First Into Nagasaki First Into Nagasaki : The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post - Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War is a collection of reports by " Chicago Daily News " foreign correspondent George Weller . Originally written in 1945 but not approved for publication by Gen . Douglas MacArthur ' s military censors , the reports were collected and edited by the author ' s son Anthony Weller , and published for the first time in 2006 . Synopsis . The Occupation authorities declared Nagasaki ( and Hiroshima ) off - limits to reporters . Weller reports that he was the first outside observer to reach Nagasaki , on September 6 , 1945 , four weeks following the U . S . atomic bombing of the city . He spent a total of three weeks in Nagasaki and in the nearby Allied P . O . W . camps — some of which he " opened " , and revisits the series of news reports he published at the time about his experiences . The first dispatches by non - Japanese reporters were filed by Associated Press correspondent Vern Haugland and " New York Times " Lawrence who visited Nagasaki September 9 , 1945 . Captain Joe Snyder , press officer with MacArthur headquarters , in his book " Para ( graph ) Trooper For MacArthur : From the Horse Cavalry to the USS Missouri " 1997 Chapter 16 " Nagasaki Inferno " pp199 – 209 describes " boarding a transport plane packed with reporters headed for Nagasaki . [ for example : photographers 1 . see Google image search Nagasaki Bernard Hoffman ( LIFE Magazine ) 2 . Bettmann / CORBIS September 13 , 1945 Stanley Troutman ( Acme war pool ) 3 . Nagasaki and verso ] Other officers and correspondents headed for Hiroshima about the same time , so the world would soon know more than it was prepared to digest about the horrors of the atomic bomb . . . . I toured the city with the AP ' s Jim Hutcheson , among others . He and I had become good friends since our narrow escape on Corregidor . . . . There were thousands of stories in Nagasaki and our group saw many pitiful sights of people with radiation burns who , in dreadful agony , were slowly dying . The first thing Japanese doctors asked was if American doctors had a cure for the bomb ' s effects on the human body . . . . We received a report from GHQ that American doctors were coming to Nagasaki soon . . . " Snyder acknowledges what he calls Wilfrid Burchett ' s " ingenuity " in successfully reporting from Hiroshima . Snyder does not mention George Weller or any dispatches of George Weller ' s from Nagasaki . Joe Snyder [ 1983 ; owner and editor of the North Missourian ] and Walter Cronkite [ 1964 ; CBS ] are both recipients of the Missouri School of Journalism Honor Medal . From the first days of the Occupation reporters were cleared to cover freeing and rescue operations on behalf of these prisoners . Weller comments : " What the command wanted covered was the prison camps of northern Japan . The dam was to be opened to one last orgy of home town stories , more mindless and more alike than the slow molasses drippings of four years of sloppy , apolitical , dear - mom war . . . I did not feel that the right way to end this war was to . . . chew more fodder about what - beasts - the - Japs - are and Jimmy - looks - skinnier - today . " The U . S . military in Tokyo censored approximately 55 , 000 words of his dispatches , along with more than 100 photographs . However , Weller does not refer to governmental censorship of any photographs of his related to Nagasaki . On January 7 , 2009 the " Telegraph " published Nagasaki photographs dated September 5 , 1945 : " After we asked readers for stories and photographs relating to Britain at War , we received these fascinating photographs of Nagasaki and Hiroshima from Cecil A . Creber , who took them less than a month [ Nagasaki = September 5 , 1945 ] after the atom bombs were dropped on both cities [ August 6 and 9 1945 ] . " The " Linlithgow Gazette " November 28 , 2008 " Amazing atomic aftermath pics set for key war archives " features a photo of Creber captioned " Life through a lens : Cecil with his faithful Ensign box camera . " On February 13 , 2010 " Mainichi " published " New color footage of Nagasaki A - bomb devastation shows need for greater research resources " plus a 01 / 05 / 2010 Photo Special [ film circa September 