Deep in the heart of the Pacific, the island of Tinian
is getting ready for an operation that will mark the end
of the Second World War. In total secrecy, a completely unknown weapon
is loaded aboard a B-29 bomber. It's over ten feet long,
weighs four and a half tons, cost around two billion dollars,
and took up to 140,000 people to make. It disappears into the hold, Little Boy, history's first-ever atomic bomb. At 2:00 in the morning, an elite team
climbs on board the Enola Gay. Colonel Paul Tibbets
doesn't yet know their destination. One possible target is Hiroshima,
in the west of Japan. In this one final attack, America claims it will end the war
with Nazi Germany's ally, Japan. For the land of the rising sun, Hiroshima is a base
of great logistical importance and home to garrisons
of up to 40,000 soldiers. In a city decimated by nuclear fire,
one man, Yoshito Matsushige, will capture on film the moments
immediately following the attack. For the first time,
we can now witness in his photos the hell that it was to be there
under the cloud of Hiroshima. It's Monday,
the 6th of August, in Hiroshima. For its 350,000 inhabitants,
it's the start of a lovely day. It's rush hour. The trams are packed
with people off to work. The kids are on their way to school. I was on the second floor
of the Savings Bureau. We opened all the windows
facing the street full of trolley cars and said: "What a fine day." In the morning,
I had breakfast at my usual restaurant. Just as I was about to leave,
three underclass men came in. That day,
I didn't have any summer holidays. Like every day at 7:10,
the air raid sirens have rung out. However, for 45 minutes now,
things have been back to normal. Everyone's used to seeing
bombers over the city. No one's too bothered
by the silver B-29 that splits the sky. It was a bright, sunny day. Those B-29s
were flying high up in the clear sky. They were silver and so neat. As I was walking towards Sendamachi,
there was a sudden boom. Then suddenly,
something like a massive ball of fire came in through the windows. I tried to crouch down,
covering my eyes and ears. Right over the Tsuchiya Hospital,
I saw the bomb as it dropped. At 8:15, Little Boy explodes
2,000 feet over Hiroshima. They call this point
the hypocenter, ground zero. The sky lights up
with the characteristic gamma-ray flash. All living beings are blasted
with radioactivity and die instantly, with no time
for the pain to reach their brains. As the chain reaction unfolds,
a huge fireball forms. At its center, the temperature
can reach 6,000 degrees Celsius, as hot as the surface of the sun. The heat just carbonizes everyone. They just vanish in the heat. A shock wave then arises
and sweeps through the city in a devastating wind
of up to almost 1,000 miles an hour. A killer wind that blows bodies apart
and destroys 60,000 buildings and homes. In a whirlwind of wind,
steam and radioactive particles, a mushroom-shaped cloud forms, towering seven and a half miles high
over Hiroshima. I didn't see the mushroom cloud. I was right under it. My body was blown away
with the cards in my hands. The next moment, I lost consciousness. Obviously, I was knocked unconscious. When I came to, it was really dark. I couldn't see 100 meters in front of me. It's just after the blast. Sunao Tsuboi
and Mitsuko Kouchi are still alive, miraculously shielded
by either a wall or someone's body. Seventy thousand others
are already dead, though. For nearly two miles, around 90 percent
of the city has been flattened. Huge fires are raging
and a huge cloud suffocates Hiroshima. It was so dark that I could hardly see
the face of my wife, and she was right next to me. She was holding my hand, so I realized
we hadn't been killed by the bomb. Neither of us. Yoshito Matsushige is 32 years old, a photographer
for the local Chugoku Shimbun newspaper, embedded with the military press corps. When the bomb goes off, he's less than two miles away
from ground zero at home with his pregnant wife. They're just finishing their breakfast. Where the wind came through,
there was a huge hole in the wall. Right through both floors of the house
and the sitting room was full of debris. I pulled my camera out of the debris and put on the clothes
I got from headquarters. I got ready and went out. Yoshito wants to get
to the center of town, but the shockwave
has completely leveled Hiroshima. The streets are nothing but debris,
burnt bodies, and people with dreadful wounds. It's impossible to go any further
with the heat of the fire, so he turns back
and heads for the Miyuki Bridge. It was such an awful scene
that I just couldn't press the shutter. Not for at least 20 minutes. I eventually took a photo, then went in a few feet closer
for another, but the viewfinder
was clouded over with my tears. I still remember that to this day. It was just hell. Here they are, Yoshito Matsushige's two photos
on the Miyuki Bridge, taken on the 6th of August, 1945, just three hours after the bomb went off. They're the very first photos
to show so clearly the victims of the first atomic bomb
in the history of mankind. There on the bridge,
he realizes how lucky he has been and just how violent the explosion was. He will write in his memoirs that he was born
to be there at that moment. The wounded,
all their eyes were fixed on me. It was as if they wanted me
to tell the whole world what was happening to them. Was it cruel of me to photograph them, or was it the best thing I could do? I was in terrible conflict. Matsushige's photos, preserved here in Hiroshima
at the Chugoku Shimbun press offices, should never, in fact, have existed. In Japan, during the Second World War, it was an offense to photograph events
that were bad for public morale. However, unbeknownst to the authorities,
the forbidden photos were circulated. The negatives were seriously deteriorated
and they might well have disappeared. However, in the 1970s, painstaking restoration work
saved them from oblivion. What did they really go through, these people preserved
for eternity on the Miyuki Bridge? Who are they? What do they remember? Scarcely a word has been written about it. However, the wounded photographed
by Yoshito Matsushige, have been identified. Their average age now
would be well over 80. Only two of them are left. However, ten other eyewitnesses
have also been found. For the purposes
of this unique investigation, a team of specialists has availed itself
of the very latest technology. We must stick to what
the witnesses have told us. When the images were scanned,
new details started to emerge, hitherto invisible to the naked eye. Like these bodies here on the ground. Or this parapet
blown away by the explosion. By recreating the scene in 3-D,
and thanks to eyewitness accounts, the photos have been brought back to life. The better to understand
what really went on in Hiroshima, in the heart of the mushroom cloud. Hiroshima means the big island. It lies beside the Pacific Ocean. The many branches of the River Ota
also winds through it. It's almost like a floating city, but when it gets so hot
that all that water starts to boil, there's no way out of the trap. In the midst of all the frenzy, the Miyuki Bridge
played a vital role for the survivors. It stood right at the edge of the fires
that raged after the bomb, a mile and a half from the hypocenter. It was the bridge between life and death. On the Miyuki Bridge, Matsushige's photos
are now part of an actual monument. The time has now come, though,
for them to yield up their secrets. The survivors arrive at the Miyuki Bridge bearing all the scars of what
they've been through in the explosion. The young girl next to the little boy
looks like her hair has been burnt. Another's clothes are in tatters
and her arms exposed. Off to the side,
the people are all barefoot. Did they flee like that with no shoes,
or did they lose them as they ran? If you put the photos side by side, you notice one figure
that appears in both. A young girl in school uniform. Her name is Mitsuko Kouchi. Here in 1945, she's 13 years old. She's in her second year
at Hiroshima's Business School for Girls. She's under a mile from ground zero. Today, she's over 80. She still lives in Hiroshima. Mitsuko Kouchi remembers everything
about Monday, the 6th of August, 1945. In the photo, she's wearing a scarf
given to her by her cousin who works at the Yamaguchi Police Station. It's not part
of Hiroshima's regular school uniform. Her sleeve is torn
and she's bleeding profusely. My friend ran over and clung to me. She said: "Mitsuko, my head is cracked." I looked and she was covered in blood. Since she was clinging on to me,
I was covered in blood too. When the bomb goes off,
Mitsuko isn't at school. She's been requisitioned
to work at the postal savings bank. The shock wave hits the building
at 160 miles an hour. The building withstands it,
but all its windows are blown in and the flying glass
seriously wounds Mitsuko and her friends. The building
is right at the heart of the huge fires that follow the explosion. Six of the young girls somehow make it
badly burned to the Miyuki Bridge. Mitsuko Kouchi is overwhelmed
by what she sees there. No one was talking. I didn't see anyone talking. Everyone was in silence, facing downwards. Some were crying in pain. Everyone looked like monsters. Some got burnt on their faces. That looked terrible. He didn't look human. Half his body was covered in blood. Anyone not fully clothed ended up naked. They were everywhere,
all black, their clothes in tatters. They might have been a bit embarrassed,
but it wasn't the moment to be prudish. For the 13-year-old girl, the Miyuki Bridge
is like an antechamber of hell. What Mitsuko Kouchi tells us, she has kept deep inside
for over 70 years. A woman who was holding a child. She had her hair held up
in a hair elastic. I suppose
she was the older sister of the child. She was screaming and swirling around,
