave laborers. they were badly treated by the japanese. they were discriminated against

in japan and also discriminated against during the time of the atomic bombing. they got no medical treatment, no aid at all. many of them died in the streets. this one is called "crows." it shows crows plucking out the eyeballs of the dead korean victims here. it is very controversial inside japan, still. shinzo abe and his administration is doing everything they can to cover up the history of japanese atrocities toward the koreans. i want to show that part of it tubing. i wanted to complicate it further -- part of it too. they were american pows in a camp in hiroshima.

23 of them in the bombing. many of them survived, only to be been to death by enraged japanese citizens. -- only to be beaten to death by enraged japanese citizens. they depicted several women among the american pows. there were no women there. it is baffling why they chose to do so. we see the progression in thinking -- in the beginning they focused on japanese victims. then, their consciousness began expanding. they start to show the japanese as also victimizers. they have one panel on the rape of nanjing, one on auschwitz. they are trained to make this a broader human st