11 , 1945 found at the United States National Archives in Washington D . C . by Professor Burke - Gaffney ] . Weller writes these correspondents " looked like yacht passengers who have stopped to buy basketry on an island . " He writes that Colonel McCrary " offered to take carbons of my stories and file them when airborne . " The reporters under McCrary ' s leadership were not subject to censorship , making their dispatches especially valuable . Weller writes : " I refused . " " How could I close up my atomic laboratory , with the work only half finished ? " . . . and concludes with the explanation that his refusal is because he wanted to write " something free , big and formal . . . something ample , leisurely and magnificent . " [ " First into Nagasaki " page 19 - 20 ] Haugland of The Associated Press states : " We offered Weller a ride back to Tokyo with us . . . " [ see Haugland " infra " p . 20 ] Weller describes a feeling of " hopelessness " about his dispatches because the Kempeitai to whom he claims to have entrusted the stories had " returned to Nagasaki , but they had no message for me . " [ " First into Nagasaki " page 21 ] Weller , although working as a reporter for a daily publication , chose to refuse an offered opportunity either to timely send his Nagasaki dispatches uncensored from the aircraft or alternatively to confront the Occupation censorship directly by filing in Tokyo , despite writing : " I wanted to be prepared to defend every line . If the stories were blocked as reprisal against me , I intended to take the case to MacArthur himself . " [ " First into Nagasaki " page 18 ] Weller traveled to Nagasaki from Kanoya airbase with Sergeant Gilbert Harrison . Harrison ' s career later included : Chairman of the American Veterans Committee ; Editor and Publisher of the " The New Republic " magazine ; author of several books . In Harrison ' s memoir [ " Parts of a Past " iUniverse June 2009 pages 81 – 2 ] he describes carrying George Weller ' s Nagasaki reporting from an airstrip outside Nagasaki to the " Chicago Daily News " in Tokyo : A " Boston Globe " article by Gerald R . Thorp of the " Chicago Daily News " " TOKYO , Sept . 10 ( CDN ) ' New Brand of Jap to Him ! ' " indicates that Harrison was by September 10 , 1945 accompanying correspondents in Tokyo . The first dispatch presented in " First into Nagasaki " ( see page 25 and photos on cover and back inside endpaper ) is datelined " Nagasaki September 6 " and reads : . . . " After a 24 - hour trip on what seemed like dozens of trains , the writer arrived here this afternoon as the first visitor from the outside Allied world . " On " September 6 " the " Chicago Daily News " printed a dispatch under Weller ' s byline datelined " Kanoya " , which begins : The remainder of Weller ' s dispatch consists of a series of direct quotations from men of this medical corps with names , addresses , and photographs ( these last are not from in Japan but are formal military portraits ) . Samples : After the September 6 dispatch from Kanoya , Weller ' s next dispatch was printed on September 12 with an " Ōmuta , Kyushu " dateline ( Omuta was a prisoner of war camp approximately 100 miles by railroad from Nagasaki and twice that from Kanoya . Headlined " New Saga of Boldness For Wermuth as Captive " it is an account of the famous " One - Man - Army " Captain Arthur W . Wermuth continuing his leadership as a POW on a Hellship carrying prisoners to Japan . Photographs . The photograph in " First into Nagasaki " facing the " Introduction by Anthony Weller xv " is captioned " George Weller ( r . ) with Admiral Chester Nimitz on board the U . S . S . " Missouri " for the treaty signing , Tokyo Bay , September 2 , 1945 . " This caption is incorrect since the figure on the left of the picture is not Fleet Admiral Nimitz , the signer as United States Representative of the proceedings ' documents . In all still images and moving pictures of the Japanese surrender ceremony Nimitz is seen wearing Navy cap with full " scrambled eggs " denoting his five - star rank . The personage in the photograph appears to be John Knight , publisher of the " Chicago Daily News " , who was in attendance on the USS " Missouri " as a guest of the Secretary of the Navy . With reference to this photograph " supra " presented in " First into Nagasaki " , the Battleship Missouri Memorial at Pearl Harbor : " can confirm that the individual pictured to the left in the photograph is not Fleet Admiral Nimitz . " http : / / www . ussmissouri . org George Weller was actually photographed with a prominent naval figure Hiram Cassidy [ sic ] by the Associated Press on March 25 , 1943 AP Images ID 4303250106 . The picture was taken just before Weller ' s letter to the Foreign Editor of the " Chicago Daily News " quoted in " Weller ' s War " pp355 – 6 . At left is Commander Hiram Cassedy [ correct spelling ] , then Captain of " Searaven " , hero of several submarine engagements in South - west Pacific ( " Submarine Operations in World War II " US Naval Institute Eight Printing December 1965 pages 104 , 193 - 4 , 233 , 463 ) . At right is George Weller wearing British - type tropical uniform of shorts and knee socks . Cassedy ( later Admiral ) commanding " Tigrone " went on to lead a submarine group " Hiram ' s Hecklers " and also to hold the Pacific record for " lifeguard " duty ( with 31 rescues ; Ibid . pp 471 – 3 ) . The " Chicago Daily News " September 8 , 1945 printed prominently two photographs credited ' Associated Press Wirephoto ' showing one American foreign correspondent amidst an obliterated surrounding former city . These photographs feature in the background what has become the widely recognized symbol for the atom bombs dropped on Japan , the shell of a pre - war structure which has been preserved as it looked then . Now commonly referred to as " A - Bomb Dome " it is on the UNESCO World Heritage List registered as " Hiroshima Peace Memorial . " The CDN 1945 captions read : Photographs of Nagasaki had already been printed September 1 , 1945 . Caption : " Nagasaki Today - Japanese workers ( foreground ) carry away debris in a devastated area of atom - bombed Nagasaki . Smokestacks and a lone building stand in the background . This picture is from Domei , official Jap news agency . " Transmission credit is to Associated Press Wirephoto . Photographs published in " First into Nagasaki " in 2006 already had appeared in the " Chicago Daily News " in 1945 . [ emphasis added ] Newspaper prints of Weller ' s stories . The " Los Angeles Times " on September 16 , 1945 published a front page article " By George Weller Chicago Daily News Foreign Service Nagasaki . ( Delayed ) U . S . Prisoner Sees A - Bomb Rip Nagasaki . " Substantial portions of this " Los Angeles Times " September 16 , 1945 published article are contained in two dispatches in " First into Nagasaki " : 1 . First Dispatch September 6 , 1945 2300 pages 25 – 7 ; 2 . Fifth Dispatch September 8 , 1945 0300 pages 35 – 6 . Both these dispatches are part of a group of eight dispatches ( pages 25 – 45 ) which are described in " First into Nagasaki " as never published . The " Los Angeles Times " page one article of September 16 , 1945 with its sub - headline " Witnesses Describe Parachutes Falling and Searing Blast " includes Weller ' s interviews with Captain Farley , POWs Bridgman and King , and Dutch doctor Vink ( all in Dispatch # 5 ) and Weller ' s interview with the Japanese lieutenant , aide to the district ' s commander ( Dispatch # 1 ) . The " Los Angeles Times " article has the following introductory paragraph : " The following story , delayed by censorship , is an eyewitness account by an American observer of the results of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki and includes the stories of men on the ground who saw the bomb fall . " The " Boston Evening Globe " on September 15 , 1945 published a page one article " By George Weller NAGASAKI " with bold all caps headline " American Saw Atom Bomb Hit Nagasaki " using content described as " unpublished " [ page 24 " First into Nagasaki " ] and at the end of the article " Continued on Page 2 " is the following : " ( Copyright , 1945 , by the Boston Globe and Chicago Daily News . ) " . Text from Dispatch # 6 and Dispatch # 1 is used ( example : " Walk in Nagasaki ' s streets today and you walk in ruins . " This is the first line of Dispatch # 1 ) . Weller ' s interview with the Japanese lieutenant ( Dispatch # 1 ) is used in the " Boston Evening Globe " article as is Weller ' s interview with Captain Farley ( Dispatch # 5 ) , and Weller ' s interview with Dr . Nakashima ( Dispatch # 8 ) . Quoted statements by ex - POWs Bridgman and King ( Dispatch # 5 ) are in this " Boston Evening Globe " article , which covers both Japanese and Allied observers ' eyewitness accounts of the bomb as well as Dr . Nakashima ' s description of the bomb ' s medical symptoms . The Boston article reads : " However , about 70 percent of deaths have been from plain burns . " ( Dispatch # 6 ) . The " New York Post " on September 15 , 1945 published an article by George Weller headlined " U . S . Prisoners Held at Nagasaki Describe Terrors of Atom Blast " using the same line of text as the Boston article ( Dispatch # 1 ) , death statistics ( Dispatch # 3 ) and re - located position of POW camp ( Dispatch # 4 ) . The New York article includes Weller ' s interviews with Captain Farley , Dr . Vink , Harold Bridgman , and Fred King ( Dispatch # 5 ) . The article concludes with the bomb ' s " peculiar ' disease ' " ( Dispatch # 8 ) . The " Miami Herald " on September 18 , 1945 published an article " By George Weller Miami Herald - Chicago Daily News Wire " headlined : " American Tells of Being Atomic Bombed " with quote above : " ' I Hit the Ground . . . Building Began To Quiver ' " . In this article are quotations and statistical data from Dispatch # 3 " The known dead number 20 , 000 , Jap police tell me , and they estimate about 4 , 000 bodies remain to be found " along with " The wounded are estimated to be about twice the number of dead . " " Walk in Nagasaki ' s streets today and you walk in ruins . " ( Dispatch # 1 ) Also , Captain Farley ' s eyewitness account ( Dispatch # 5 ) is quoted . The interviews with Bridgman and King ( Dispatch # 5 ) are included as well as information from Dr . Nakashima ( Dispatch # 8 ) and the interview with the Japanese lieutenant , aide to the district commander ( Dispatch # 1 ) . George Weller ' s own response " In hours of walking through these areas I experienced no burns or signs of debilitation . " is from Dispatch # 3 ( " First into Nagasaki " page 30 ) which mentions Weller ' s " nausea " not reported in the " Miami Herald " article of 1945 . The " Miami Herald " article incorrectly states atomic POW casualties " Forty - eight were killed instantly and four others died later . " while Dispatch # 5 states " Forty - eight were wounded , four instantly killed , and four , including Aalders , died . " The incorrect POW casualty figures also appear in Weller ' s " Los Angeles Times " article of September 16 , 1945 and his " New York Post " article of September 15 , 1945 , and his article in the " Akron Beacon Journal " headlined " Yank Saw Atom Bomb Wipe Out Nagasaki " and above that " It Was ' Terrific , White Flash ' " September 15 , 1945 ( this article includes interviews " supra " from Dispatch # 1 , Dispatch # 5 , and Dispatch # 8 ) . The Associated Press ' Vernon Haugland quotes Dr . Vink " only four of our 200 prisoners were killed " [ outright when the bomb exploded ; four more died subsequently ] in article published widely , including in the " New York Times " and on September 10 , 1945 in the " Miami Herald " . Thus papers in New York , Boston , Los Angeles , Miami , and Akron all print Weller ' s incorrect casualty statistics , whilst Dispatch # 5 gives correct data , as does the Associated Press in 1945 . Eight Dispatches ( pages 25 – 45 ) are described in " First into Nagasaki " as written in Nagasaki September 6 – 9 with Weller " sending them off to MacArthur ' s military censors in Tokyo , hopeful that they were being cabled onward to his editors at the " Chicago Daily News " and thence to a vast American readership via syndication . These dispatches have remained unpublished for sixty years ; it appears that the U . S . government destroyed the originals . " The fact of publication by the " Los Angeles Times " , " Boston Evening Globe " , " New York Post " , " Miami Herald " , and " Akron Beacon Journal " is irreconcilable to George Weller ' s assertion that : " . . . I sent 25 , 000 words by the hands of the obliging " kempeitai " , the secret police , directly to MacArthur . . . . All my dispatches were suppressed . Every one of my 25 , 000 words was killed by MacArthur ' s censorship , which went on afterward , month after month . " [ " First into Nagasaki " page 313 ] Censorship of correspondents