Hometown Stories

Season 9, Episode 15

Episode Title: The Shadow of Nagasaki: Nurses' Stories

Air Date: 2020-08-08

Overview:

Right after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki in August 1945, Japanese Red Cross Society nurses, mainly in their late teens and 20's, were sent there from across Japan to care for survivors. Later, some wrote about their experiences in a book titled "In the Shadow of the Flash." Out of about 500 nurses who attended survivors, only 50 contributed accounts for the book. The rest have never spoken of the horrors they witnessed. The program visits some of those nurses to find out about their hidden thoughts and their lives after the war.