[ambient music] [vocalist singing in Marshallese] [group singing in Marshallese] [narrator speaking Marshallese] [narrator speaking Marshallese] [group singing in Marshallese] [narrator speaking Marshallese] [narrator speaking Marshallese] [group singing in Marshallese] - Crossroads, Scene 26, Take 1 [slate claps] - Well, now then, James, will you tell them that the United States government now wants to turn this great destructive force into something good for mankind and that these experiments here at Bikini are the first step in that direction?

[man speaking in Marshallese] [explosion booming] - [President Truman] The new atomic bomb, it is an awful responsibility which has come to us.

We thank God that it has come to us instead of to our enemies, and we pray that he may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.

[group singing in Marshallese] [explosions booming] [sticks clicking] [group singing in Marshallese] [children chattering] [car whooshing] [upbeat music] [pigs grunting] [announcer speaking Marshallese] [people chattering] [announcer speaking Marshallese] [baseball players chattering] - Living in Springdale, Arkansas, everyone know who the Marshallese are here.

[spectators clapping] We love this community, and I think there's a sense of we are people with culture and with a history that is connected to the United States.

[car engine rumbling] [people chattering in Marshallese] [director speaking Marshallese] ♪ And I feel, this time, in this time ♪ - Growing up on the Marshall Islands, we weren't taught nowhere about the bombings.

I found out more as an adult living in Springdale, Arkansas.

That's when it became like, "Oh, my gosh."

- [speaking Marshallese] Every year, we respect the memory of the people who endured the Castle Bravo nuclear blasts on Bikini Atoll.

The United States must open all the books on what they did in our country during the nuclear testing era and open all the books and all the research they did and continue to do through the Department of Energy on our people, who they had once called savages as they picked and probed our bodies in the name of research.

[audience applauding] - I was only four years old whenever I went back to the island, only three years after the bomb was dropped on Bikini Island.

Why do you wanna take us to the island when it was contaminated?

They said, "It is true, it's contaminated, but it's not dangerous."

[chuckles] I wanna stop here, but I wanna go ahead and tell everybody what happened to our islands.

Whenever I'm talking about it, I am really mad because it happened.

It happened to our islands.

♪ - [narrator on film]: Have you ever dreamed of living an idyllic existence under the waving coconut palms on a remote south seas island?

Of course you have.

Who has not wistfully envisioned a trip across the languorous Pacific to find a tiny, lovely, lost coral island.

- Each year we have a nuclear victims' remembrance day, and we need to tell the story, 'cause not too many people in the world knows the story.

Come on, [speaks Marshallese], Josiah.

[group chattering in Marshallese] Josiah!

[laughs] When it's ready on one side, you're gonna flip.

Yeah?

Okay.

The Marshallese history is an American history, and we need to teach that to our children so it's not repeated, for the good of mankind.

- Yeah, it's so big.

Why is the moon appearing at this time?

- [narrator on film]: Yes, life is simple and beautiful on Bikini Atoll.

Until today, February 3rd, 1946, when there enters into Bikini Lagoon a fateful thing, a grim, huge symbol of civilization in its most terrifying form.

Arriving is Commodore Ben H. Wyatt, United States Navy, with a startling request.

Will the people of Bikini abandon their paradise, so that the United States can us e it for a certain experiment with the fantastically incredible thing called the atomic bomb?

- It is therefore essential that ou r designers, tacticians, strategists, and medical officers learn as much as possible now regarding the effects of this revolutionary weapon upon targets not heretofore exposed to it.

A study of their future life history will provide invaluable information.

- [narrator on film]: And so, on March 7th, 1946, the people of Bikini join their pathetically humble belongings on board the cumbersome, yawing-mouthed hulk of LST-1108.

And man, woman, and child, the people of Good King Judas sing farewells to their old home, singing hymns as is their custom always while sailing on the sea.

[group singing in Marshallese] ♪ ♪ [group singing in Marshallese] ♪ ♪ [radio chatter] - [radio announcer] The atomic bomb is about to explode... [indistinct radio chatter] - [radio announcer] ... we do not know how it's going to sound, but 42,000 men here are watching.

[woman speaking Marshallese] - [radio announcer] The observer ships are in position on the open sea, we're about 10 miles away.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

[explosion booming] [group singing in Marshallese] [animals bleating] [explosion rumbling] [geiger counter crackling] [static buzzing] [Nishima speaking Marshallese] [Nishima speaking Marshallese] [film projector whirring] [geiger counter crackling] [Nishima speaking Marshallese] [film projector whirring] [film projector whirring] [geiger counter crackling] [Nishima speaking Marshallese] [film projector whirring] [Nishima speaking Marshallese] [film projector whirring] [Nishima speaking Marshallese] [children chattering] [water splashing] - [Child] I wanna see it.

[narrator speaking Marshallese] [fireworks booming] [children singing in Marshallese] [fireworks popping] - Oh!

[fireworks whistling] [fireworks popping] [children singing in Marshallese] [fireworks booming] [Marshallese singing continues] ♪ ♪ - [Announcer] Support for "Reel South" is provided by the ETV Endowment and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Additional funding for this program is provided by: