Hiroshima and Nagasaki: A Tale of Two Cities 1946 War Department; World War II

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The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities_(1946_film)

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A Tale of Two Cities is a 1946 propaganda / documentary film about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, produced by the Army-Navy Screen Magazine.

The film chronologically, and for the most part, neutrally, describes the testing and the use of the atomic bombs impact on Hiroshima, describing where the bomb was actually dropped, and the damage done to military industrial targets, as well as noting which edifices sustained less damage, like those built with reinforced concrete. An interview is shown with a Jesuit priest, who describes his experience, and notes that he believes that approximately 100,000 people died.

Then the film moves on to Nagasaki, telling the audience that U.S. President Harry S. Truman warned the Japanese that he would use more nukes if they didn't surrender. The Nagasaki mission is described, showing the two plants that were the basic targets, and the valley that they planned to bomb, and then shows the mushroom cloud, "The baptism of the aggressor nation"

At the end, the film takes a rather sober view of the future of atomic power, showing an "atomic shadow" of someone in the Hiroshima blast, saying that this could be someone of any race or creed, and that the future of atomic power could help mankind, or destroy it, depending on how people use it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, with the consent of the United Kingdom, as required by the Quebec Agreement. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict.

In the final year of World War II, the Allies prepared for a very costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This undertaking was preceded by a conventional and firebombing campaign which devastated 67 Japanese cities. The war in Europe had concluded when Germany signed its instrument of surrender on May 8, 1945, and the Allies turned their full attention to the Pacific theater. The Allies called for the unconditional surrender of the Imperial Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945, the alternative being "prompt and utter destruction". Japan ignored the ultimatum and the war continued.

By August 1945, the Allies' Manhattan Project had produced two types of atomic bombs, and the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was equipped with the specialized Silverplate version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that could deliver them from Tinian in the Mariana Islands. The Allies issued orders for atomic bombs to be used on four Japanese cities on July 25. On August 6, one of the modified B-29s dropped a uranium gun-type bomb ("Little Boy") on Hiroshima. Another B-29 dropped a plutonium implosion bomb ("Fat Man") on Nagasaki three days later. The bombs immediately devastated their targets. Over the next two to four months, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed between 90,000 and 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000 and 80,000 people in Nagasaki; roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. Large numbers of people continued to die for months afterward from the effects of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison.

Japan surrendered to the Allies on August 15, six days after the Soviet Union's declaration of war and the bombing of Nagasaki. The Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender on September 2 in Tokyo Bay, which effectively ended World War II. Scholars have extensively studied the effects of the bombings on the social and political character of subsequent world history and popular culture, and there is still much debate concerning the ethical and legal justification for the bombings...