♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Aah!

[ Child laughs ] Okay.

♪♪ -My dad's earliest memory is from the war.

In 1945, the Americans firebombed Tokyo and Yokohama.

He was only two years old and ran into the ocean with his brother and sister following them.

But he really remembers it very clearly.

After the war, he went to an international school, and a lot of the students came to the US after that.

Then he fell in love with my mama and stayed.

Growing up, we had a large Japanese community around us.

Many of them had been incarcerated during World War II, forcibly removed from their homes in the United States.

Like my family, they've been here now for generations.

I definitely identify as Japanese in many ways, but first and foremost, I'm American.

Stories of World War II, especially the atomic bombs, I think about them often.

-To the world, August 6th, 1945 began as just another day, but to a single B-29 over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, it was the beginning of a new era for civilization, with the destructive force of 20,000 tons of TNT mushrooming up over the stunned enemy city.

Three days later, a flight of B-29s soared over the seaport of Nagasaki, the almost horribly beautiful mushroom cloud ballooned up into the heavens to become the trademark for incredible death and destruction.

-My great-great uncle Morito Tatsuo.

He became the president of Hiroshima University, the first president after the war.

His mission was peace through education.

And I think those are two things that are very important to me.

You know, is working on that legacy of peace and working on that legacy of education.

-Ready?

Let's go.

Everly, do you want some eggs?

I grew up in a very patriotic American family.

Can you close the door, please?

Thank you.

My husband is a Marine veteran.

I do a lot of work with military and veteran nonprofits.

I've written books about the experience of being a military spouse.

So the military has really played a big part of both of our lives.

My mom never talked about my grandfather unless I asked.

He died when she was 13.

When I asked about him, she would say, "Oh, he had a lot of trauma.

He was a medic in Nagasaki after the atomic bomb."

He was an American Atomic Veteran, one of the approximately 200,000 US troops who were in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombs were dropped.

-Although the end of Japan's aggression was in sight before atomic bombings, it was this terrific force that finally signed her death warrant.

Now, American soldiers stepped onto Japanese soil in a bloodless D-Day.

-Today, the work of rebuilding a city almost blasted out of existence goes on feverishly.

The occupation is continuing in a friendly atmosphere.

-My grandfather got to Nagasaki about six weeks after the atomic bomb hit.

So he would have arrived at the very height of those deaths from radiation illness.

-After the actual bombing, thousands continued to die of burns and shock, and the victims of a new disease, radiation sickness, jammed all hospitals still left standing.

An atom bomb explosion is the nearest thing to doomsday one could possibly imagine.

-When he came home, he drank to cope.

And he died young.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Hey.

-Hey.

-Hi.

-Oh my gosh.

-Look at this.

-Is that the flag?

-Yeah.

-Oh, wow.

-This is crazy.

-Look at the shape.

We've been friends since 2017.

We're very different and our backgrounds are very different.

This is -- I know they call it Hinomaru, which is like the circle of the sun.

So we decided to come together on this because for 80 years we've been fed a very narrow perspective about what happened.

All you think about is this mushroom cloud.

-We wanted to tell the personal stories of people on both sides of the atomic bomb, the Japanese and the American side, for future generations, while these men and women are alive.

Um, yeah, this is -- the flag that my grandfather brought back from the war, after he came home from Japan and just basically sat in a closet for 80 years.

-Pretty much.

-That's incredible.

-And then these would have been the messages from the people in the village, right?

-Yeah, I think.

Or the city, or -- I can't, I can't read the kanji.

-I feel like we should try and reach out to the Museum of Nagasaki and see if they can help us translate it.

-Oh, yeah.

-And see if we can get a name for it.

You know, see whose name is on it and, you know, see if we can start the path to getting it back.

[ Birdsong ] Not many people know about the American Atomic Veterans.

In the months after the atomic bombs, these American service members were sent in to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to establish order and reshape Japanese society.

During their service, the US government restricted them from talking about their experiences, and that silence lasted for decades.

Only in recent years have they started speaking up about what they witnessed.

-Many have passed because of age or radiation exposure during their service.

