for the americans the war in the pacific had been a costly yet successful campaign in august of 1945 japan had clearly been beaten american and allied forces could take any position they wished in the pacific if they were willing to accept the casualty dr rob citino is the senior historian at the world war ii museum in new orleans it looks a bit unprecedented that one side has clearly been beaten and and yet the violence seems to be ratcheting up getting worse and worse as the allies have really now approached japan's doorstep smashing at japan's home islands in nine days of continuous bombardment the u.s had a choice an invasion of japan requiring a million troops or a top secret weapon the japanese were given an ultimatum surrender or suffered dire consequences that of course leads to the next major act in the drama single plane carrying a single bomb takes off from tinian and drops that bomb over erosion [Music] and and kills 50 to 60 to 70 000 people we are now into a completely new era perhaps a hundred thousand people incinerated in seconds there was a lot of commotion and there was uh people saying that there's a b-29 coming towards the hiroshima american howard kakida was seven years old living with his grandparents near hiroshima's ground zero so my brother and i his name is kenny my older brother he and i we climbed on top of a roof we watched the vapor trail and fortunately my grandmother being much smaller than us she told us to get off the roof an act that saved their lives i didn't see the flash i didn't hear the boom i was knocked out instantaneously when i came to which is i'm sure a number of minutes later structure was on top of me and things are beginning to burn around me somehow howard his brother and grandmother survived this was not an ordinary bomb but it was something much bigger everything was burning they saw things no person should witness there were already a number of people that were dead along the roadside people was burned suffering and you know begging for drink of water some of the injuries so so severe that for example people with burns their skins would be dripping from their bodies and some of the people actually had broken limbs you know protruding when we came back after the the surrender we came back to the same area and the whole city was completely flat it was really devastating to see do you feel lucky to be alive [Laughter] you know if we stayed on that road when the bomb exploded i would not be speaking to you right now so yes i feel extremely lucky howard and his brother lost their hair to radiation from the bomb but tens of thousands not killed immediately that day would die in the weeks to come that's my grandfather he would die two years after that with cancer howard is a hibakusha that's japanese for an explosion affected person the hibakusha's message will be that we understand the misery and terror and death that it caused in a world now armed with more than ten thousand nuclear weapons what the hibakusha fear is simple somebody's going to make a mistake and then push the one that one button which may cause other buttons to be pushed the world that we know today will be gone howard says that as a child he had nightmares for many many years and then they just seemed to dissipate his brother however who was also hibakusha has never been able to talk about what happened that day and the hibakusha have one desire that there never be another person who would be called ibukusha again wow it makes sense it's unspeakable harry has a lot of courage to tell that story thank you very much a really good reminder 75 years later we need to hear it that's still corny you