holding a charred child in her arms. I felt so sorry. The child was dead. She cried out a name,
the child's name, I guess, and said: "Wake up, wake up!" Of course, the baby never woke up. All we saw was a charred body. Mitsuko has thought of that mother
with her dead baby ever since. Every single day. She can't forgive herself
for not trying to help her. Confusion reigns on the Miyuki Bridge
that morning of the 6th of August. It is three hours since the bomb went off. The wounded are crowding in, wanting to get across
to escape the heat of the city center. When Yoshito Matsushige
takes these two photos, no one knows the explosion
was a nuclear bomb. I don't remember who was there,
yet I was standing there in the photo. I wondered why would this person
be photographing such a terrible scene. At that time, a man in national uniform
with a camera in his hands. Naturally, it felt strange
to see a man with a camera. I remember he asked me:
"What happened to Hiroshima?" What really happened that morning
in Hiroshima under the cloud? Witnesses tell us
the wounded arriving at the Miyuki Bridge are parched with thirst. Some of them throw themselves
into the river trying to cool off and soothe their wounds,
but exhausted, they drown. The Ota fills up with bodies. While up on the bridge,
in deathly silence, everyone just waits. For what? That man in a cap in front of Mitsuko,
what's he doing? Why is this man touching his feet? This container, what's in it? There, a man lifts his head
looking for something. He appears to have a shaved head. What is he waiting for? That is Mr. Tsuboi. He is the other person
in the photo who is still alive. His testimony is precious because he knows
exactly what everyone's doing there on the Miyuki Bridge. Mr. Tsuboi's face still bears the scars
of the 6th of August, 1945. He was 20 years old. On that day,
he's just had breakfast with some friends and he's walking along the street. When the bomb explodes, he's three-quarters of a mile
from ground zero. The radiation burns his face. His back is bleeding,
and he looks for medical aid. In the street, he sees a man
holding his own intestines in his hands. Another, with his eye hanging out. In the face of all this horror,
he gives up on getting to the hospital and heads for the bridge. According to Mr. Tsuboi, everyone on the bridge
had come there to tend to their burns. They brought rapeseed oil there. It's a cooking oil. You couldn't put it on everyone. People were daubing themselves
as best they could with their arms in the bucket. That canister
on the ground is full of oil. An emergency first aid remedy for burns. The man in the foreground
with a cap and in uniform, Mr. Tsuboi tells us,
is a member of the civil defense who'd been instructed
to treat burn cases in this way. Further back
in a uniform of a lighter shade, another man
from the temporary first aid post is doing his best at this thankless task. However, there are just too many people
and too many burns, and the precious rapeseed oil
soon runs out. It's replaced with thick, dark sump oil hastily appropriated
from the nearby train depot. They started using that
because at least it was oil. They covered themselves in it
and their faces were getting all black. They really look like monsters. However, it's not enough. Here in this makeshift hospital,
some are simply running out of strength and starting to give up on life. Over to one side,
a young girl is doubled over, her arms covered in dreadful burns,
exhausted by the pain. We can make out the legs of others
who just lie there at death's door with no strength left to fight. There was nothing more to be done. Those who were going to die, died. The others kept on living. There on the Miyuki Bridge, Mr. Tsuboi feels his end is near. His identity papers are all burned, so he's worried that if he dies,
his body will never be identified. Never returned to his parents. As the dying people around him look on, he scratches a message
on the bridge with a stone. Thinking my life would end at 20,
it was a lonely feeling. Thinking no one will help me,
I wrote "Tsuboi is dying here." Lonely. Maybe futile would be a better word. We were hardly capable ourselves,
of moving. How could we do anything
for those people there on the ground? Those who were dying said:
"Mother, Father," and then died. Many people died at Miyuki Bridge. Many people came to the Miyuki Bridge
in search of aid and comfort. Many just came there to die. This summer of 1945, the children have been sent away
from the city for fear of bombardments. The youngest ones were the first to go. Yet many of the wounded
in Yoshito Matsushige's photos look like children or teenagers. Here, a young girl with long hair. Beside her, a boy with a shaven head. These girls and boys
along what was the parapet, they're wearing school uniforms, surely. Back there, this boy, half-naked and alone, what's he doing there? Did all Hiroshima's school kids
