‘We were expendable’: Downwinders from world’s 1st atomic test are on a mission to tell their story

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) — It was the summer of 1945 when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan, killing thousands of people as waves of destructive energy obliterated two cites. It was a decisive move that helped bring about the end of World War II, but survivors and the generations that followed were left to grapple with sickness from radiation exposure.

At the time, U.S. President Harry Truman called it “the greatest scientific gamble in history,” saying the rain of ruin from...