New Mexico ‘right in the middle’ of new film about bombing Hiroshima

The British filmmaker began working on “The Day the Bomb Dropped” in October 2013 because those close to the Manhattan Project, the super-secret effort in Los Alamos to build the bomb, were getting older. “Having their stories was imperative to the story,” he said. “The documentary I was trying to make wasn’t about old footage. It’s about the stories from all facets of those involved in the project.” The one-hour documentary will air at 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 2, on the Smithsonian Channel. The airing is near the 70th anniversary of when the United States dropped a bomb on Japan, destroying the city of Hiroshima and instantly killing up to 70,000 people. It is narrated by Golden Globe nominee Dominic West. Woodhead said the film gives an hour-by-hour account of the events of Aug. 6, 1945, from the perspective of those who lived through it: the crew of the Enola Gay airplane that dropped the bomb, the scientists who constructed the bomb and the people on the ground in Hiroshima whose lives would be changed forever. Woodhead spent a chunk of time in New Mexico, visiting both Los Alamos National Laboratory and White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico. “New Mexico is right in the middle of the entire story,” he said. “I was fortunate to meet two New Mexicans who had great stories. Unfortunately, since I interviewed them, they have both passed away.”...more