When a Hiroshima Survivor Met the Co-Pilot of the Enola Gay on Live TV
- dthholland
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
In May 1955, Kiyoshi Tanimoto—a Methodist minister and Hiroshima survivor—arrived at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood under the impression he would be interviewed about a cause close to his heart: the Hiroshima Maidens. These were 25 young women who had been severely disfigured by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Tanimoto, then 36, was instrumental in helping bring them to the United States for reconstructive surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
This humanitarian mission was deeply personal for Tanimoto, who had dedicated his life to peace and reconciliation after surviving the atomic attack. What he didn’t expect, however, was to be the subject of the popular television programme This Is Your Life—or that the producers would use the opportunity to stage an unannounced and emotionally charged encounter with one of the men responsible for the destruction of his city.
The host of This Is Your Life, Ralph Edwards, was known for his theatrical reveals. The show’s formula usually involved surprising an unsuspecting guest with friends, family, and old mentors who would recount touching anecdotes. But the tone was different this time.
“Now you’ve never met him,” Edwards announced, “you have never seen him but he’s here tonight to clasp your hand in friendship.”
Out from behind a screen stepped Captain Robert Lewis—co-pilot and aircraft commander of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima. As the audience applauded, a visibly hesitant Tanimoto greeted the man who had played a pivotal role in one of history’s most destructive acts.
According to Electric Literature, Tanimoto appeared “deeply reticent”. The studio atmosphere, designed for television spectacle, clashed harshly with the weight of historical trauma now unfolding on stage.
Hiroshima Recreated for TV
Instead of focusing on the Hiroshima Maidens or Tanimoto’s postwar peace work, the programme turned into a re-enactment of the morning of the bombing. The show began playing an air raid siren, cutting between footage of the bomb’s aftermath and close-ups of Tanimoto’s startled face.
“The time has come, that split second of eternity which comes in one way or another to every man in his lifetime,” Edwards solemnly declared. “What did you do when you heard that bomb?”
Tanimoto responded quietly:
“Well, I didn’t hear any sounds, but I saw strange flash running through the air.”
From this point onward, Edwards led the conversation with a heavy hand. Tanimoto was offered few opportunities to speak at length. When he did, his comments were brief, his demeanour composed but tense. Edwards steered the conversation with questions that many would later criticise as inappropriate or insensitive—including one asking where Tanimoto had been on 7 December 1941, the date of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
“It’s not only that Edwards mostly refuses to let his subject speak,” wrote Electric Literature. “It’s that he continually takes the liberty of describing Tanimoto’s feelings and memories to Tanimoto, often speaking over him to do so… He embodies an America that will bomb your home, kill your neighbours, surprise you with an interview on a deeply personal, traumatic experience and then—rather than allow you to tell your own story—tell you what happened and how you felt about it.”
Captain Robert Lewis’s appearance came about sixteen minutes into the programme. Edwards called to him:
“Captain Lewis, come in here close.”
But the two men remained awkwardly apart on stage, a visual echo of the emotional and political distance between them. Lewis, visibly nervous and fidgeting, began to speak about the mission from Tinian Island to Hiroshima. He described the moment of dropping the bomb, then shared a line from the logbook he wrote on the flight back:
“My God, what have we done?”
This quote has since become one of the most haunting post-bomb reflections from anyone associated with the Enola Gay crew. Lewis appeared distressed throughout the broadcast, and according to This American Life producer Allison Silverman:
“Lewis is the one you’re most worried about watching this bizarre blind date. Ralph Edwards is pleased. Tanimoto is respectful, but Captain Lewis looks like he’s breaking down. People say he went to a bar before the show and came back drunk.”
The two men shook hands, and Lewis exited quickly, leaving behind an air of discomfort that lingered even after the broadcast ended.
full 1955 episode
Public Reaction and Media Backlash
The episode did not go unnoticed by the press. Jack Gould, television critic at The New York Times, accused This Is Your Life of exploiting its guests. Time magazine went further, labelling Ralph Edwards a “spiritual prosecutor.”
The emotional ambush struck many as ethically questionable. Rather than celebrate Tanimoto’s work or explore the complex moral consequences of atomic warfare, the show appeared to use his trauma as dramatic entertainment.
Despite pledging a donation on-air to support the Hiroshima Maidens:
“…on behalf of the entire crew that participated in that mission, my company, and my lovely family,”
Lewis’s sincerity did little to quiet the criticism that the episode was, at best, an ill-conceived spectacle and, at worst, a televised act of emotional manipulation.
The Haunted Co-Pilot
After the war, Lewis remained haunted by his role in the bombing. Unlike Paul Tibbets, the Enola Gay’s pilot, who defended the mission until his death in 2007, Lewis wrestled openly with regret. In 1971, he sold the flight log in which he had written, “Just how many Japs did we kill?… My God, what have we done?”
With the money, Lewis pursued a new hobby: sculpture. One of his pieces—a marble depiction of a mushroom cloud with streams of blood carved into its surface—was gifted to Dr Glenn Van Warrebey, a psychiatrist who had treated Lewis, presumably for what would now be identified as post-traumatic stress disorder.
After the Cameras Stopped Rolling
Despite the surprise, the tension, and the intense media coverage, Kiyoshi Tanimoto did not carry bitterness about the encounter. In a later interview, his daughter, Koko Kondo, shared her father’s reflections:
“He wasn’t horrified by meeting Captain Lewis, the co-pilot of the Enola Gay. In fact, the two of them started writing each other after the show,” she told Allison Silverman. “Captain Lewis changed her whole attitude about the old enemy. Seeing him tear up on stage at the El Capitan, she stopped hating American soldiers.”
This unexpected outcome—a spark of personal reconciliation—offered a measure of grace amid the awkwardness. It demonstrated Tanimoto’s unwavering commitment to peace and healing, even under the most trying circumstances.
The This Is Your Life episode featuring Kiyoshi Tanimoto and Robert Lewis stands as a strange moment in post-war media history. It highlights the clash between American popular entertainment and the lived realities of war survivors. What was intended as a gesture of reconciliation came across as an intrusion into deeply personal grief.
Yet, the event also provided a brief window into the emotional struggles of those on both sides of the conflict. Tanimoto’s grace and Lewis’s remorse, though filtered through the lens of 1950s television, remain powerful reminders of the human cost of warfare—and the enduring need for empathy and understanding.
