00:01:00 John Daub: Welcome to Tokyo on an extraordinarily hot summer afternoon in August. August 6th, this is the 80th anniversary memorial of the atomic bomb dropping on Hiroshima. It's getting a lot of media attention, press. This is a very pivotal year because a lot of the survivors, the hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors), are leaving us. We're seeing what I was told—4,000 people passing away that had survived the atomic bomb in Nagasaki every year. About 4,000 and that number is dwindling.

00:31:00 John Daub: As well, so the 80th year is a very important one and this is one where the hibakusha, the survivors, are really voicing their opinions. More and more visitors who are coming here to Japan want to go to Hiroshima. They want to go to Nagasaki. They want to experience what they've learned in the history books to see what—especially when it's always in the news now, nuclear war—they want to experience or understand, I think is a better word, what happened on those days because I know the history books. I remember going to Vietnam and then seeing the way Vietnam framed the American war. That blew my mind. So when visitors come to Japan, it's really interesting to go and see the Peace Museum, the Atomic Bomb Museum is what it's called in Nagasaki and learn about this. It really is a fascinating subject. It's from my grandfather's time, some of your great grandfather's time, the decisions that they made—what they had to make and the country that Japan was 80 years ago is absolutely not the same country than it is today. We'll talk about that as well.

02:01:00 John Daub: Extraordinarily crowded. This is an image from about a year ago. You can see the Peace Museum has a line that was about three hours long. That's not fun, folks. And I don't know how they're doing it now, but that's a really long line to go in and see the museum. It used to be 50 yen to enter. You never had to wait in line for it. But these days, you have to wait in line for everything in Japan. Overtourism is a problem. Again, I lived in Hiroshima 20 years ago, 25 years ago when I was there from 1999. You would just walk right into the museum. It was almost always empty. And now there's so many people. I think this is also a result of Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations) winning the Nobel Peace Prize, maybe. There's more attention on this. The hibakusha, the survivors themselves are telling the story. They're telling their stories a lot better than they did 25 years ago because of the stigma. If you admitted that you were a hibakusha, it was harder to get married. It was harder to get a job. So people didn't admit it. They lived with this, trying to hide it from everybody, including their spouses, including their partners, because people wouldn't get married to those that were hibakusha because they felt they were genetically defective. And a lot of them did have children that came up with [?]pukuk [?].

03:33:00 John Daub: There's a lot of stuff that happens in the museum including the Nihon Hidankyo that were perpetrated by the scientists. That's a lot. Thanks. There wasn't a line to get in at this time. There, Nagasaki's—this is the entrance. Nagasaki's pretty much dependent on, I would say, cruise ships and the museum. No reservation needed. It's empty. It's very well done, a lot of artifacts, things that were out was preserved and not destroyed or bulldozed over which is what a lot of it was done. And you could see you have a lot more space, you have a lot more peace. You can reflect more, you can absorb more. But you know the museum in Hiroshima is so well done it's hard to say. I would say do go, go visit both, really go visit both. But if you had to ask me if you only had one—Nagasaki—if this was a topic that was very important to you to experience here in Japan and it is for a lot of people, Nagasaki has far less tourists. And when the wave of the cruise ship is over and everybody comes at the same time and leaves at the same time, there's like an hour. And there's a lot of days where there are no cruise ships. Nagasaki is so peaceful, it is such a beautiful city. I'm like looking at abandoned houses like oh, maybe this is a good place to live here.

