History tv here on cspan 3. Dozens of films documenting the aftermath of the atomic bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki, japan in august of 1945, are available at the u. S. National archives in maryland. The films, shot by japanese and american crews were hidden and off limits to the public for decades after world war ii ended. Up next, on reel america, historian greg mitchell, author of atomic coverup, two u. S. Soldiers, hiroshima and nagasaki, and the greatest movie never made, joins us to tell the story of these films. We begin with a portion of a film describing the morning of august 6th, 1945 in hiroshima. This Program Includes scenes of atomic bomb victims that some viewers may find disturbing. It was the 6th of august. The air raid which had been on since the night before was lifted for the time being. It was an unusually calm and clear morning. A few minutes after 8 00, two super fortresses in formation appeared over the city. Then a bomb came hurtling down from one of the giant bombers. There was a blinding flash and a deafening explosion. In an instant hiroshima was a scene of unprecedented chaos. Hiroshima was instantly trans figured. There was nothing left but ruins. Nothing standing to hinder a full view of the city. In the first days after the atomic bombing of hiroshima and then nagasaki three days later, 75 years ago, now, the leading japanese news reel team sent one or more cameramen to the two cities. They shot footage of the aftermath, not just buildings but survivors and victims. Told the whole story. This footage was shipped back to tokyo, where it was soon suppressed by the American Occupation when they arrived in early september. The news reel team tried again. They sent several elite people actually to hiroshima and nagasaki and, again, they shot footage, extensive footage for the next month, and then when the americans arrived in nagasaki, again, the footage was seized and the japanese, however, since they had been there before the americans, and had totally historic footage, that showed medical effects as well as physical effects, the americans then ordered them to actually continue their work but under american supervision. And so the japanese went back to work. They shot more footage. They were then ordered to edit and narrate a documentary, which they did, 2 40. But again, under american supervision. They finished this documentary and then it was seized by the American Military and basically suppressed for decades really until the 1960s. The americans then began shooting color footage of the aftermath and that, too, would be suppressed for decades. It is really a story, my book and my film, my current book all talk about how this footage both black and white and color, both japanese and american, was totally suppressed for decades. As we drew close to the epicenter we found that because the blast came from overhead such perpendicular objects as the gateway which is not a strong structure in itself remained erect on the ground. This is the commercial and industrial exhibits building built of brick 300 meters from the epicenter. Why did the japanese make these films that are so scientific and carefully constructed . Well, when they first arrived they, of course, didnt know what they were going to find. Its quite shocking just to be there. Of course, they were the victims. You can talk about them being the perpetrators of the war but in terms of the atomic bombings they were certainly the victims up to 200,000 died. 90 were civilians. And even the survivors suffered horribly from these unique burns and radiation effects. So they were shooting in the hospitals, makeshift hospitals, shacks, documenting the aftermath where people were suffering from a new disease. You could say it was incredibly important just from a medical standpoint because they were documenting the emergence of a new disease in the world, radiation sickness caused by an atomic bomb. A brother and sister who were upstairs in their house two kilometers southwest of the epicenter. It was reported that after about a week they began to develop symptoms of anorexia, bleeding, and fever. Mother and daughter shown here were both inside their house two kilometers southwest of the epicenter. The daughter was injured when an ice box fell on top of her. The mother had no visible injuries and was nursing her daughter outside of the city when a month lauter she, herself, became seriously ill. And so thats why they were, you know, they were intent on capturing that, and they did, but it was important for the u. S. To then hide that footage, because they didnt want americans to see the effects. They wanted americans to turn the page. The war was over and they didnt really want to see what happened to the people who the civilians, and theyre almost all women and children, elderly men, i think we still wanted people to believe wed bombed military facilities and killed soldiers and so forth but it just wasnt the case. And the japanese did for posterity and for the occupiers, the American Military, you know, they tried to do an honest job with this with the footage they had. Three days after the tragedy visited hiroshima. Date the 9th of august, 1945. The day was calm, bright, and windless. A hot summer sun shown upon the city. Since Early Morning an air raid alarm was on in the