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Hiroshima: BBC History of World War II | |
---|---|
Genre | Documentary History Military |
Written by | Paul Wilmshurst |
Directed by | Paul Wilmshurst [1] |
Narrated by | John Hurt [1] |
Theme music composer | Daniel Pemberton [1] |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producer | Paul Wilmshurst |
Editors | Luke Dunkley Horacio Queiro [1] |
Running time | 89 minutes [2] |
Original release | |
Network | BBC One BBC America Discovery Channel |
Release | 5 August 2005 |
Hiroshima is a BBC docudrama that premiered as a television special on 5 August 2005, marking the eve of the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. [1] The program was aired on the Discovery Channel and BBC America in the United States. The documentary features historical reenactments using firsthand eyewitness accounts and computer-generated imagery of the explosion. The film won an Emmy and three BAFTA awards in 2006. [3]
The documentary recounts the world's first nuclear attack and examines the repercussions. Covering a three-week period from the Trinity test to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the program chronicles America's political gamble and the planning for the momentous event. Archival film, dramatizations, and special effects depict what occurred aboard the Enola Gay and inside the nuclear blast. [2]
Six Japanese survivors are interviewed: Kinuko Laskey (a nurse in a communications hospital), Morio Ozaki (an army cadet), Teruko Fujii (16-year-old tram driver), Thomas Takashi Tanemori (an eight-year-old schoolboy), Dr. Shuntaro Hida (a doctor at a military hospital), and Akiko Takakura (a 17-year-old city bank clerk).
From the United States the interviewees are Paul Tibbets (the commanding officer and pilot of the Enola Gay), Theodore Van Kirk (the navigator of the aircraft), Morris R. Jeppson (the weapon test officer), and Russell Gackenbach (the navigator of the accompanying photographic aircraft Necessary Evil ). White House Map Room Duty Officer George Elsey is interviewed as an eyewitness to the Potsdam Conference.
The Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in warfare. The bomb, code-named "Little Boy", was targeted at the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and destroyed about three-quarters of the city. Enola Gay participated in the second nuclear attack as the weather reconnaissance aircraft for the primary target of Kokura. Clouds and drifting smoke resulted in Nagasaki, a secondary target, being bombed instead.
Little Boy is the name of the type of atomic bomb used in the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 during World War II, making it the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. The bomb was dropped from the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group, and Captain Robert A. Lewis. It exploded with an energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT (63 TJ) and had an explosion radius of approximately 1.3 kilometers which caused widespread death across the city. The Hiroshima bombing was the second nuclear explosion in history, after the Trinity nuclear test.
Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force. He is best known as the aircraft captain who flew the B-29 Superfortress known as the Enola Gay when it dropped a Little Boy, the first of two atomic bombs used in warfare, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
Theodore Jerome "Dutch" Van Kirk was a navigator in the United States Army Air Forces, best known as the navigator of the Enola Gay when it dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Upon the death of fellow crewman Morris Jeppson on March 30, 2010, Van Kirk became the last surviving member of the Enola Gay crew.
Charles William Sweeney was an officer in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and the pilot who flew Bockscar carrying the Fat Man atomic bomb to the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Separating from active duty at the end of World War II, he later became an officer in the Massachusetts Air National Guard as the Army Air Forces transitioned to an independent United States Air Force, eventually rising to the rank of major general.
Project Alberta, also known as Project A, was a section of the Manhattan Project which assisted in delivering the first nuclear weapons in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
Hiroshima is a 1995 Japanese-Canadian war drama film directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and Roger Spottiswoode about the decision-making processes that led to the dropping of the atomic bombs by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki toward the end of World War II. The three-hour film was made for television and had no theatrical release.
Thomas Wilson Ferebee was the bombardier aboard the B-29 Superfortress, Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb "Little Boy" on Hiroshima in 1945.
The 509th Composite Group was a unit of the United States Army Air Forces created during World War II and tasked with the operational deployment of nuclear weapons. It conducted the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945.
Above and Beyond is a 1952 American World War II film about Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., the pilot of the aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945.
Big Stink – later renamed Dave's Dream – was a United States Army Air Forces Boeing B-29-40-MO Superfortress bomber that participated in the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. Assigned to the 393d Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group, it was used as a camera plane in support of the bomb-carrying B-29 Bockscar to photograph the explosion and effects of the bomb, and also to carry scientific observers. The mission was flown by crew C-14 but with Group Operations Officer Major James I. Hopkins, Jr., as the aircraft commander.
Jacob Beser was a lieutenant in the United States Army Air Forces who served during World War II. Beser was the radar specialist aboard the Enola Gay on August 6, 1945, when it dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later, Beser was a crewmember aboard Bockscar when the Fat Man bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. He was the only person to have served as a strike crew member of both of the 1945 atomic bomb missions.
On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. Japan surrendered to the Allies on August 15, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan and invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria. The Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender on 2 September, effectively ending the war.
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is an HBO documentary film directed and produced by Steven Okazaki. It was released on August 6, 2007, on HBO, marking the 62nd anniversary of the first atomic bombing. The film features interviews with fourteen Japanese survivors and four Americans involved in the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Robert Alvin Lewis was a United States Army Air Forces officer serving in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. He was the co-pilot and aircraft commander of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress bomber which dropped the atomic bomb Little Boy on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
Bockscar, sometimes called Bock's Car, is the United States Army Air Forces B-29 bomber that dropped a Fat Man nuclear weapon over the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II in the second – and most recent – nuclear attack in history. One of 15 Silverplate B-29s used by the 509th, Bockscar was built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant at Bellevue, Nebraska, at what is now Offutt Air Force Base, and delivered to the United States Army Air Forces on 19 March 1945. It was assigned to the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, 509th Composite Group to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, in April and was named after captain Frederick C. Bock.
Charles Donald Albury was an American military aviator who participated in both atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was the co-pilot of the United States Army Air Forces B-29 bomber known as the Bockscar during the mission that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The bombing of Nagasaki killed an estimated 40,000 people instantly, and led to Japan's unconditional surrender on August 14, 1945, ending World War II.
Shuntaro Hida was a Japanese physician who was an eyewitness when the Little Boy atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima by the Enola Gay on 6 August 1945. He treated survivors as a medical doctor and wrote about the effects of radiation on the human body.
Operations Order No. 35 was an order issued by the 509th Composite Group on August 5, 1945 for the atomic bombing mission on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II. The Order was signed by Operations Officer Major James I. Hopkins, Jr. who would later fly Big Stink in the August 9, 1945 atomic bombing raid on Nagasaki, Japan, under the call sign "Dimples 90".
The Enola Gay is a USAAF B-29 Superfortress, that dropped Little Boy, the first atomic bomb used in warfare, on Hiroshima in Japan during WWII