reporting from Japan for newspapers outside Japan ended October 6 , 1945 , continuing only for the Japanese media . In " The Weller Dispatches by Anthony Weller " [ page 291 " First into Nagasaki " ] is statement that " . . . the editors cut Weller ' s cynical closing phrase . . . " The " Chicago Daily News " text last line is : " That ' s how Jap wardens cured decadent Americans , but lost the war . " The " Miami Herald " text last line is : " That ' s how Japanese wardens cured decadent Americans but lost the war - - so it says here in fine print . " On September 18 , 1945 the " Miami Herald " published article by George Weller " Japan Holds Prisoners In Secret " on Chinese prisoners on Kyushu , based on information source Lt . Edward Little ( later court - martialled for crimes while a POW . This article has close to identical text with the article included in " Weller ' s War " pages 618 - 9 and there described as : " This dispatch was censored by MacArthur and never published . " The " Los Angeles Times " on September 29 , 1945 printed another article " By George Weller Chicago Daily News Foreign Service Nagasaki September 28 Californians Worked to Death on Dam by Japs . " Most of this article printed in the " Los Angeles Times " is contained in the dispatch dated September 24 , 1945 published in " First into Nagasaki " pages 139 - 143 . For sixty years Weller ' s own carbon of these dispatches were presumed lost , until they were discovered by Weller ' s son , Anthony , six months after George Weller ' s death . Controversies . Title claim , who was first . Weller claims that he was " the first Westerner to enter either of the bombed cities after Japan surrendered " and that " No other correspondent had yet evaded the authorities to reach either Hiroshima or Nagasaki . " However other reports note people entering the city as early as August 22 , and the earliest dispatch from Weller was dated September 6 ( see below ) . Australian journalist Wilfrid Burchett arrived in Hiroshima on September 3 , 1945 , and a Hiroshima dispatch from him was printed September 5 , 1945 in the London " Daily Express " . George Weller : " . . . I entered it [ Nagasaki ] on September 6 , 1945 , as the first free westerner to do so after the end of the war . " [ page 3 ] " . . . the writer arrived here [ Nagasaki ] this afternoon as the first visitor from the outside Allied world . " [ page 25 ] " . . . the writer - - the first Allied observer to reach Nagasaki since the surrender - - . . . " [ page 43 ] Anthony Weller : " . . . no outsider had been in yet , not even from the U . S . military . " [ pages 245 - 246 ] Weller [ Part I First into Nagasaki in the book " First into Nagasaki " page 3 ] writes : " Whenever I see the word ' Nagasaki , ' a vision arises of the city when I entered it on September 6 , 1945 , as the first free westerner to do so after the end of the war . No other correspondent had yet evaded the authorities to reach either Hiroshima or Nagasaki . " However , the " Chicago Daily News " on August 30 , 1945 published under size extra large headline : " " 1st INSIDE STORY OF HIROSHIMA Reporter Tells How City Vanished in Atom Blast " " a notable scoop by Leslie Nakashima written for United Press ( and also printed in the " New York Times " " Newsman finds all of Hiroshima gone after atom blow . " ) Born in Hawaii and previously a reporter for the " Honolulu Star - Bulletin " and a foreign correspondent with wire agency UP in pre - war Tokyo this Nisei ' s dispatch includes : " . . . I arrived at Hiroshima at 5 A . M . Aug . 22 , to find out about my mother , who lived in the outskirts of the city . Alighting from the train , I found that Hiroshima station — once one of the largest in western Japan — no longer existed . . . . The sight before me as I headed for the outskirts of the city where my mother lived was unbelievable . It was unbelievable because only a fortnight before the bombing I had seen the city intact when I evacuated my wife and two daughters to central Japan . Except for one or two bombs dropped on separate occasions by B - 29 ' s , Hiroshima had not been subjected to heavy incendiary attacks . . . . But I found my mother safe . She had been weeding grass in a relative ' s vegetable field about two miles southeast of the city when she saw