nagasaki area and then it was lifted. But for two and a half hours the warning continued to prevail. Then exactly at 11 00 two super fortresses appeared over the city from the northeasterly direction flying at a high altitude. The first plane dropped three objects attached to parachutes. At 11 02 00 the second plane dropped an object the descent taking about 40 seconds. Then came a blinding flash followed by an explosion and a blaze. The destruction was the greatest ever wrought by man. All buildings save those of stout reinforced concrete were demolished. The whole of this neighborhood once teemed with wooden houses and small factories now is flattened out. Only pebbles and broken tiles remain. They were directed to make this documentary focusing on, mainly, the physical effects, the effects on plants, the effects on other things in the Natural World with some focus on injuries to people. So its mainly not showing the survivors. Its mainly showing a wide range. I think youre scrolling through here a good variety of what was shown. The shadow effects of course are quite dramatic how the flash of the bomb threw permanent shadows on the buildings and sidewalks and so forth. And so the footage shows scientists, japanese scientists studying this, making measurements and calculating the direction of the bomb and so on. So its quite an amazing document and people can view it now at the National Archives or even online. It is available, but nobody in america saw it until around 1970. My film that will be eventually coming out, we did the first 4k modern transfers so the quality is much better. If people want to know more about your film that is not released yet but will be soon, tell us what they can do. Well, they can go to my blog, pressing issues, where i have put up four brief clips from the film. The film is about 50 minutes long. These clips are, you know, the short but they do include footage of the black and white footage and the color footage and a little bit about what is being shown. It is a very good gives you a very good idea what my film is about and what about the footage is about and why it is important. There is quite a dramatic story about the whole project. After this 2 hour and 40 minute documentary was completed the American Military suddenly arrived and seized not just the original print but every scrap of outtake. Everything that was not used, hours of footage. That has never surfaced and is known as the phantom film in japan because even though the 2 40 documentary did emerge eventually from the shadows all the outtakes, what they call scraps and left over material has never surfaced. It is either still buried or was destroyed by the americans. Thats the phantom film. What happened was when the japanese news reel team found out they were about to be raided by the americans, they did spirit out i guess the original print and had a copy made at great risk of imprisonment by the americans. They had one copy made and then came back and hid that copy in the ceiling of an editing suite where it remained for several years. So Everything Else was shipped back to the u. S. The japanese kept it. The occupation was still going on. They kept it in the ceiling. Then after several years, they brought it out and actually the first even small bits of it that anyone saw in the west was sort of smuggled out to rene for his famous feature hiroshima amileperhour which as you know is not a documentary but a drama set in hiroshima. He used small bits of it in hiroshima mon amour a foreign film so that is how the west saw tiny bits of it. But a larger part was never seen until and we can talk about this if you want aired on pbs just after 1970. So tell us about this film. Well, erik barnouw found out in the late 1960s, he was at columbia at the time and already a famous writer on documentary films, he found out that this footage had been quietly declassified at the National Archives. And so he then made a 15minute rather artful, under stated documentary, which were looking at right now, parts of it, called hiroshima nagasaki 1945 and managed to get Public Television to air it around another august 6th anniversary. This caused great controversy at the time. Some people thought this was not a proper idea i. D. And they at least one station refused to run it. And when it was aired, there was a panel that came on after to discuss it, i guess more of a context rather than let it speak for itself. He basically took the 2 40. Took 15 minutes of highlights with the narration, and, you know, it did cause quite a stir. And it was available for many years as a vhs tape. In hiroshima on that day half the doctors were killed. At the hospitals between 3,000 and 10,000 people came each day for help. Each day 2,000 of them died. They were buried together because they were too many to bury separately. So it was an historic moment. This was 197019 plea71. The color footage shot by the americans was still unknown and no one had ever seen. Now were seeing the first bits of it here. Okay. Actually that card there is a very interesting story, itself. If you want to hold that. The cameraman, harry mamura not a name that Many Americans know but he was a well known, japanese cinematographer born in japan, went to hollywood, worked on main stream hollywood movus in the 1930s. Went back to japan. And actually