When he visited Nagasaki in November 2019,

Pope Francis distributed a message of peace, accompanied by an iconic photograph.

We need to ponder the catastrophic impact
of the deployment of nuclear weapons,

especially from a humanitarian
and environmental standpoint.

75 years ago, in August 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

Amid the devastation left in its wake, this photograph was taken.

Barefoot and empty-handed, a young boy had come to a cremation pit.

Strapped to his back was his dead brother.

The boy waited for a turn to cremate him.

At that time in Nagasaki after the bombing, there were many children who had lost their parents.

They had to find the strength to make it through that difficult time on their own.

I couldn't grieve the death
of my beloved mother.

Where was I to go?

Where would I find food,
or a place to sleep?

I faced the same reality as this boy.

The look on his face

was the same as that
of all surviving children.

The photograph was taken by an American military photographer.

He didn't leave any record of when or where he encountered the boy.

Three years ago, NHK's Nagasaki bureau launched an effort to uncover the identity of the boy to understand his fate.

Some of the first clues were found among four thousand photographs taken by the US military at the time.

Further clues emerged when the photograph of the boy was digitally colorized and made three-dimensional.

Bit by bit, the likely time and place of the photograph came into view.

What feelings ran through the mind of the boy standing at the cremation pit?

How did he survive in the devastated city of Nagasaki?

About one month after the bombing of Nagasaki,

110,000 soldiers of the American occupying army landed on the southwest island of Kyushu.

Among them was Sergeant Joe O'Donnell, a photographer assigned to the 5th Marine Division.

O'Donnell visited Nagasaki to photograph the aftermath of the bomb.

At a makeshift cremation site, where corpses were being burned,

he encountered the boy with his brother on his back.

"I noticed a boy of about 10 standing in line."

"He was small and thin, barefoot and wearing tattered clothing."

"Strapped to his back...

was what appeared to be a baby boy."

"Men in masks took the baby from his back and placed it on the fire."

"A blinding flame whirled up."

"The boy stood erect and watched silently, as the flames turned his face red."

After returning to the United States, O'Donnell stored this and other documents in a trunk that remained unopened for many years.

His memories of the time
he spent in Japan...

were not things
he could think about every day.

He said he needed to forget them
to carry on living,

because they were so painful.

He also realized his own pain

was nothing compared to what
the A-bomb survivors had to endure.

Until he died in 2007 at age 85, O'Donnell always wondered how the boy came to the cremation site

and whether he survived during the years that followed.

To determine when the photograph of the boy was taken, we first tried to retrace O'Donnell's activities in Kyushu.

The American national archives contain some 4,000 photographs taken in Kyushu by O'Donnell and other military photographers.

Among them, there were photos of the US military destroying airplanes the Japanese army had left behind.

Others showed soldiers dismantling and analyzing Japanese weapons.

A scholar who specializes in occupation policy explained that the American forces sought

to carefully document Japanese armaments and the attitudes of the civilian population.

O'Donnell's primary duty

was to ensure the stability
of the occupation.

He documented Japanese
military resources

and confirmed that they were being
disarmed and destroyed.

He was monitoring whether
Japan was following orders,

and his job was to remain skeptical.

O'Donnell faithfully carried out the policies of the occupation toward what had been a hostile country, Japan.

While performing these duties, how did he come to photograph the boy in Nagasaki?

We asked the photographic research office of the Nagasaki Foundation for the Promotion of Peace

to analyze the 4,000 photos from the American archives.

Some photographs are credited
to Joe O'Donnell.

We can trace the dates and
content of the photos,

and get a pretty good idea of
where he was and when.

Of the 4,000 photos, Joe O'Donnell was credited on 127,

most of which were taken in the cities of Fukuoka and Sasebo.

The 5th Marine Division, to which O'Donnell was primarily assigned,

was responsible for the occupation of the northern sectors of Kyushu.

When did O'Donnell visit Nagasaki, outside of his official duties?

The 127 of his photos in the archives provided some clues.

There are days with no photos,

when no photos were taken
in his official capacity.

If there is a gap of 3 or 4 days,

he could have made his way
to Nagasaki,

and gotten back as well.

These intervals

are times when he could have
taken photos of Nagasaki.

O'Donnell was in Japan with the occupation army for about half a year, from September 1945 to February 1946.

Among the dates he submitted official photographs to the military, there were dates with no recorded photos.

During one of the spans that was long enough to travel from Fukuoka or Sasebo, he must have visited Nagasaki.

