Ep. 25 | Three Days in August: How One Man Survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki

In August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki three days apart — killing over 100,000 people and changing the course of history. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was present at both explosions. He was 3 kilometers from the hypocenter in Hiroshima on August 6th. He boarded a train, went home to Nagasaki, returned to work, and was 3 kilometers from the hypocenter again on August 9th. He survived both. He lived to 93.In this episode, we trace the full story — from the secret Manhattan Project laboratories of New Mexico, to the moral and political debate over why the bombs were dropped, to Yamaguchi's remarkable firsthand account of what he saw, what he felt, and what he spent the rest of his life saying about it. In his own words: "The reason I hate the atomic bomb is because of what it does to the dignity of human beings."This is the story of the only person ever officially recognized by the Japanese government as a survivor of both bombings — and of the message he carried for the rest of his life.Here are the resources mentioned in the episode, if you want to go deeper:- Hiroshima by John Hersey — the foundational first-person account of six survivors, published in the New Yorker in 1946- The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes — the definitive history of the Manhattan Project, Pulitzer Prize winner- Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southard — a deeply reported account of five hibakusha survivors- And the River Flowed as a Raft of Corpses — Yamaguchi's tanka poetry, translated and published by historian Chad R. Diehl- Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — the 2006 documentary screened at the United Nations