Last atomic veterans recall destructive power

Archie Moczygema: A Living Witness to the Devastation of the Atomic Bomb

Archie Moczygema will turn 101 this July 4th. Almost 80 years ago, the Taylor resident was one of the first Americans to see the devastation after the atomic bomb dropped. A member of the 2nd Marine Division, Moczygema landed in Nagasaki on Sept. 23, 1945, as one of the first “atomic veterans” in history.

“I was on Saipan when the word got out that the atomic bomb was dropped," Moczygema told us, as we interviewed him for our World War II documentary, "Atomic Echoes," airing this summer. "The first question was, ‘What the hell’s an atomic bomb?’ But we would find out very shortly.”

Moczygema, like most of the 2nd Marine Division, was assigned to the destroyed and surrounding areas of Nagasaki. Their orders were to assess the damage and to demilitarize the area, collecting any weapons survivors might own. What he saw stayed with him his whole life.

“You wouldn’t expect that (a bomb) would just obliterate a whole town," he said. "What is still clear in my mind even today is the image of two blue ceramic pots, standing where the front door of a house once was. Everything else was gone.”

About 16.4 million Americans served in World War II, but only 67,000 Americans were assigned to Nagasaki or Hiroshima in late 1945. As of 2024, just 66,143 World War II veterans were still alive, but there are probably no more than a dozen surviving atomic veterans from that period. Over the course of making the film, we identified only seven. Two of them live in Texas.

The Forgotten Heroes

As a nation, we owe a debt of gratitude to these atomic veterans, who for the most part have never been formally recognized for that period of their service. The government created the Atomic Veterans Commemorative Service Medal in 2022, but none of the veterans we interviewed were ever told about it. Now, we are trying to expedite this medal for them, with the help of their members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock.

The troops were not allowed to speak about what they saw in Japan during that time. Photographs were forbidden and their letters were censored. Stephenville resident Larry Pressley, who is also featured in the film, was another Marine assigned to Nagasaki, although he and Moczygema never knew each other. Pressley was only 18 at the time.

“When we got home, no one asked what we had seen,” Pressley said. “They had moved on.”

What they did see was horrific.

“The lucky ones died almost immediately,” Moczygema explained. “A lot of the people were burned badly. They were dying at a high rate. Many had clothes that had chrysanthemums on them, and the images were burned like a tattoo onto their skin, because light colors absorbed the radiation more than dark colors.”

Then there was the radiation. Cancer afterward was common. Pressley remembers showering in contaminated water, and one veteran we interviewed was never able to have children.

“We had Geiger counters, but nobody knew what was going on,” said Moczygema, “and I'm paying the penalty for it today because I’ve gotten all kinds of cancers dropping in on me.”

A Warning to the World

These men are eyewitnesses to history’s forgotten casualties of the nuclear age. For 80 years, they’ve carried memories most World War II soldiers could never have imagined. And in this era when nuclear weapons are again a topic of intense debate, they are the only living Americans who can testify firsthand to the true human impact of these bombs — on both sides.

“That (bomb in Nagasaki) was less than one third as powerful as the smallest bomb we have today,” Moczygema said. “Nuclear war would be the worst possible thing that could happen to this world.”

Victoria Kelly is a Marine veteran spouse, novelist and poet. Karin Tanabe is first-generation Japanese American and the author of seven novels. Their upcoming documentary, “Atomic Echoes: Untold Stories of World War II,” will air on public television stations and the PBS app this summer.