meet up here at the bridge? On the Miyuki Bridge, I don't remember
who was sitting alongside me, but they looked like schoolgirls and boys. Maybe seventh or eighth graders,
judging from their satchels. Most likely they were college students. Mitsuo Kodama, who was 13 at the time, pays his respects
to all the children from his class who never had a chance to grow up. The bomb goes off just half a mile
from his school. Like all his classmates,
he has terrible radiation burns and he faints. However, the fact that
there were schools back at ground zero doesn't of itself explain the large number
of children on the Miyuki Bridge. The kids a year older than me
were off to work in the factories. Japan is at war
and the men are all off at the front. Behind the lines, life goes on. From the age of 12 or 13, teenagers are drafted
into all sorts of duties. The girls contribute to the war effort
by working for the post office or as tram conductors. This August though, Hiroshima's young
are needed for a much more important and dangerous task. To prevent firebomb attacks, buildings were being torn down
and spaced out. We were doing something
that was totally useless. These young people
are working for the army now, retrieving stones from the buildings
to build fire barricades. Swelling the ranks of young people
scattered all around the hypocenter. In a radius of just over a mile
from the blast, there are more than 8,000 of them. Many students were mobilized, 60 percent of those within 1,000 meters
of the epicenter like myself, were killed. For some years now, Professor Keiko Otani
has been charting the age of the victims of the Hiroshima bomb. Her studies confirm
the survivor's testimonies and the conclusions drawn
from Yoshito Matsushige's photos. At Hiroshima on the 6th of August, 22 percent of the victims
were adolescents. Most of them between 13 and 14 years old. When you see from this diagram
that so many innocent children died, it drives home
the awfulness of the situation. On the morning of the sixth,
13-year-old Chiyoko Kuwabara is helping with the demolition work. She has a tummy ache. She's lying under a tree
when the bomb goes off. With serious wounds to her face,
she flees along with her classmates towards the Miyuki Bridge,
where she finds a lot of other children. We were still kids,
so all we wanted was to go home. We were only thinking about getting home. On the bridge, the children
don't know where to go, so they just wait. I will never forget what we went through. Kuwabara is one of just a handful
to make it this far, unharmed. It makes me cry
when I think of them waiting there for their family to come to find them. I always feel so sorry for them. The children's lives hang by a thread. It's not enough
just to have reached the bridge. They're still in grave need of help. For the military, it's out of the question
that Japan surrenders. In the inferno that is now Hiroshima, their first priority is to save
the vital resources to carry on the fight. The fire that's consuming the city
is getting dangerously close to the Miyuki Bridge. For everyone fleeing the blaze, the bridge has in fact become
the border between life and death. More and more victims of the blaze
are starting to arrive. Eyewitness testimony
has made it possible to reconstruct what's going on around the edges
of Yoshito Matsushige's photos. It's an endless ballet
of military vehicles. Relief efforts are being organized to get the burn victims to the hospitals
that haven't been destroyed. Goro Takeuchi is a 22-year-old army cadet
stationed in a suburb of Hiroshima. He sees a searingly bright light
fill the sky and hears a huge, dull thump. Half an hour later,
along with 100 other soldiers, he sets off to help evacuate the victims. When he gets to the Miyuki Bridge, he is shocked
by the orders he's been given. He ordered me to give priority
to military men. Women and children were not important. Children, women,
and the elderly were considered weak. Only young men were allowed a ride. In a deathly silence, and under the eye of the wounded
waiting stunned on the bridge, the evacuation begins. Young soldiers were still a valuable part
of the war effort. I think that's why this order was given. To win the war required people
who could hold a gun. Women couldn't shoot. Women and children
were thought to be of little use and had to wait. They had to join the queue. When I first received the order,
I thought that made sense. However, the situation at Miyuki Bridge
brought me to my senses. I couldn't just rescue
the military personnel. In the midst of all the chaos
on the Miyuki Bridge, everybody's trying to stay alive. A little girl
goes up to a truck to beg for help. I still remember his voice. It was stern and without compassion. It really scared her
that he shouted at her and she started crying. She was just a little thing. Then she rushed off. Alone, with no idea where she's going, the girl heads back