in 1942 was the cinematographer for the very first movie. That is how prominent he was. He was enlisted by the americans to shoot most of their footage and so that is again the level of quality that went into this. And harry mimura then shot much of this footage that some of this youll see now. This scene here is nurses marching into the Red Cross Hospital in hiroshima, which was badly damaged and they were this footage was shot in the fall or winter following the atomic bombing. Where was this color footage then, its marked at the National Archives as United States air force, but when did people first learn about this . Well, i guess kind of a long story but one of the handful of men who took part in this project was a man named hesht susen. He got out of the military and went on to be one of the pioneering network tv producers and directors and he was haunted by what he had seen there so he had tried for years to get permission to get at this footage which was kept on basically the military archives for so long. And was never allowed. In the late 1970s he happened to attend a u. N. Exhibit of photos from hiroshima and saw an image of basically a still from this footage and he told the organizer, well i shot that. Or my team shot that footage. And of course the man was shocked. What are you talking about . He said, well, this is footage i shot back in 19451946. That led to the japanese to then investigate. They found that the color footage had all been declassified at the National Archives a few years earlier but no one knew about it. So it was just as if it had not been declassified so the japanese then launched a Mass Movement called the 10foot campaign. You would donate a certain amount of money and you could buy 10 feet of this and they ended up getting all of the footage back in japan and started making films in the early 1980s. Actually the first time i was exsupposed to this was in new york in 1982 when the first japanese documentary was shown and herbert susen spoke. I then became good friends with herbert susen and edited at a magazine called nuclear times. The first article ever about this, suppressed footage, and it became i guess you could say a mini sensation documentary film makers then started to use it. Everyone knew about it. And so thanks to herbert susen and the japanese the footage finally emerged after 35 years. Have you seen the japanese documentaries using this footage . Yes, i have. And how would they compare to american works . Well, they did a very interesting thing. From the very start. This was a big, new proejt in the news in japan as you can imagine. It was covered as this incredible finding and so the press covered this and they located some of the people who were shown in this footage. In fact, a couple of them i met myself a few years later in japan so they tracked down some of the people shown in the original footage and they would kind of show the original footage and then talk to the person in 1980 about how they felt about it or the story behind it. That is pretty much how they handled it. Definitely did a kind of before and after treatment in most cases. Do you know if president truman or other policy leaders ever saw these films . I dont really. They were classified, you know, topsecret at the start and kind of remained that. They got shuffled to different, you know, military repositories, but i, you know, as far as i know, no top person you know, had that. There was a screening of the japanese, the black and white footage which i document in the book. Where more of the top brass was shown, okay. Here is what we have. And out of that came, okay. You got to keep the secret. And so that just endured. Once things are classified unless someone takes a step to declassify them or release it to the media or whatever, you know, nobody knows about it. Thats what happened in this case. Do you think that americans in 2020 should watch these films . Well, obviously i do since i just made a film based on them. Why . You know, the selections you are showing, theyre representative of in some ways the footage could be edited into a long feature with subtlety not necessarily focusing on the most graphic images. These images are pretty hard to take. I understand that. I wouldnt expect and i didnt make a film where people have to sit there for an hour or two watching this. You know, you can put it in put. You can show the stories of the filmmakers which is basically what my film is about. Basically the japanese and the filmmakers. The whole story is told in first person. The japanese filmmakers talk about what they experienced, and the american filmmakers, its from the point of view of the filmmakers. Half of them are american soldiers or officers. So its very sympathetic to the American Military in trying to shoot this footage. And the people who did it. But ultimately the seam military and government hid the footage so its basically a story of these elite members and the publics right to know, should the public have been allowed to see this footage from the start . Would attempt made a difference . My latest book is on how mgm which was revised, sabotage by the white house in the military. The very same year they were suppressing this footage. So it was part of an overall drive by those in authority to manage what i call the russian narrative. To