The bomb that changed the world

'THERE was a soldier on the ground suffering from burns. I thought, ‘There’s someone on the ground!’ and ran towards him. He noticed me and said, half groaning, ‘We’ve been hit by a new type of bomb.’” – Yoshie Oka, Hiroshima survivor

This new documentary marks the 70th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bomb being dropped over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 – a day which changed the course of history.

The Day They Dropped The Bomb provides a minute-by-minute account of what happened on that day, told through the unique insights of the people who were there and rarely-seen archive footage from the time.

Made by award-winning film-maker Leslie Woodhead, who directed acclaimed documentaries The Day Kennedy Died and 9/11: The Day That Changed The World for ITV, and filmed on location in Hiroshima and the United States, this programme features interviews with witnesses including the last surviving member of the flight crew of the Enola Gay plane which dropped the bomb, navigator Dutch Van Kirk, in his final TV interview before he died.

Using rare archive film, news reports and radio bulletins alongside the personal memories of people who were there, the programme relives the events of August 6, casting fresh light on the British and Americans’ wartime race to make an atomic bomb ahead of the Nazis and its effect on the Japanese surrender. It also reflects on the debate around the morality of using atom bombs that continues today.

Among the contributors are Russell Gackenbach, the navigator of the follow up aircraft; George Elsey – the man who broke the news to President Truman that the bomb had been dropped and the only surviving member of Truman’s administration; and key scientists of the Manhattan Project which created the bomb – Lilli Hornig and Bob Krohn.

Telling the story of what happened on the ground in Hiroshima are seven survivors, some of whom are speaking for the first time on British TV. The survivors include Yoshie Oka, who broke the news of a new type of bomb to the world from a bunker in the devastated city, and Tetsushi Yonezawa, who was just seven years old at the time and was one of only 14 people to survive within 750 metres of the hypocentre of the explosion.

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