05:16:00 John Daub: I'll take some questions that were coming in here. This episode comes in light of an episode that I just released on—hold on a second, I just updated the thumbnail—an episode that I just released about two hours ago. I think it's an important episode and I made this in response to my community asking, saying that you know Hiroshima gets a lot of attention but Nagasaki gets almost none and I think it was time to give Nagasaki some attention. I start off with a lot of old footage from 1945 from the National Archives in the United States. This is all declassified and royalty-free stuff that you can use from the National Archives and was able to piece that together with survivor interviews as well as a tour guide who actually had a very strong connection to the past of Nagasaki. He was there when the cathedral was being rebuilt so I think it's a very good video that gives you maybe the most thorough look at Nagasaki after the bombing from the point of view of those that were on the ground and that's what I wanted—not so much about how the bomb was made and how it was transported and dropped but what happened after that. What's the hypocenter like? What was life like? What still remains in Nagasaki? I think it's a very important episode so go check that out. If the subscribers don't like it it usually won't get suggested to the public so if you see it click it and watch to the end if you can because that really does help get this suggested because on the 9th which is Saturday has its 80th memorial and I want this video to be something that people do reflect on because again we're losing a lot of those voices.

07:09:00 John Daub: Another reason why Nagasaki seems to have a lot less tourists—it, I shouldn't say seem to, it's kind of a fact—it's just further away. Getting to Nagasaki, according to this, if I were to leave about five minutes ago from Tokyo Station it would take me six hours and 39 minutes which is a lot faster than I thought I would be if I were to leave in a couple of minutes. But I'd like to talk about that in a little bit so you can see here that Nagasaki is now connected mostly with the shinkansen (bullet train). It's not a complete line but from Fukuoka you can jump on the brand newest shinkansen train and get to Nagasaki a lot faster than you used to be able to. Now the train isn't—the train used to be connected by a bus, I think you can go straight through now but the actual shinkansen tracks are only one station. The new Nagasaki Shinkansen, the rest of it is just like an express. It's much faster to fly, and they do have budget airlines going there, which is a lot cheaper than the Shinkansen. But if you compare it to Hiroshima, hold on a second, Hiroshima is so much closer. Boom. Hiroshima is three hours, well actually it's not that much closer. It's just two hours difference about, right? Maybe two and a half, three hours. I'm trying to make Nagasaki look good here, aren't I? Anyway, it's like about three hours closer, two out, a little bit less than three hours. But it's also a straight shot from Tokyo on the Tokaido Shinkansen. It takes you, I think it's about three and a half hours. I think if you take the Nozomi, it depends. I think it's about three and a half hours. Anyways, it's a pretty good ride. Seems long. I think if you're—anytime you go after four hours on the Shinkansen, I always take an airplane. I feel flying makes more sense than taking the train. It costs about 30,000 yen to get to Nagasaki, and about 25,000 yen to get to Hiroshima. So the price is not that different, but it is something to think about. Nagasaki though will be a much different experience than Hiroshima. Go visit them both. They're both very important places here.

09:25:00 John Daub: Any last questions before we end this live stream? I just wanted to make this quite brief here. I thought the Hiromuji [?] was really good. The Hiroshima Museum was better than Nagasaki. I don't know if it's—I think they renovated the museum. It wasn't that great when I first went there. And about 10 years ago they renovated it. It's quite well done now. But I don't—I got as much seeing the artifacts from Nagasaki as I did from seeing the artifacts from Hiroshima. If you're looking at presentation, yeah, Hiroshima has done a better job of it perhaps. But Nagasaki I would say is not that far behind in terms of the quality of the museum. You're going to see a lot of the stuff that you're looking for. In the episode you saw that they had a replica of the actual bomb, Fat Man—like the size and the shape and the color of it. I saw it and was like oh that's because I've been looking at the archival video from the Army and the Air Force that took this in 1945 for a very long time, editing this video for months. And this was, you know, to see that was really like wow. I think they have a replica in Hiroshima as well. But the Nagasaki bomb was 40 percent more powerful than Hiroshima. And there were less lives lost because of the mountains around there. But those in the hypocenter area, the fatality rate was much higher because the bomb was more intense inside of the Urakami Valley because of the geography. Like I learned a lot of stuff making that video. You should go check that out. A lot of people know about Hiroshima and don't know about Nagasaki. That's why I made this video.