The ones who are still with us are nearly 100 years old.

-Hello?

-Hey.

-Hey.

-I found Archie's son, and we're going to Taylor, Texas.

-You're amazing.

-All right, so I'll get the details, and I'll -- I'll talk to you about them later.

Okay.

Bye.

♪♪ ♪♪ -This is the Texas I always pictured.

-This is -- -Flat.

You know, a lot of American flags.

-Archie is 100, but his memories are still so vivid.

He served in Nagasaki in the Second Marine Division, the same as my grandfather.

Altogether, about 27,000 US troops were sent into Nagasaki just 45 days after the bomb.

So I'm feeling a little nervous, honestly, because this is the closest I feel like I will ever get to talking to my own grandfather about what he experienced.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -All right.

-Okay.

-So we finally get to talk to you after -- in person.

I know we talked on the phone, but, yeah... Where were you when you found out about the atomic bombs?

And what was that like?

-I was on Saipan when the word got out that the atomic bomb was dropped.

And, of course, everybody was screaming and shouting.

And then finally, the word came out that the atomic bomb was dropped.

And then the first question was, "Well, what the hell's an atomic bomb?"

-And so you really knew, everyone just thought it was a big bomb.

-Yeah.

That's it.

We had no idea of what type of bomb it was, but we would find out very shortly.

♪♪ We were assigned to go into Japan, the Second Marine Division.

We were the first assignment going in, and I got to walk through all of the destructive area.

-What was that like to see -- how much damage the bomb had done?

I mean, it was probably way more than you could have expected.

-You wouldn't expect to, you know, just obliterate a whole town.

The one thing that I distinctly remember, the residential area was completely wiped out.

The industrial area was sheet metal buildings and metal structures that were tumbled on top of one another.

And there was a Catholic church.

The altar area was not damaged to any extent, but the entry into the church was.

The thing that I really remember and that stood clearly in my mind and is still today, as we went through there, where the houses were, here set two blue ceramic pots, evidently where the front door was.

-Wow.

-And they were not damaged.

-Wow.

-And everything else was just dust.

It was.

It was gone.

-Do you remember the Japanese people being in a state of confusion?

Like -- -That's it.

They didn't know how to react to it.

A lot of the people that were burned badly, and they were dying off at a high rate, like they wore the little Kewpie caps, ears burned off.

The chrysanthemum's their national flower.

And they had clothes that had the chrysanthemum.

And the chrysanthemum is like a tattoo.

-Wow.

-Because the, uh, light, light colors absorbed the radiation more than the dark colors did.

Those people that survived this thing, what are their chances of ever leading a normal life?

The lucky ones will die almost immediately.

But then there'll be the ones that linger on for years from the effects of it.

Radiation at that time was still a new... -Yeah.

Brand new.

-A complete new thing.

Yeah, we had Geiger counters and radiation badges.

Little badges that we wore.

We'd turn them in and they'd record them.

Of course, nobody knew what was going on.

I'm paying somewhat of a penalty for it today, because I've got all kinds of cancers dropping up and down on me.

♪♪ ♪♪ -I have to show you my grandfather's album.

-See if you knew him.

-[ Laughter ] They called him Jerry.

-That was my grandfather, Jerry.

-Uh-huh.

His nickname.

Um, but he was a medic.

-Was he ever attached to the Marine Corps?

-He was in the Second Marine Division.

-Okay, that's -- -Yeah.

And he got there the same time you did.

And then this is something my grandfather brought back, and I, we don't, obviously, he's not here anymore, so I can't ask him about it.

I don't know where he got it, but I was wondering if you had seen any of these flags when you were there, with the signatures.

-Yes.

These are -- That flag would have been worn by a Japanese soldier.

And it has his whole family history on there.

-How did the soldiers get these flags?

-Usually they would get them off of the bodies if they were wearing one and, it was totally forbidden to strip the body, but everybody was looking for souvenirs.

That was the big thing.

Everybody trying to steal them.

That was the ultimate souvenir.

♪♪ -What would you tell young people today to understand nuclear warfare?

Because I don't think people understand.

-Oh, I think that that would be the worst possible thing that could happen to this world would be declared nuclear war.

