On May 11, 1955, Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto—a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing a decade earlier—appeared on the American TV series This Is Your Life. Tanimoto was there to discuss the Hiroshima Maidens, a group of 25 women who were disfigured in the attack. However, the show’s host, Ralph Edwards, had his own agenda that day.
Early on in the broadcast, Edwards says that he’s been working behind the scenes to put together Tanimoto’s life story. Through the door located to the left of them, Edwards explains, will come many people who helped shape Tanimoto’s destiny.
Although this was always the show’s basic premise, Tanimoto clearly didn’t know that and was blindsided by the revelation. “We hope you’ll have some pleasant moments,” Edwards tells Tanimoto before turning to the camera and saying, “And we hope, too, ladies and gentlemen, that you will have a better understanding of what it is to look into the face of atomic power.”
A Hiroshima Survivor Was Brought Face-to-Face With an ‘Enola Gay’ Crew Member on TV
From there, Edwards jumps right into the events of August 6, 1945—the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Aided by sound effects, dramatic music, and real footage of the city’s destruction, Edwards walks a visibly distraught Tanimoto through that fateful morning and questions him about his actions around the time of the explosion.
“What did you do when you heard that bomb?” asks Edwards at one point. “Well, I didn’t hear any sound, but I saw a strange flash,” Tanimoto responded, adding that he lay down in a garden afterward, where he felt “strong blasts of wind.”
As if this all wasn’t uncomfortable enough, Edwards also decided to bring out a special guest in the form of Captain Robert Lewis: co-pilot and aircraft commander of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Tanimoto and Lewis then awkwardly shake hands as the studio audience applauds, and Edwards allows Lewis to recount his experience on the morning of August 6. Before exiting the stage, Lewis shares with Tanimoto six chilling words he later wrote in his logbook: “My God, what have we done?”
You can check out the whole bizarre spectacle for yourself above.
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