11:15:00 John Daub: Ramsey's Island is in the house. Thank you Ramsey for reviewing it and taking a quick look at it. The only thing I got wrong and it was pronouncing Mariana, the Northern Mariana Islands—instead of I said Marina I think. Tinian Island is in Northern Mariana I think. So it's only one error. But I don't think a lot of people are going to catch that unless you live in Guam. My wife's uncle was buddies with the captain of the plane that dropped the Nagasaki. But wow, Mark Duffy wrote that in there. We're all connected with history. The last thing I want to end you with is this. It's a very significant comment here. I got some comments. Whenever you do something like this, it's always those in the United States that are like you shouldn't mess with the US, you should Japan back in. My wife's grandfather fought in the Philippines. He was dropped in there. He didn't want to go. He was the only survivor of his battalion or platoon. I'm not sure how you would say it in Japanese but he was the only survivor. And he survived out in the jungle by himself pillaging like food that he could find in the jungle. And when the Americans came he surrendered and they took him on a boat to Hiroshima not far, not long after the atomic bomb. He died about five, six years ago. And he talked about taking the train from Hiroshima back up to Tokyo after the war and his love for the Americans and the occupation.

12:42:00 John Daub: Japan was a country that the citizens did not know what was going on. They only heard what they were being told. A lot of them didn't believe it. They thought that Americans were like the devil and they were crazy, worse than the regime in Japan. And when the occupation came and MacArthur took over it was anything but that. And that's why—there was one comment saying like oh Japanese [love?] Americans because they were conquered by Americans. That's not exactly true. It's more when MacArthur came in, the troops, the people stationed here during the reconstruction were so gracious, so good, so generous compared to what they had before. Americans were great. And there was a great love for the United States following World War Two. I remember my great uncle talking about a story. And he was stationed in Hokkaido. And he gave a simple egg to a Japanese boy. And that boy was so grateful for one egg. And he—he had at that time my great uncle was not all there. So he kept repeating it. And then after he finished the story he went back to the beginning like you know like a broken record. And I listened to it like ten times. Each time he told it it was still pretty good. But then we had to cut him off. He kept talking about it. But there are a lot of stories like that. The reconstruction of Japan and the way that MacArthur approached it is why I think Japan became such an ally. A lot of history there. Americans don't realize this because when they come here I think you look at it through the prism of your own country. You have to reset things and see what Japan was actually like back then and it wasn't a great country. It had a lot of flaws and a lot of problems. The emperor was powerless, overrun by the military. He should have done something more. He should have been stronger. There's a lot of stories that have come out about this that talk about it in a more historical point of view but I've done a lot of research on this as well. I'm no historian, an amateur, but I have a great respect for the history. And knowing your past and learning from it is the best way not to repeat it. And that's why this episode exists.

14:58:00 John Daub: My uncle had dual citizenship. He was Japanese soldier in the Philippines. Yeah, a lot of people did not make it in the Philippines. It was tough. In fact in the Pacific a lot of Japanese knew they didn't want to be put into this war. My wife's grandfather was thrown into the war. He was 16. If you take a look at the Nagasaki video, Ujihara-san who I talked to was 15 years old. That guy, he's a 15-year-old mobilized student. He is at Isahaya Station and they send a train his way. The train is filled with victims from the atomic bombing. And they ask him please take care of these people. The rescue train, which I only touched on briefly, carried 700 survivors out of the hypocenter. The train tracks were awful. They used the push mode, the steam locomotives, meaning it could go off the track and actually move. And then they'd have to push it back onto the track. So to get the survivors. The train sometimes went into what's called push mode. I did not know a lot about this until last week. So this is one of—every time I researched this Nagasaki video it kept getting longer and longer with all of the details. But they ended up rescuing 2,800 people. A lot of them died. I'd say more than half from what I got from Ujihara-san. But his recollection at age 95 checked out with the history books. That train left at 1:50 p.m. from Michino Station in Nagasaki. And he said in the interview—I didn't put it—they told him to work from 3 p.m. and he worked until 9 p.m. with the rescue trains getting people off. And he described the smell. He described what the victims looked like. I didn't put in a lot of the gore but the crematoriums, how they got rid of the bodies. There's a lot of details here that were just really a lot to take. So yeah, I'm kind of glad to be finished with this episode to be able to move on to another topic because this is one I think that really drains you. But again everyone who is supporting the channel says that this is also like one of the reasons why they do that and this is important.