I can think back of Nagasaki going down to seeing what had eliminated there.

That one is less than one third as powerful as the smallest bomb we have today.

I hope that the world is smart enough not to ever get into a nuclear war.

♪♪ ♪♪ -I thought what he said about, when we asked him, like, how do you feel about, you know, nuclear bombs now?

And he immediately was like this -- -This would be the worst thing.

-The end of the world.

That was one of the most powerful moments, I thought, when he said that.

-But that's what people need to know.

You know, they need to hear it from somebody who was there because the people, because no one else is going to know what it's really like.

And then when I showed him the flag and he knew what it was right away.

And I mean, the fact that he never sold it when his family had not even, like a dollar to their name.

To me, like, the mystery is kind of even stronger now.

Like, how in the world my grandfather got that flag.

♪♪ -We're in Minnesota.

We are going to talk to another Atomic Veteran whose name is Michas Ohnstad.

He was in Hiroshima as part of a group of doctors treating and evaluating the survivors.

-I was a newspaper reporter.

I've done a lot of research for books.

Finding the Atomic Veterans has sometimes felt like an insurmountable challenge.

We have found perhaps ten.

And in the course of trying to schedule interviews with them, have lost several.

Many haven't done any press.

They've never talked about this.

They haven't been asked, frankly, and they're not up for talking about it 80 years later.

With Michas, we're so thankful that he's taking the time to talk to us.

We're also asking him to do something painful, and I hate having to ask someone to do that.

-Hi.

Thank you.

-Hi, I'm Victoria.

-Thank you.

-So nice to meet you.

-It's an honor to meet you.

Thank you for doing this.

For your time, for your service.

-Sure.

Well, uh, I am pleased to be here.

I'm a high school graduate of Hinckley, Minnesota, 1944, and I was immediately drafted by President Truman at that time.

And then eventually, I wound up in General MacArthur's headquarters to serve with the Atomic Bomb Commission at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I worked directly with the Japanese doctors and nurses.

-Can I ask you, how did you feel when you heard about the atomic bomb?

-Well, uh, nobody feels good about it.

But, uh, uh...

It, uh, is, uh, it's a terrible weapon.

But it was a terrible war.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Do you remember what you felt when you saw the city destroyed?

Were you expecting to see such destruction from the bomb, or were you surprised?

-Well, uh...

I don't think it's possible to be surprised by what the bomb does, and that is devastating.

The terribleness of its power is just beyond belief, you know.

-What was it like to work with Japanese people after they had just been your enemy, and now you were working together?

-The ability to get along was far greater than one would realize.

We had Japanese cooks for the American segment that was there and so on like that.

And one of our cooks had lost his wife and his daughter in the atomic bomb.

But he was working with us, you know.

They were sick and tired of war, too.

-I wanted to ask you about this newspaper article.

This was five years ago.

You talked about -- -Oh, I can't escape it.

There is never a day that I wake up to it.

The sights, the sounds, the smells.

It shows up in various ways.

It's one of the wounds of war, you know.

And, uh -- gee, uh -- You can't escape the sights and the sounds and the smells of war.

It's an experience that you don't forget.

You don't forget.

I think that war is something one shouldn't have to experience.

-Yeah.

-We agree.

-But it's imposed on us all one way or another, in different times, in different ways.

And, uh.

So... Whoever said it, said it well.

War is hell.

And I can't improve on that.

♪♪ -I heard that you tried to get care from the government for PTSD.

-Well, Uh, yeah.

There's, uh, there's a matter of eligibility.

You can have an emotional scar, but was it caused by military or was it your own personal weakness, for example?

-Have you had any health problems from the radiation?

-I think I've had some problems, but society doesn't recognize them.

The problem of service-connected illness veterans have is proving, you know?

If I can't prove my illness, that it's connected there, I'm stuck.

And hundreds of servicemen are stuck in that way.

War -- War is -- War is a devastating thing.

♪♪ -I think the question of who's right and who's wrong will remain forever.

And the thing we feel is that it can never happen again, right?