into the blazing heart of the city. There were flames everywhere
and I could see the whole city burning up. What happened to her? She died, of course. Even adults couldn't survive,
so what hope was there for a little girl? How many children
came to the Miyuki Bridge on that Monday the 6th of August, only to disappear again, like that little girl who's forever burned
into Mr. Tsuboi's memory? Rie Kutsuki is very familiar
with Yoshito Matsushige's two photos. Since her early childhood,
she's grown up with a strange certainty, one shared by her whole family. There in the photo,
right behind the man applying the oil, a little boy with a shaven head
stands with his back to us. He's clearly there in this photo. Why did he never make it back? I was told my grandparents heard
the same question from people many times. For the whole family,
there was never any doubt. This boy here is Uncle Akira. His unusually shaped ears
are the indisputable proof. He's never been found. However, one day my grandmother
came across this famous photo. She recognized her son Akira,
even from the back. Akira, the brother of Kutsuki's father
is at school when the nuclear mushroom cloud
blooms over Hiroshima. He's alone and he tries to get home. He's pulled along in the rush
towards the Miyuki Bridge, where Yoshito Matsushige photographs him. He's clearly there in this photo. Why did he never make it back? When a huge number of people
all die at once, you can never know
what happened to each one of them. That's the cruelty of war and the atomic bomb. Hiroshima, an entire city
wiped out in a fraction of a second. Thousands of lives
were brought to a sudden end. Bit by bit, thanks to the photos
of Yoshito Matsushige, it's been possible to trace
how events unfolded that Monday morning. However, what do we know of the actual
suffering people endured under the cloud? Doctor Harada
is a surgeon at Osaka Hospital. He's also a specialist
in emergency medicine. He can shed new light
on Matsushige's photos. Their hair is burned,
as well as their clothes. They must be burnt all over their bodies. A series of details
strikes him straight away. In Doctor Harada's opinion,
all the victims in the photo show characteristic symptoms
of very serious burns. This can be seen
from the parts of their bodies that are overexposed in the photos. It's not the kind of burn you get today
in the normal course of our lives. When a person is exposed
to radiation from an A-bomb, the skin absorbs the rays
and gives off heat. The burns are all the more intense because the victims
were lightly dressed for a summer day. Many parts of their bodies
weren't protected by clothing. It was a very deep and serious burn. That was a surprising revelation. Indeed, when an A-bomb goes off,
the temperature will cause hair to frizz. The skin is burned very deeply. Very rapidly, enormous blisters form, which then burst,
leaving the flesh exposed. The nerve endings
are thus in direct contact with the air. The pain the people suffered would have been the worst pain
a person could ever experience. They were saying: "Mummy, it's hot," with their hands held out. There were people walking like this
with their hands out. They were walking slowly, but walking. I was wondering why their clothes
were hanging off their arms. However, in fact, it was their skin. That's what I found out at the hospital. The skin had peeled off,
the reddish flesh was exposed, and that too was burned. Their skins turned outward
and fluid was oozing out. When you grill fish, the skin shrinks. It was like that. Mitsuko Kouchi's father
is there on Miyuki Bridge too. He has very bad burns on his arms. I held this side of him saying:
"Are you all right?" Then from here,
the skin peeled completely off. It was his hand. The skin came off and it looked so watery. Mr. Kouchi's burns
are characteristic of burns from a nuclear weapon. The heat of the explosion
burns everything in its path. Its power is such that it leaves imprints
of things on the ground and on the walls, like the shadow of death. Any hospital left standing is submerged
by the victims of serious burns. The effects are beyond the power
of human imagination. Professor Hasai is a physicist. Like Doctor Harada, he has been studying for a long time
the consequences of the atomic bomb. He too, has remarked on the severity
of the victims' burns. In the data gathered by the American army,
the burn victims were a hidden factor. Yes, because it was just too awful. If this had been made public before, the US and the whole world
might have reacted differently. However, the US prefers to keep quiet
about suffering on this scale. What they want
is to recuperate all their huge investment by developing
the civil applications of nuclear power, and that means not scaring people. For a long time, all their studies
on the effects of the bomb remain confidential. What these studies show
are the victims of keloids, a type of scarring characterized