17:15:00 John Daub: Hey John, writing from S.J., California, sending all the love man, hoping to one day visit. Thank you so much. It'd be great to see you here. I think this is a great place to also leave a comment. If you did have a family member who fought in the war or a perspective on this I'd love to hear it. Be respectful. There are two sides to this. And the Japanese side was horrific. The Pacific Front was the worst. And it is really good that the United States came out on top on this in this war of course but also before the Russians or the Soviets I should say is more exact got into the war which would have made it so much more complicated. Japan would not be Japan today. There's an argument to be made if Japan had not surrendered when they did—a lot of debate. And so it's a tough one. History is kind of fun to look back on but it's also something that you need to learn from and take seriously. It's a rough one. And that's why you need to go and visit Nagasaki and Hiroshima and both of them. Just keep in mind if you do go to Hiroshima you might have lines like this. Do everything online and get there early and understand that it's going to be crowded in there. But it's a worthwhile experience. The wax figures at the end were sometimes quite startling. And if you have time go check out this video today or tomorrow or this weekend. Saturday is going to be the memorial which is Sunday morning in the United States I believe and I really appreciate the support from all of you guys here.

18:56:00 John Daub: All right. Thanks for watching. The what if questions will never be answered. You're absolutely right. They do declassify some documents but most of it is already out there. It's amazing. If you go to National Archives what the US has declassified. There are hundreds of thousands of pages, daily reports from the Pacific Front. There's so much material. Anybody could really go through it if you did the work and write a book on this topic. If you became something of an expert. But there's so much information like a million pages. I think every single daily report from each section of the Pacific and of the war is available to see. I didn't see anything that was redacted anymore.

19:41:00 John Daub: Two or three years ago Hiroshima Museum didn't have so many people. Right. I took my parents there when they visited me in Tokyo. And there's just too many tourists there now and it was on a weekday. Even the Integrate Hotel there has too many noisy tourists there. I lived in Hiroshima. I love Hiroshima. You have to wake up in the summer like at 5 a.m. to really get peace and to be able to absorb the things that are happening. The thing with the atomic tourism I guess you could say—war tourism—is that if there are too many tourists around it's hard for you to reflect, it's hard for you to listen to the silence and try to hear the voices that were once there. I used to do that when I lived in Hiroshima. I used to sit on a bench in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome, the Genbaku Dome (A-Bomb Dome). When I was walking back from Kenbi's which is an expat bar back to my house in Yokogawa—it's about a 30-minute walk. And I would often sit there sometimes after taking two or three drinks. I don't drink much anymore if at all. But back then you know you're living in Japan, you're an expat, Japanese culture. And I would reflect quite a bit. And it was a silence. And that made me think that it really does change your life when you do take a moment to reflect on stuff with alcohol or not. But the point is back then Hiroshima was a different place. The tourism has really changed that city a lot.

21:13:00 John Daub: Thanks so much for watching everybody. Again leave some questions if you'd like or your account. How—what was your experience when you went to Nagasaki or Hiroshima to the museum so others can learn from your own experience? Thanks guys. Don't sugarcoat it. I don't really do much of that. Do I? Not so much lately. All right. Take care. I'll see you. Matane (see you). You know what to do. Go check out the video. I appreciate it guys. Matane. Go get a cold iced coffee right now.