On one such trip, he encountered the boy who was waiting to have his brother cremated.

At 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

In an instant, the city was reduced to rubble.

By the end of 1945, approximately 70,000 people had lost their lives.

This young girl sits in a daze among the injured victims.

Many children who had lost their families were left in Nagasaki in the aftermath of the bomb.

I was 10, my sister was 8.
My nephew was strapped on my back.

Shimohira Sakue, her sister and nephew were in a bomb shelter just 800 meters from the hypocenter of the blast.

We were shocked to see that
no houses were standing.

All we saw were charred bodies,
lying all over, in heaps.

My nephew was strapped on my back,
I took my sister's hand.

We had to find our family.

There were corpses everywhere.
They were burned beyond recognition.

We stepped over...
we tried not to step on the bodies,

but they were lying end to end.

Unless we stepped across them,
we couldn't move.

We straddled them and
heard a snap.

We had to step on the arms
and legs of the corpses.

It was awful...
I'm sorry.

Ikeda Matsuyoshi was 7 and living with his parents and great-grandmother when the bomb was dropped.

It's now pretty flat,
but there was a hill.

I was there, in that field.

Ikeda was digging a bomb shelter, which enabled him to survive.

I was crying inside the bomb shelter,
and someone called my name.

I went to the opening and saw there

a person so burned I couldn't tell
if it was a man or woman.

This revolting person stood there.

I was scared and tried to retreat,
but the person said,

"Oh, Matsuyoshi, you made it!"

Then he shuffled over to me
and hugged me tight.

That's when I realized...

It was my father, who had
gone to work in the factory.

He was very relieved.
"I'm so glad," he said.

He started to cry.

After a while, he settled down,
and said, "I'm thirsty."

I got some water for him.

He gulped it down, and said,

"Long live the Emperor!"

Then he collapsed and died.

Over the following two weeks, Ikeda's great-grandmother and then his mother passed away.

Ikeda will never forget the sight of his mother being cremated before his very eyes.

I burned her with the help
of some surviving relatives.

I didn't cry at the time.

My whole family had died,

and I faced the reality
that I had to continue living.

I couldn't grieve the death
of my beloved mother.

Where was I to go?

Where would I find food,
or a place to sleep?

Who could I turn to if I got sick,
if I was in trouble?

I knew I had to find a way
to keep on living.

In 1945, the number of war orphans in the Nagasaki area numbered at least 2,300.

These children, bearing injuries to body and soul,

had to find a way to survive through the chaos that followed the war.

In June 2019, some additional facts about the photograph of the standing boy came to light.

Matsuo Takashi has spent a decade at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, studying archives of the atomic bomb attack.

If we examine the photo carefully,
we see a name tag sewn onto his jacket.

But at the time, children were required
to wear name tags on the left side.

It's inconceivable that a child
would have a name tag on the right.

That means this photo must have
been reversed.

Children were instructed to wear name tags on their left breast.

In case something happened, their name and blood type would be known.

Once the photo was reversed, another clue came to light.

When you reverse the photo,

you can see more clearly the writing
on the signpost on the left.

That might help us identify the location.

The signpost at the boy's foot.

If we can decipher what is written on the post, we might be able to determine the location.

From a compilation of alternative rendering for Chinese characters,

a specialist found a character that resembled the one on the signpost.

In this case, the distinctive
visual features

are the strokes at the bottom.

We can discern 3 or 4 strokes
at the bottom.

A simplified version of this character is now used for the word "prefecture."

We inquired at the Nagasaki Prefectural Office as to where a signpost with that writing might have been located.

Aside from prefectural offices,

it could be an official agency,
or government housing.

As to where such signs appeared
at that time,

we have no extant records,

so I'm afraid I can't give you
any definitive answer.

During the fires that swept through Nagasaki after the bomb was dropped,

the prefectural offices were destroyed.

Most of the records regarding government administration until then were lost.

The signpost in the photo had provided little help in identifying where the picture was taken.

Wondering if there was another way to derive clues from this photograph,

we decided to try colorizing the monochrome image.

In the process of doing so, attention was drawn to a detail that had previously been overlooked.

When we enlarged
the photo considerably,

we could see,
next to the pupil of the eye,

an area that is gray.

There appears to be some discoloration
in the white of the eye.

After consulting archival materials from the time, we carefully added color to the photograph.

The boy's figure began to take on additional dimension.

This is it.

This is the gray area
that I described earlier.