the flash . . . A school in the suburbs near mother ' s home has been converted into a field hospital to care for people who suffered burns . The majority of these cases is believed hopeless . Many of the victims are unidentifiable . Even now two or three patients are dying daily at this one hospital . " And the " Chicago Daily News " published a dispatch by Associated Press war correspondent Vern Haugland on page one under size large headline : " U . S . Writer Views Hiroshima " Continued dispatch section headline : " " First U . S . Reporter Sees Hiroshima Ruins " . " Correspondents from the " Headliner - Dateliner " group with Lt . Col . John ' Tex ' McCrary of the Strategic Air Forces visited both Hiroshima ( September 4 – 5 ) and Nagasaki ( September 8 – 9 ) , publishing a series of thorough and informative dispatches which covered both atomic cities and included medical aspects . Parachutes . Several of the eyewitnesses Weller interviewed described seeing a parachute , or parachutes , falling on the day of the bombing . In an account published more than twenty years after his visit to Nagasaki , Weller asserts that the bomb which destroyed Nagasaki was a " lazy - falling missile floating under a parachute . " " . . . riding under a silk handkerchief . " [ " First into Nagasaki " page 3 ] Since the bomb did not descend by parachute ( a fact well known twenty years later ) this description is incorrect . Parachutes were attached to instruments were dropped by support - planes during the mission to measure the effects of the blast . pre - atomic raids on Nagasaki . In the same 1967 account Weller asserts that Nagasaki , prior to August 9 , 1945 " . . . in the face of all logic , it had been spared so far . . . Streams of B - 29 s flowed north and south around it , but this prime target remained mysteriously untouched . " Weller offers several theories connected with the supposed sparing of Nagasaki . Contrary to George Weller ' s unaccountable assertion that Nagasaki before August 9 , 1945 was " mysteriously untouched " , Nagasaki had in fact been targeted in August 1945 , August 1944 , as well as the April 1945 raid which became famous as " The legend of Lieut . Gene Flewellen and his B - 29 , the " Experiment Perilous " . . . a ' one - plane air force . ' " making George Weller ' s statement incorrect . On , August 10 , 1944 Nagasaki had been bombed by B - 29s " launched from China against Nagasaki ' s urban area . The twenty - four attacking bombers unloaded 4 tons of fragmentation bombs and 77 tons of incendiaries on the primary . There is an element of foreshadowing in the fact that Nagasaki was the first Japanese city to be attacked and firebombed by AAF ' precision ' bombers , in view of what the city was to experience almost one year later . " On April 27 , 1945 , Lieut . Gene Flewellen commanding the B - 29 " Experiment Perilous " was forced by weather to abandon his original target on Kyūshū and , without accompanying aircraft , flew southward down the coast seeking a target of opportunity and bombed the Nagasaki dock area . The absence of anti - aircraft fire indicated that the Japanese were " entirely surprised . The lone B - 29 wheeled and headed south . Several hours later the pilot put the huge craft down at Saipan , with ten minutes of gas left in his tanks . " On August 3 , 1945 " New York Times " had carried the front page headline " BOMBERS FIRE GREAT NAGASAKI SHIPYARDS " and a page one story beginning " Nagasaki , one of the three major shipbuilding centers of Japan and ninth port of the empire , was left aflame yesterday , its dockyards smashed and its harbor littered with sunken ships by over 250 planes of General George C . Kenney ' s Far East Air Force . " The article continues with a full description of the air battle over Nagasaki , and the destruction of oil tanks , ships , warehouses and railyard . The raid of August 2 , 1945 included Mitchell and Liberator bombers as well as Thunderbolt and Mustang fighter planes . Weller ' s assertion published in 1967 is not consistent with this prominent , lengthy and detailed " New York Times " coverage , nor with his own assertion published in 2006 at the end of the very first dispatch datelined Nagasaki ( September 6 , 1945 2300 hours ) that the city had had " one earlier serious raid . "