OpenTube

What America Heard on Japanese Radio the Morning After Hiroshima

Ranger’s Briefing Room

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At sixteen minutes past eight on the morning of August 6, 1945, the network line connecting NHK Tokyo to Hiroshima abruptly went dead, marking the silent devastation caused by the first atomic bomb. Across the Pacific in Portland, Oregon, monitors at a Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service listening post carefully transcribed Radio Tokyo's broadcasts, recording every official statement and omission as the Japanese government struggled to comprehend and respond to the catastrophe. Step back into the final, tense days of World War II to discover how US intelligence intercepted and interpreted Tokyo's frantic shortwave transmissions. Explore the pivotal week of diplomatic deadlock, the Soviet entry into the war, and the dramatic palace coup that ultimately led to Emperor Hirohito's historic surrender broadcast. 📌 Video Timeline:
• 00:00 - The silent communication breakdown in Hiroshima and the Portland FBIS listening post
• 05:05 - President Truman learns of the bomb aboard the USS Augusta and Washington releases its statement
• 10:02 - Initial Japanese government reactions, scientific assessments, and the refusal to surrender
• 16:10 - The Soviet Union declares war and the dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki
• 22:00 - The Imperial Conferences, the Emperor's intervention, and the midnight coup attempt
• 31:12 - Emperor Hirohito's radio broadcast ending the war and the legacy of wartime intelligence
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#WWII #WW2History #AmericanHistory #MilitaryHistory #Battle #Tank #Aircraft #Navy #Biography #Hero #Veteran #DDay #Normandy #Pacific #Germany #Japan #USArmy #USNavy #USAirForce #Hiroshima

20 Comments

@danr1920 2 weeks ago

My Dad was on his way form Germany to the staging area for the invasion. He was given 30 leave and was at home when they surrendered. After his leave was up they discharged him. He said it was a complete surprise. He never felt so relieved in his life he said.

@duradim1 2 weeks ago

Here's just one thing about AI doing the heavy lifting, you know somethings it got wrong, but you may not know everything it got right. It is hard for me to enjoy new information when I question if it is right in the first place. With the pictures being off in many areas and knowing that some facts were in fact wrong, I think it would be helpful for YouTube to have an option to not recommend AI generated videos. YouTube is just becoming a video mill.

@kleverich 2 weeks ago (edited)

Did not know Peter Coyote had licensed his voice for AI narration.

@WW2PILOTChronicles 2 weeks ago

32:44 — “What Portland's transcripts decided was the shape of the American reading of Tokyo's silence and the timing of what came next.” — Incredible storytelling—this really shows how silence itself became a powerful source of intelligence during those final days of the war.

@billakers6082 2 weeks ago (edited)

My dad was in the Navy on Tinian island when the A bombs were launched. The local scuttle was that these flights would have a determination on what happens next.

@HiroyukiNAGAI-fn5lm 2 days ago (edited)

NHK Hiroshima studio was destroyed instantly at the moment of explosion, however, their transmitting station survived the atomic bombing because it was located away from the center of Hiroshima and a staff there used both the radio broadcast transmitter and shortwave domestic communication line to report what happened in Hiroshima, at least what he saw and felt there to NHK Osaka station just after the bombing. His keen voice that was calling Osaka on radio was heard by many citizen who lived next to the city. This transmitting station still exists and being on duty even now.

@stevefowler2112 2 weeks ago

Tremendous video, thanks so much for posting...the best timeline for the last two weeks of the war I have ever heard (a Georgia Tech grad degreed Aerospace/Nuclear Engineer who works for a large American defense contractor's Fleet Ballistic Missile company.

@davewinter2688 2 weeks ago

73+ year old son of a WWII veteran here. My father was in Australia, New Guinea, the Philippines and one other island I can’t remember at the moment as a chemical warfare specialist. He had dropped out of college where he was studying chemical engineering to enlist in November 1942. It was a classified specialty that he could not or would not talk about until I was well into adulthood. Fat Man and Little Boy kept him from a sight seeing tour of the Japanese main land. He never complained about that.

@Mark-et1pz 2 weeks ago

I saw a pic of Oppenheimer lecturing at a university in Kyoto only 15 years after this. Blows my mind.

@JamesDavis-jo9tk 2 weeks ago

The USS Indianapolis carried the most critical components for Little Boy including the Uranium, and four days after it delivered, it was sunk by a Japanese sub.

@BritishRecords-d9x 18 hours ago

“Japan must endure the unendurable and bear what was unbearable.” The final days were fascinating because radio broadcasts became a crucial link between Japan’s decisions and the outside world. I especially liked how the story followed those unseen listeners in Portland. What detail surprised you most? Pasted text

@patrickmullane30 2 weeks ago

Without the atomic bomb there would never be Godzilla. 😂

@prof113 2 weeks ago

I wonder if Peter Coyote knows his voice is being used by AI to narrate videos.

@paulrussell2452 2 days ago

Imagine the horror.

@CdA_Native 11 days ago

Blessings to all who served later in the Army Security Agency, the Air Force Security Service and the Naval Security Group. We did good guys, we did good!

@ChuckMatley 2 weeks ago

Many people argue that the horrors of the atomic bombs were not and could not be justified. Many years ago I read a summary of the estimates of military and civilian casualties estimated from a standard invasion of the Japanese homeland and the results expected were much worse.

@ricosuave4465 2 weeks ago

My Old Man said the American people were tired of war at that point and if the bomb hadn't been used and the American people found out it could have ended the war earlier than an invasion, Truman might have been hanged.

@benjaminramsey4695 2 weeks ago

I'm getting dizzy from every single picture rotating left and right, tryna hypnotize me?

@Cowboy_Steve 6 days ago (edited)

There was an additional narrative as to why the US pushed so hard to end the war as quickly as possible. The Russians had declared war on Japan and were moving forces to participate in the invasion. Stalin wanted his piece of the pie in Asia like he took in Europe. The US wanted to avoid that at all costs... lest they have to divide up the Japanese empire with the Russians. Imagine how different Asia would have looked if there had been an East and West Japan like what happened in Germany...

@stevebriggs9399 9 days ago

My grandfather was a Navy Seabee. He barged supplies from ship to shore during the Okinawa campaign. When Okinawa was declared over, he was sent back to Guam to prepare for the invasion of Japan. That's where he was on his 19th birthday, 14 Aug 1945. He maintained, until his dying day, that was the best birthday present he ever got.