Nagasaki: The massacre of the innocent and unknowing

(Paperback)

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In early August 1945, the people of Nagasaki went about the usual struggle of their daily wartime existence. No-one could have imagined the horror of what was about to happen. Nagasaki follows ordinary people on the ground in the hours after the dropping of the bomb. We watch a valiant Japanese doctor and a several nurses whose heroism saved many lives, and the dazed actions of ordinary citizens as they try to make sense in the chaotic nightmare around them, including several Nagasaki locals who made their way back from Hiroshima to Nagasaki only to be bombed again, and a group of 169 POWs among which numbered Dutch, English and 24 Australians who were digging air-raid shelters and repairing bridges near the bomb's epicentre. While the Japanese parliament and Emperor deliberate in ignorance, we track the strange circumstances from the US side that lead to the bombing in the first place. Based on interviews with survivors, and original documents Nagasaki is a chilling, page turning account of those terrible days that shook humanity to its core. For the first time in human history we had the power to wipe ourselves off the face of the earth. By the close of day four of the atomic age 80,000 non-combatants had died or were dying from the dropping of that single Nagasaki bomb, 50% of those died instantly.

Reviews

"A well-researched account of the mission, the men who carried it out, and the experience of the victims...an informative and moving chronicle." "Booklist""
"Awell-researched account of the mission, the men who carried it out, and the experience of the victims...an informative and moving chronicle." "Booklist""

Author Bio

Craig Collie is a well-established television producer and director, originally working for ABC-TV on Four Corners and The Big Country. More recently, he has been Production Executive at the Australian Film TV & Radio School (AFTRS) and head of TV Production at SBS. He is co-author of The Path of Infinite Sorrow (A+U, 2009), the Kokoda story from the Japanese point of view.