An abnormality in the boy's eye had been found.

What was taking place in the boy's body?

We consulted Saito Osamu,

a hematologist who has treated patients with radiation exposure in Hiroshima and elsewhere for 40 years.

Looking at an enlargement of the photo
I noticed for the first time

that there is something like a nose plug

in the boy's right nostril.

If he was unable to stop nosebleeds
for an extended period of time,

this might indicate
high radiation exposure,

which would damage the bone marrow.

He would have fewer platelets
in his blood,

which would increase nosebleeds.

Further, Saito believes there is a strong possibility that the gray area in the boy's eye is also the result of bleeding.

Together with the evidence of nosebleeds, this may indicate damage to the bone marrow,

which produces the platelets that suppress bleeding.

The boy may have been susceptible to bleeding throughout his body.

This is a symptom of radiation exposure beyond a certain level.

The level of exposure that
would cause these symptoms

is an absorbed dose of
1 "gray" or more.

If he was actually exhibiting
these symptoms,

increased bleeding is caused by
an exposure of 1 gray or more.

At the instant the atomic bomb exploded,

people within a 1.5-kilometer radius were exposed to more than one gray, a measure of radiation absorbed by a body.

Was the boy that close to the blast?

That's 1 gray within a 1.5-km radius,

but he may not have been that close
at the time of the blast.

It's more likely that
he was walking around later

and absorbed that amount of
residual radiation.

If he was close to the blast,

he would have been
in a more severe condition.

"He'd have injuries."

"How long would nosebleeds last?"

Generally, they start to improve
in about a month,

and then they stop in about 2 months.

So this might be about 2 months
after his exposure.

Through the process of colorizing the photograph,

the effects of radiation exposure on the boy had come to light.

From the evidence of bleeding in his eye and nose,

the likelihood that the date was within two months of the bomb blast had been identified for the first time.

Comparing that time frame to O'Donnell's schedule and the intervals when he might have traveled to Nagasaki,

it appears that the photograph was taken sometime in October.

Around that same time, Ikeda Matsuyoshi, who had lost his parents to the bomb,

was living in a bomb shelter, trying to survive with little food to eat.

Then, one day, an elementary school reopened on the grounds of a local shrine.

We had an outdoor classroom
in this open space.

"How long after the bomb was that?"

On September 15...

we had our first class,
then 3 or 4 times after that.

1500 students had attended Ikeda's elementary school.

However, most of them were killed by the bomb, and only 40 students gathered for the open-air classroom.

These children had lost their families and friends, and had no choice but to continue a lonely existence.

Ikeda remembers that they all wore expressions of utter exhaustion.

The others, too...

Their eyes were bulging.
Filthy, in tattered clothes,

without proper shoes...

"It's a wonder we're alive."
That's how it felt.

Staying alive day to day was all these children could manage.

Shimohira Sakue and her sister, 2 years younger, had survived the bomb.

My sister and I and the baby boy
had survived.

We were separated,
in the countryside.

Her belly was festering...

She went to school,
and someone bullied her.

"You're filthy," they said.
"She was bombed. She'll infect you."

It didn't bother me when
kids said those things,

but my sister couldn't bear it.

- "This is your sister?"
- That's right, my sister.

Ryoko, who had survived the bomb with her sister Sakue.

Out of loneliness and pain,

my sister jumped in front of a train
and killed herself.

For that boy, it had to be worse.

Carrying his brother,
even though he knew he was dead.

Even so, he strapped him
securely on his back,

as if he wanted to carry on living.

While faithfully performing his duties for the military, a shift could be seen in Joe O'Donnell's photographs.

Increasing numbers of shots featured Japanese children.

When O'Donnell first enlisted
in the military,

he harbored a great deal of anger
toward Japan.

But even in his military photos,

we can discern what you could call
a humanistic aspect.

O'Donnell was of course
an American and a soldier,

and you can see that
in these photos.

But he tried to get beyond that.

It wasn't simply a matter
of doing his duty as a soldier,

he was also drawn to his subjects
as human beings.

O'Donnell turned his camera toward Japanese children who were living through these difficult times.

He submitted 15 of these photographs of children to the military,

providing a frank portrait of their everyday lives.

For the remainder of his life, O'Donnell continued to wonder what had become of the boy, standing by the cremation pit.

We uncovered another clue to the story behind that photograph.

This is an Anniversary Speed Graphic, the same model of camera that O'Donnell used while he was in Japan.