Is that a bomb of that, with the capacity for that kind of destruction can never happen again in any part of the world.

-And so by you speaking up, I think that's really important to help other people understand.

-Yeah.

You will make a big difference with your memories and sharing them.

-Oh, yeah.

Well, I wish I was that enthusiastic about humanity, but I can't be that enthusiastic.

Mankind doesn't know how to stay away from war, unfortunately.

And one war is no worse than another, and killing is killing.

But the killing goes on.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -I kind of saw my grandfather in him.

Like, if he had lived, would he have been sitting in some chair reliving all this pain and having carried that all that time?

And looking around at the world wondering if it was all going to happen again.

-No, it's just -- it's true.

-To think that he experienced everything he did and then still, his PTSD remains unacknowledged and we can see it.

It's in front of us.

-Yeah, that's hard.

And I think that's why we're so upset, you know?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

♪♪ And you just think about your grandfather.

-Yeah.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Birdsong ] The interviews with these veterans have been really eye opening.

I see my grandfather in all of them.

This is the closest I will ever get to knowing him.

Hearing those experiences has given me a lot of insight into the type of man he might have been before and after.

So you heard back from the Museum of Nagasaki, right?

-Yeah, I heard back from the Atomic Bomb Museum.

We're working with the photo research team with the Nagasaki Foundation for the Promotion of Peace to track down the rightful family of the flag.

Their knowledge of wartime artifacts comes from their work of preserving photographs from the war.

So the flag is from a town 15 minutes away from, like downtown Nagasaki.

The flag is a yosegaki hinomaru, which is a flag that was given to Japanese soldiers by their families, signed by their communities, wishing them good luck and victory.

He was able to see not just this town where he's from.

On the flag it said his occupation and he guesses that he was about in his 20s.

-Yeah.

-It could have been collected from an Army Navy training facility or in Okinawa.

-I mean, we may never know, really, but... -But we might be able to trace this man's footsteps and see where he was.

-This team that we have in Nagasaki who's helping us locate this family is pretty close to finding them.

So we're going to Japan, and we're going to have the opportunity to interview survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

-And my father is joining us, and hopefully with him there, we'll learn a lot more about my family history and the history of the atomic bombs.

So when did you become such a good cook, Daddy?

-Out of necessity.

[ Both laugh ] -Well, we appreciate you.

-What did you eat after the war?

There wasn't much, huh?

-There wasn't much.

I remember the, uh, sort of hard biscuits that was rationed.

-They were awful.

-Okay.

-But my mother called me Pumpkin Boy -because I ate a lot of pumpkin.

-Oh.

Is that why we have such big heads in our family?

-There we go.

-[ Both laugh ] -Well, we were just in Minnesota, -Victoria and I.

-Yeah.

-And we met a 98-year-old veteran who was in Hiroshima.

You talked about your nightmares when you were a kid with the firebombing.

And this man is 98 years old, -and he's still living through this.

-My goodness.

-And he was crying, and we were crying, and it was -- it was so sad.

I mean, we're really trying to get the government to -at least acknowledge his PTSD.

-Mm-hm.

-So you're going to interview more people in Japan?

-Yeah, in Japan -- -Do you have any on set up?

-Well, so Victoria found a flag, right?

-One of the Japanese war flags.

-Right, right.

-That her grandfather found, took, we're not sure.

So we want to return it as a gesture there.

And then Hibakusha.

Hibakusha in Japanese means atomic bomb survivor.

So many hibakusha have devoted their entire lives to promoting peace.

In 2024, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, the largest group of Japanese atomic bomb survivors.

-I've never been to Hiroshima.

-You haven't?

-I hear that it's an attractive town now.

-Yeah.

We want to go to Hiroshima University to talk about Morito Tatsuo.

-Right.

The old relative.

-I was thinking, I don't think I've been to Japan with you in, like, 20 years.

-Yeah, it's been a while.

-It's good.

I'm older and calmer now.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -I'm so happy to be back in Nagasaki.

-I know, I love this city.

-It's amazing.

-Yeah.

-Look.

That's Urakami Cathedral there on the hill.

-Oh, yeah.

