Executive summary

The Historical Review describes the events leading up to the present reassessment of the dosimetry of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To make that reassessment, working groups were set up in Japan and in the United States. These groups organized their efforts into ten major areas: yields of the bombs, radiation leakage from the bombs, transport of radiation in air over ground, thermoluminescence measurements of gamma rays, measurements of neutrons, residual radioactivity, house and terrain shielding, organ dosimetry, preparation of a dosimetry system, and uncertainty analysis. In this report on the reassessment, one chapter is devoted to each of the first nine areas; a future will deal with the last area, uncertainty analysis. The chapters were prepared by writing groups, listed as the authors of the chapters. The chapters are based on a large number of individual papers, some of which are included in this report as appendixes to the relevant chapters