The photographer Matsumoto Norihiko noticed something when he examined the photo.

If this was mid-October, he would
have to use a flash during the day.

There's no light striking
the landscape in back.

Examining the photo revealed that it was overcast on the day it was taken.

The Nagasaki Local Meteorological Observatory archives

hold records of the weather for the period after the bomb was dropped.

The intervals where O'Donnell could have visited Nagasaki included

spans from October 13th to the 17th, and from October 22nd through the 25th.

Cloudy days during those intervals would be candidates for the date of the photo.

It was cloudy on October 15th, 17th, and 22nd.

This meant that O'Donnell likely took the photograph of the boy after the middle of October.

The day that O'Donnell encountered the boy in Nagasaki.

This was the day that the boy parted from the younger brother,

with whom he had struggled to stay alive for two months since the bomb was dropped,

leaving him entirely alone in the world.

Many other children were made orphans by the bomb, and many likewise lost siblings after the war ended.

Kiguchi Hisashi is one of them.

He lost his parents to the atomic bomb.

He and his 4 siblings were separated, taken in by relatives and orphanages.

I stayed in one or two camps
for orphans,

and then ended up with relatives.

They took me in, but it's hard
for me to talk about it.

I really don't like remembering.

They treated me so coldly.

Providing for their own was hard enough,
they had little room for others.

So I was passed from one to another.

Kiguchi's mother had gone out in search of food for the family when she was killed by the atomic bomb.

Kiguchi's relatives repeatedly lambasted this loving mother in front of the young children.

This is my sister, when she was small.

Yoko, seven years older than Hisashi, was staying with same set of relatives.

She was a sensitive child, and the relatives' vilification troubled her deeply.

My sister was very shy,
much like my mother.

Very shy and timid.

So the criticism just built up,
and she couldn't release it.

I would go outside and play.

But she became depressed,
psychologically unbalanced.

She died at age 19.

"How did she die?"

It was close to suicide...

I really don't want to talk about it.

When I see this boy biting his lip,
standing at attention,

it conveys to me the cruelty of war.

His parents might have died,
and he has to cremate his brother.

So he is trying to contain
his sadness and frustration.

The boy is holding back his feelings.

That comes through clearly.

What came into view as we continued our research

was the fate of children who had lost their families and whose lives were overwhelmed by the forces of war.

"The boy moved closer to the edge of the burning pit and stood there silently."

"Men took the baby from his back and placed it on the fire."

"A blinding flame whirled up."

"The boy stood by, as the flames turned his face red."

"I couldn't bring myself to look away."

"The boy stood at attention and looked straight ahead."

"Then, the young boy turned around and walked away, his back straight, his eyes fixed ahead of him."

"He never looked back."

After leaving the cremation pit, what kind of life did the young boy lead?

If we knew the general location of the cremation pit,

which was likely near where the boy lived, we might come closer to his identity.

We turned to computer graphics to do a careful analysis of the photograph.

Based on the specifications for the camera that O'Donnell used, as well as the size of the film negative,

we performed a 3D simulation of the landscape seen in the photograph.

This revealed the contour of the area around the cremation pit for the first time.

First of all, the distance between O'Donnell's camera and the boy was about 1.8 meters.

In the background were at least four levels of terraced fields.

It was possible to estimate that the cluster of trees behind the boy

rose about 20 meters above the level where O'Donnell was standing.

In trying to deduce the location of this landscape,

attention was drawn to an unusual detail, the objects lying at the boy's feet.

This is difficult.

It's hard to tell if these objects
in the foreground

are electrical wires, or branches, or what.

Why would this location, surrounded by fields and woods, have these cables crossing the ground?

In general, it's inconceivable
that electrical cables

would be run on the ground,
at that time.

They'd be suspended in the air.

Even if the wires had been
taken down for some reason,

they're too large for electricity,
at least 4 or 5 mm in diameter.

If these were not electrical cables, what kind of cables might they be?

These wires are twisted together, loosely.

The two wires form a pair,
it's one unit.

They don't run electricity,
so it might be a communication cable.

The wires in the photo do indeed look like wire that are used for communication cables.

It could be a telephone wire,
some kind of signal wire.

Like these...

Perhaps a train, that's possible.

Yes, train signals.

The Nagasaki Main Line connects Nagasaki to the surrounding area.

It was the sole means of transport in the area,

so efforts to restore the line were accelerated and it returned to service shortly after the bomb attack.

