The impact of Hiroshima’s bombing, 65 years later
Sixty five years ago today, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In a public statement justifying the use of the bomb that August, 1945, President Harry Truman said, “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished, in the first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.”
More than 140,000 people died in Hiroshima. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing 70,000 people.
Joining us to talk about the impact the bombs had ? and continue to have ? on the survivors, their families and Japanese culture is Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki. Okazaki has made two films about the atomic bombs, the first called “The Mushroom Club,” in 2006, and the second a year later, called “White Light, Black Rain.”
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