by extensive growths of flesh. It's a symptom presented by almost all
the burn victims from Hiroshima, and Nagasaki as well. Several reports
have shown that outside the zone hit by the wind from the explosion, the number of victims who died
from burns was considerably higher than the number of those who died
instantaneously inside the zone. When Little Boy explodes at 8:15, nobody yet knows
what the consequences will be. Oppenheimer himself,
the architect of the bomb, estimates 20,000 dead in the first second. There will be more than three times
that number. Hiroshima,
which was spared all the bombing raids, is, therefore, a reliable choice
for testing the destructive power of this new weapon. When, in September 1945, US scientists
arrived in Japan with the occupying army, they seized all photos, medical records,
and samples taken by doctors since the 6th of August. To handle all this information, an atomic bomb casualty commission
is set up. Under the cover of medical care
for the people of Hiroshima, a great deal of information is collected, all intended for a proper inquiry
into the effects of the blast. Everything is noted down,
photographed, archived, and classified as top secret
by the US military. Beyond the confines of the ABCC, Japanese doctors
are under permanent surveillance by US military police. They're not to ask too many questions
if they don't want to lose their license. Throughout the whole Hiroshima region,
the burns from the bomb are filmed. However, sometimes mere images
are not enough. Kouchi's father too turns to the ABCC. When he dies,
his son wants to recover his body. My brother asked me to contact the ABCC. I found out that my father's body
had been preserved in formaldehyde. He'd been dissected. Four days after the blast,
a strange sickness is raging. Vomiting, bleeding,
decomposition of the flesh, hair loss, the Hiroshima plague. The inhabitants are learning
of the effects of radioactivity. Dozens of women
will give birth prematurely in the rubble of the still-burning city. Takeuchi, the military cadet, will help deliver them
of their stillborn babies. The newborns I saw weren't the normal red. They were all white. They have a name for the survivors
of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts. The hibakusha. They're suffering from burns, but also from the effects
of the radioactivity. Cancers and leukemia. In Japanese society,
to have the status of hibakusha gives you access to a pension
and free medical care, but it soon turns on the victims. People are afraid of the hibakusha. The women will give birth to monsters,
the men are all sterile. Already suffering the guilt
of still being alive, the victims find themselves
having to hide away or keep their terrible secret
for fear of being ostracized. This, in the truest sense,
adds insult to injury. A third person in Matsushige's photos
prefers to remain anonymous. This woman is still alive,
but she doesn't want to be named. I didn't want anyone to know either, but my brother insisted
because our father was in the photo. For a long time, to avoid their children
and grandchildren being stigmatized, the hibakusha
have preferred to keep quiet. The people from the Miyuki Bridge
want to die in peace as if the bomb
had never blown their lives apart. Some people need to forget. Others need to remember. Every morning at the exact hour
that Little Boy exploded, a bell rings out
through the streets of Hiroshima. Every 6th of August at 8:15 a.m.,
the whole city shuts down and welcomes people
from all over the world to celebrate peace. Like many other survivors, Mr. Tsuboi
has lived in the shadow of the bomb. Like many, still being alive
has given him a mission. The Miyuki Bridge isn't just where
all those injured people went. For me,
it's where the rest of my life began. It was like a rebirth for me. On the Miyuki Bridge, in an instant, Tsuboi, Kouchi, Nishioka, Kodama,
and all the others lost their innocence. It shouldn't have happened. That endless line of burned victims. It's like I'm watching
something I shouldn't. Like Takeuchi, they all want their lives
after the 6th of August 1945, not to have been in vain. After we die, there will be no one left
to tell these stories. I have to do whatever I can do
as long as I live. To pass it on to the young,
it has been my duty to remember it all and collect all the documentation I could. I want them to understand
the true value of peace, and never to forget Hiroshima. That's what I want. Yoshito Matsushige passed away in 2005, but these photos
are now part of our collective memory. They are a homage to the 210,000 victims
of the Hiroshima bomb, as well as the one
that fell on Nagasaki three days later. They are a rare testimony
to that Monday, the 6th of August, 1945, and to what they all suffered,
those men, women, and children caught in the hell of the nuclear blaze
under the cloud of Hiroshima, so that humanity
may never see its like again.
