On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, resulting in over 100,000 Japanese casualties. Shortly thereafter, the United States Strategic Bombing Survey sent members of its Morale Division to conduct a series of man-on-the-street interviews across Japan. Their recordings, 366 in total, have been housed in relative obscurity at the National Archives for the past 50 years.

This interview, recorded in December 1945, was the only English-language eyewitness account. The speaker, Kaleria Palchikoff Drago, was a 23-year-old Russian immigrant, whose parents had moved to Japan twenty-four years earlier. She had been living just outside of the city on the day of the bombing.

Producers: Matthew Ozug and Piya Kochhar / Executive Producer: Dave Isay / Production Assistant: Colin Murphy / Funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts. Photograph of the atom bomb courtesy the Library of Congress. Archival tape provided by the National Archives. Family photographs courtesy the Palchikoff family. Special thanks to Gary Covino and Ethan Lindsey.

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		intro
		transcript

		Kaleria Palchikoff Drago reflects on her life in Japan
		Testimony of Nikolai Palchikoff, Kaleria's brother and the first American soldier to enter Hiroshima after the bombing.
		Records of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey on the National Archives Web site

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