A Japanese historian contends that Air Force Staff Sgt. Charles O. Baumgartner Jr., an American POW, knew “a powerful bomb” would be dropped on Hiroshima when the Japanese took him prisoner 10 days before the city was destroyed, killing an estimated 140,000 people almost instantly. The death toll included 12 American prisoners of war, including Baumgartner, a ball-turret gunner of the B-24 bomber Taloa, said Hiroshima historian Shigeaki Mori.

Mori has successfully tracked down relatives and the stories of nine American POWs and completed paperwork necessary to have their names added to records kept at the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims.