Remembering Hiroshima – 6 August 1945
In 1945 on this day the Enola Gay dropped the Little Boybomb on Hiroshima, the video is a BBC re-creation
After six months of intense strategic fire-bombing of 67 Japanese cities the Japanese government ignored an ultimatum given by the Potsdam Declaration. By executive order of President Harry S. Truman the U.S. dropped the nuclear weapon “Little Boy” on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945,followed by the detonation of “Fat Man” over Nagasaki on August 9. These two events are the only active deployments of nuclear weapons in war. The target of Hiroshima was a city of considerable military importance, containing Japan’s Second Army Headquarters, as well as being a communications center and storage depot.
Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day. The Hiroshima prefectural health department estimates that, of the people who died on the day of the explosion, 60% died from flash or flame burns, 30% from falling debris and 10% from other causes. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness. In a more plausible estimate of the total immediate and short term cause of death, 15–20% died from radiation sickness, 20–30% from flash burns, and 50–60% from other injuries, compounded by illness. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians
Comments are closed.
I have sad memories of my father..
Fireman during the blitz.. Called up ..and went to Burma..
Fought the Japanese and held them at the critical battle at Kohima ( approx 200 survivors ).
Came back a vicious man…
The Bomb was the best thing that happened during those terrible times in my opinion.
May the Taleban or Al Quaeda never get there hands on Pakistans Bomb..
Strange how we remember this but forget about the Rape of Nanking and all who died there.
Or the siege of Leningrad and the appalling death toll in that city or the million+ who died at Stalingrad.
Evil took over the world and somewhere between fifty million and seventy million people lost their lives but in our age of cultural relativism it is the dead of those nations who unleashed this catastrophe we focus on.
I think we remember Hiroshima because of impact of it being the unleashing of atomic weapons. Arguably the London Blitz was worse because the amapaign lasted so long.
Regarding the latter part of your comment let us not forget that Staling killed millions of his own people.
Furthermore, many today would not be aware of Nanking, or Stalingrad, or indeed the centuries of pogroms in Eastern Europe.
History is not taught today instead we have social studies in schools
let us not forget that Staling killed millions of his own people
Do you think I am not acutely aware of this?
I am sure you are, though others reading the comments may not have been
Hi,
I didn’t realize that the 6th was the day of the bombing. It is something the world should not forget I feel. Very nice choice on the video, I thought it was really well done.