History's Secret Heroes - Series 4: Kiyoshi Tanimoto and the Atomic Bomb

On the 6th of August 1945, a United States B-29 bomber dropped the world's first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Japan had attacked the United States at the end of 1941 in Pearl Harbor.

This brought both nations into the Second World War in the Pacific theater.

Japan fought on the side of the Axis powers, aligning itself with Nazi Germany.

The United States joined the Allies.

But when Germany surrendered in May 1945, Japan kept fighting.

The American government hoped this new type of bomb, an atomic weapon, would finally end the war.

For the people who lived in the city, it was a life-changing event.

In Hiroshima, there was just that tremendous flash, and then many people sort of lost consciousness, especially if they were close to the hypocenter.

Kim Brandt is a historian of 20th century Japan.

People were kind of thrown distances.

They were thrown out of their houses, you know, say 20 feet or more.

They lost consciousness.

Many died under the rubble of buildings that had collapsed on them.

Many people were terribly injured by the shattering glass of windows.

And of course then fires started almost immediately.

Many people were burnt to death or they received terrible burns.

Around 70,000 people died instantly.

Those who were able tried to escape the flames.

But Kiyoshi Tanimoto ran back into Hiroshima.

He encountered this utterly silent, ghostly procession of survivors streaming out of the city and trying to escape the inferno that the city was becoming.

What he saw was a scene from hell.

This endless list of grotesque types of injuries.

People who were covered with shards of glass.

Many of them were so badly burned that strips of skin were hanging down from their faces, from their backs, from their arms, from their hands.