keep this story focused on the use of the bump that allegedly is the only thing that would end the war and save american lives and so forth. It was important to keep that uninterrupted by images and stories that might make people have second thoughts about all that. So its all part of the post war routine. Your new book, the beginning or the end, how hollywood and america learn to stop worrying and stop the bomb. What is that about basically . Well as i mentioned, immediately after, shortly after the bombing, a group of atomic scientists approached mgm, giant studio and they did it through donna reed. Which is interesting. But to make a film that would warn the world about the dangers, continuing down the path to make more powerful weapons, new weapons. Nuclear weapons and soviet armed bombs, everything that would follow, they can make a drama and the head of mgm said we could do this, it will be the most important movie we ever meet. The immediately embark on this. The scripts were very balanced. They showed effects in hiroshima, on the ground, the race questions about the use of the bomb, they certainly race questions about further use of the bomb. Then mgm allowed both general grows who was head of the Manhattan Project in the white house and president truman himself to intervene so the book charts now over the following year, both the military and president truman intervene in a unprecedented fashion to revise the cut out because didnt like it at all. The bombing of hackensack eat which was somehow eliminated. It wasnt even sean. Once that showed a movie that was basically pro bump propaganda. Came out in 1945. The sea months the documentary footage were talking about was suppressed. So that film eventually came out, and hollywood has only made to movies about the bomb. About the creation and use of the bomb since. So its kind of remarkable when you think about it. Three movies, three films and 75 years. The book goes back to the origin of that with how this first film was totally turned in a different direction. The whole thing is terrifying. You must have spent many sleepless nights over it. Ive consulted with mr. Churchill, with all my top navy in the evil advice, i have to civil heads and they all advisers tell me the bumble shorten the war by last year. What are we going to use . Thats another question i have to think about. Absolutely okay to do that, americans say they would support a first strike on for example north korea or iran if they started to make threatening noises towards the u. S. , even though in the polls there asked even if this would kill 1 million civilians . People say sure. This goes back to the hiroshima narrative that only our bombs could have ended the war at that time and couldve clueless even what was claim to be lives. That narrative has injured. In the media. Even today few of the media ever challenge. That certainly officials rarely challenge. That suit something that has injured for 75 years, and its certainly quite great. Its not a black and white debate. I always invite discussion about the evidence. The fact is that most of americans and the media continues to endorse that only makes future use more likely. Not only is it a precedent but its a precedent thats endorsed every year. Weve another anniversary that will maybe be the last time such a major anniversary is marked. And again, i dont see much evidence that the media or officials or anyone is particularly rising up to tell challenge. This myself and perhaps a few others. So thats whats driven me i guess, its not just a matter of the past. This is a very much relevant topical issue today. Because how we respond, how we look at the fact that we used the bump twice in force todays policies, informs todays attitudes, informs, just can you imagine, in nuclear threat, a crisis today. Call it what you will. Suddenly a world crisis. Some of our arrivals are enemies. Making threaten noises. And any president with as you know Nuclear Codes as you know, nuclear football. Always within a few football yards. Who could launch a Nuclear Attack anytime. So i think that hiroshima and nagasaki matter very much today even if theres nothing we could do to change what was done in 1945. Okay mitchell thank you very much for joining us and helping us understand these films. Im very happy to do this. Thank you. The days of hiroshima and mega sucky. Several days of devastation have begun to recover with the passage of time. Slowly but surely efforts on construction are being made. Insufficient of the scientists may have been, they have given hope and light to these cities and their citizens. Weeknights this month were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan three. Tonight a look at the uss indianapolis. Until i 30th, 1945, two japanese torpedo sunk the u. S. Indianapolis in shark infested waters. Only three inches 17 out of 1119 crew members survived. They were not rescue for several days. On the 70th anniversary of the ships sinking congress awarded the entire crew the congressional gold better. The highest civilian honor. Enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan three. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events. 75 years ago on march 9th and tenth, 1945, nearly 2000 u. S. The bombers executed showing planning, execution and return after 3000 miles of flight