-This is what Archie talked about and really remembered.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Before the war, Nagasaki was one of Japan's most important ports.

It actually wasn't the original target for the second bomb, but the pilots had to make a last-minute decision because they didn't have the visibility.

And that's why Nagasaki became the second target.

-I can't believe this is where it hit.

I just keep thinking, like, I know my grandfather would have literally stood in this exact spot, because I know that all of the troops came through here to see it.

And I actually think it's really incredible that, like, we're now surrounded by a whole city that's rebuilt.

-Yeah, honestly.

It's beautiful.

We're surrounded by a beautiful park, a beautiful city, and you just don't want people to forget.

-We are going to meet Dr. Masao Tomonaga.

He was a survivor of the bomb in Nagasaki.

He was two years old.

Today, he's one of Japan's leading doctors who treats Japanese survivors and the illnesses that they've experienced due to the radiation.

-Thank you.

I say welcome to our office.

-Victoria Kelly.

Thank you for having us.

-It's an honor to be here.

-Sit.

Sit down, please.

-Yeah, we were hoping maybe you could tell us a little bit about how old you were and what you remember?

-Of course.

[ Speaking Japanese ] -It's a very, very difficult burden to carry.

-For you as a doctor, you have witnessed so much.

♪♪ -With Tomonaga-san, what affected me the most was when he talked about treating the woman who said she knew the bomb was hiding inside of her.

You can think of it physically as cancer in your body.

And you can think of it as the memories that you carry with you.

I do think that is true on the American side as well.

♪♪ -We're going to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum to meet with the research team.

We don't know how my grandfather would have gotten the flag.

We don't know if the owner of the flag was killed.

And we don't know if or when we'll be able to return it.

So I'm really nervous and excited to see what they have to say.

-It's a big relief to know that, actually.

Um, yeah, I think it's a big relief for my family to know that it was, you know, it wasn't taken during the war.

-So he's alive?

-Yeah, so he's alive.

-Yeah.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Nagasaki?

-It's from Nagasaki.

-Yeah.

-Like we thought.

-So probably if he never went into the war, what happened is they would have exchanged it in Nagasaki when my grandfather was here, probably.

Maybe -- -Yeah.

There's no way to know.

-No way to know.

-Yeah.

He kept it all this time.

We didn't even know he had it until very recently.

We found it, so.

We know now that these families place a lot of value on those flags.

For a lot of the families, that might be the only thing they ever have as a memory of somebody who was killed during the war.

So it's really important for me to find that family and to return that flag.

-Hmm.

-Yes.

-That's amazing.

I can't believe that.

-Big return.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah.

They don't want to, um... Yeah, that makes sense.

And the family had no idea this existed?

Wow.

The family at this moment does not want the flag back.

That was something that I never really considered.

I think it's important to have it be in Japan, because maybe, you know, the next generation will want it one day, you know, and it's a piece of their family history.

So what are our options for giving it back?

-Okay.

-So... -Well, I just want to say thank you for, um, finding the answer.

I think in my head, I kind of envisioned this reunion where, like, my family and their family would meet and we would both get closure and peace.

Thinking it through, it really shows how much the Japanese are still trying to move on from that war.

But I also know that as time goes on and as generations pass, others in the family may decide that they want the flag.

So I really want this to stay in Nagasaki.

-Hello.

-Hi.

It's so good to see you again.

I wrote a letter for the family.

So thank you so much for getting this to them.

And I'm just so happy this will be in Nagasaki.

-I hope this inspires other Americans to do the same thing.

Yeah, I think this would have, this is what my grandfather would have wanted.

He would have been happy this happened.

-Thank you, thank you.

-Thank you.

-So we made it to Hiroshima.

This is where Michas was.

-So many more people died in Hiroshima than Nagasaki because of the topography here.

It's relatively flat.

So, so much more of the city burned.

Hiroshima before the atomic bomb dropped, it was a very big city.

It was home to a lot of Japanese military operations and communications, which made it a target.

Michas's story about Hiroshima -- it's just -- was heartbreaking.

And I wish he was able to come here, you know?

That it's just such a different world than what he saw in 1945.

