Uploaded August 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
In this video clip, Nisei WWII veteran, Kiyoshi Hirano, a kibei (born in the U.S., but raised or educated in Japan) discusses his service with the MIS on a top-secret campaign in the 8th floor of the towering RKO building in New York. Unbeknownst to Hirano until 17 years later, the eighth floor of the RKO building ended up being the headquarters of the Manhattan Project, the United States’s campaign to construct an atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. Hirano's work was to find whether Japan was also constructing an atomic bomb through captured industrial and government documents. He later visited Hiroshima directly following the atomic bomb, not knowing that his work was indirectly related to the bomb until 17 years later.
This Go For Broke National Education Center Hanashi Oral History was recorded in 2006.
In this video clip, Nisei WWII veteran, Kiyoshi Hirano, a kibei (born in the U.S., but raised or educated in Japan) discusses his service with the MIS on a top-secret campaign in the 8th floor of the towering RKO building in New York. Unbeknownst to Hirano until 17 years later, the eighth floor of the RKO building ended up being the headquarters of the Manhattan Project, the United States’s campaign to construct an atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. Hirano's work was to find whether Japan was also constructing an atomic bomb through captured industrial and government documents. He later visited Hiroshima directly following the atomic bomb, not knowing that his work was indirectly related to the bomb until 17 years later.
This Go For Broke National Education Center Hanashi Oral History was recorded in 2006.