If the cables at the boy's feet were associated with a railway,

they would have been laid along the route of the Nagasaki Main Line.

We located technicians who had previously serviced the communication lines on the Nagasaki Main Line.

There could be a railway crossing
in this direction, or that,

and the purpose of this cable could be

to transmit notice of a passing train,
to control the signals.

You often see stone like this,
along railways.

Farmers use uncut, round stones
to build their walls,

but this stone has been worked on.

The men suggested that an area about 10 kilometers north of Nagasaki had terrain that resembled the photograph.

It is a hilly area, with fields and paddies.

There are spots with terraced fields and clusters of trees, just like the background of the photograph.

There are also accounts of there having been a cremation pit in this area.

And the 3D image matched the terrain here.

If the boy had lived in this area, what would his life have been like?

We discovered that this was actually an area where many war orphans had managed to eke out an existence.

This is a photograph of 2 brothers who were taken into custody a full two years after the war ended.

Their parents had died, and the two boys had wandered about on their own.

I think it's probably me.
This is me.

- "Next to you?"
- My brother.

Me and my brother,
there was just the two of us.

Zenida Tsuneo had not even told his family about his life as an orphan until now.

The boys had been adopted by a family in the region, but they were not given enough to eat and they slept in a cowshed.

Unable to bear it, they had run away.

The train station had become busy during the postwar recovery.

With no place to call home, the boys simply waited there until strangers gave them handouts.

There were many women
on their way to the black market.

They would go to the countryside
to buy rice.

We hadn't had breakfast.

We'd stare silently at them,
when they were eating.

We didn't ask for anything.

A woman saw us and said,

"A mouse got into this. Want it?"
She gave us a rice ball.

We ate it. It was so good.

Koyoryo was a facility that provided assistance to war orphans.

The brothers were taken to this orphanage, run by Nagasaki Prefecture.

As many as 70 children who had lost their parents to the atomic bomb and other causes lived at the orphanage.

The biggest event at Koyoryo
was when we took a bath.

The Mother
would bathe with us.

The director of the orphanage, who was referred to as "Mother,"

took special care in looking after the brothers,

to help them recover from the trauma they had experienced.

After he left the cremation pit, was the boy in the photograph lucky enough to end up at Koyoryo?

There are no detailed records of the children who lived at the orphanage.

My brother had a hard time.

But our sister...

if I talk about her, I'll cry,
so I won't.

But our little sister
suffered the worst, I think.

Zenida and his brother finally found a safe place,

but their younger sister had been injured by the atomic blast, and was taken in by another family.

She was playing outside
when the bomb was dropped.

Glass shattered...

her face was cut all over.

She was small,
and she was cut so badly.

There was no doctor to treat her.

So many people in the city
were exposed to the bomb.

There weren't enough doctors,
so she wasn't treated.

Zenida's life had been saved when he entered the orphanage.

Then, some 9 years later, his sister died.

I heard about my sister's death.

A telegram arrived.

It said, "Tetsuko died."

I wept when I heard that. Really...

She suffered so.

I couldn't do anything for her.

The fates of the atomic bomb orphans - who took them in,

what adults they encountered, whether they lived or died - were decided by the slimmest of margins.

Standing ramrod straight...

What was he thinking?

It must have been painful.

This boy...

he had struggled through so much.

With his brother or sister,
I don't know...

Did the baby die on his back?

Or before that? I don't know.

But he carried the corpse
on his back.

When I see such a sad sight,
it makes me cry.

War orphans, A-bomb orphans,
during that time...

I think many
experienced what we did,

being adopted, treated like servants.

Probably...

That's what happens when you're left
without any family.

It's such a pathetic thing.

That's war.

Joe O'Donnell witnessed these children struggling to survive the postwar devastation.

Toward the end of his life, he was interviewed about his thoughts on the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

"Being an American, walking through the cities in the aftermath..."

I thought it was wrong.

"What do you say to these people who say,

'Thank God for that. The bomb saved so many lives, American and Japanese.'"

I don't think it saves anything.

It's just killing innocent people.

And I know, people don't agree with me,

but we killed grandmothers, grandfathers, children...

"Did you feel like it was an act of senseless slaughter?"

Un-huh.

The boy standing at the cremation pit.

In the burnt wasteland of Nagasaki after the atomic bomb,

many children were left at the mercy of a cruel reality.

The image of this boy, enduring the loss of precious life, silently asks, across the generations,

who bears the heavy burden of the ravages of war?