♪♪ -But this is also an important city for your family, because your great-great uncle was the first president of Hiroshima University.

It's going to be really great to be able to go to the university and see what he created.

-I hope we learn more about him as a person, about this city, about what the university means to the city, and vice versa.

So this is Morito Tatsuo’s work, right?

-Yes, yes.

Calligraphy.

-Wow.

I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about Morito Tatsuo's legacy of peace.

-Yes.

-When he arrived in 1950.

And how that carries on today.

[ Speaking Japanese ] -So Professor Morito planted these when they were just little plants, and they're the sequoias, the same ones -from California and Canada that grow enormous.

-Enormous.

-You want to look at the big picture.

You don't just want to look at the devastation.

You also want to look at the hope and the way that the city rebuilt and the way that city came together.

And people like Morito Tatsuo were leading this.

And yeah, it's very emotional to look up at this and think, you know, my dad was born right around when this was planted, and then me coming back to Japan and seeing this.

It's very emotional.

I just, you know, I'm not even a nature girl, Victoria, but I'm about to cry.

It's really beautiful.

-Growing up and all I saw were images of the devastated city of Hiroshima.

And to come to the city for the first time and to see the rebirth of new buildings, trees planted everywhere.

It reminded me -- of Easter and resurrection.

♪♪ -Yeah.

It's great.

It's beautiful.

-Your family did this.

-I've never planted a tree in all of my life, Victoria.

♪♪ When you're hearing all these stories of extreme devastation, you can remain hopeful, because you look at history and you look at how closely aligned Japan and the US are now.

Think of all the people that had to forgive each other to get here.

That's what drives me to be optimistic.

-Oh my goodness!

[ Indistinct ] -I reached out to Koko Kondo, a peace activist and atomic bomb survivor.

She was eight months old when the bombs dropped.

Her story in the years after is one of resilience and improbable forgiveness.

It has stayed with me ever since.

Let's go back all the way to when you were born in Hiroshima.

♪♪ -This is from the rubble?

-Wow.

-Oh my gosh.

♪♪ -Koko's father, Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto, was a Methodist minister who helped organize surgeries for many young women who were severely injured by the bombs.

♪♪ In 1955, he appeared on the American TV show "This Is Your Life" -- -Kiyoshi Tanimoto.

-...Where he unexpectedly came face to face with Robert Lewis, -co-pilot of the Enola Gay.

-[ Audience applauding ] Ten-year-old Koko watched all of this unfold from backstage.

-I wrote down later, "My God, what have we done?"

-I mean, it's very hard for me to think that people are so capable of forgiveness.

You know, your father and you at ten years old, you're able to forgive.

I don't know if I would have been able to, you know.

-If there is one final message you would want to share with the next generation, what would you tell them?

-Well, you're doing a lot.

You're doing a lot.

-Yes, you are.

-I don't think I ever told you this, but right before we talked to Archie, I said, like, "What's your secret to living so long?

How did you do it?"

He said, "I feel like every stranger is just a person I haven't met yet."

-Meeting people firsthand, that's what I've learned the most here with Koko, who met the pilot and interacted with him.

And that changed her life.

Or Michas, who met the cook in Japan, who had lost his daughter in the bomb.

And they connected.

It's like it's minutes, you know, when you think about it, it's not days or years.

It's these minutes that can change your life because you see how similar we all are.

Not everybody has the opportunity to travel around the world, of course, but even in your own communities, even in your own countries, I think you have to meet people who have experienced different hardships and felt different joys, who have different backgrounds and different views.

And you have to see this shared humanity.

And I think that's -- that's one of the strongest ways to build peace.

♪♪ -People know what the eventuality of nuclear war could be.

Whether it ever happens or not, the capability is there.

I'm scared to death of it.

-If you haven't seen the damage of atomic bombs, you don't understand it.

It's a story that I never tire of telling because it was, it was so devastatingly true, you know.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -We took in 30 days of water for drinking and, but immediately we started using water from this reservoir.

The reservoir was contaminated.

We had teams that went out.

They didn't have much, but I was invited to eat with them.

It was a kindness that we got.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