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Reporter's Role In Exposing Hiroshima Cover-Up Explored In 'Fallout'

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Reporter's Role In Exposing Hiroshima Cover-Up Explored In 'Fallout'

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Hiroshima Atomic Bombing Raising New Questions 75 Years Later

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Hiroshima Atomic Bombing Raising New Questions 75 Years Later

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A Look At The History Of The Nagasaki Bombing, 75 Years Later.

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A Look At The History Of The Nagasaki Bombing, 75 Years Later.

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An Atomic Bomb Survivor On Her Journey From Revenge To Peace

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An Atomic Bomb Survivor On Her Journey From Revenge To Peace

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75th Anniversary of the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing

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75th Anniversary of the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing

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Nuclear Power has Many Advantages and Few Risks

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Nuclear Power has Many Advantages and Few Risks

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Nuclear Terrorism is a Serious Threat to the US

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Nuclear Terrorism is a Serious Threat to the US

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Why the US has nuclear weapons in Turkey

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Why the US has nuclear weapons in Turkey

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The postwar Japanese experience has been a counterpoint struggle between the persistent advocacy of a peaceful world, as evident in huge public rallies and in the many levels of personal involvement in peace studies and promotion, on the one hand, and the reckless increase in nations making and stockpiling nuclear weapons in Europe and Asia. Foremost among players in this mounting nuclear crisis is the very nation that first opened the nuclear pandora's box, the United States. Yet, significant change has recently taken place in U.S. nuclear policy.

The Road to Reduction

From 1945 to 1990, the United States produced some 70,000 nuclear weapons of approximately 70 types for more than 120 weapon systems. In 1967 the operational stockpile reached a peak of about 32,000 warheads. A dramatic expansion occurred from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s because each military branch wanted a special nuclear weapon for practically every conceivable mission. In the peak production years of 1959 and 1960, warheads came off the assembly lines at a rate of 27 per day-about 600 a month.

The many categories of "need" included various anti-submarine weapons (launched from ships and subs as well as dropped from helicopters), atomic land mines, artillery shells, surface-to-surface missiles in all ranges, air-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, every size of gravity bomb for dozens of different nuclear-capable bombers, and three-dozen nuclear-capable tactical aircraft.

The historic high for megatonnage was reached in 1960 with almost 20,500 megatons (20 billion tons, or 40 trillion tons of TNT), the equivalent of about 1,400,000 Hiroshimas. By 2004, however, the total was down to about one-tenth the 1960 level, or some 2,000 megatons, or "only" 140,000 Hiroshimas. From the 1970s, the military's appetite for nuclear weapons had slackened, as many nuclear-based operations reverted to use of conventional weapons.

The United States has since dismantled approximately 60,000 warheads. For four decades there was a steady rhythm: old warheads were retired and new ones built. The trend ended in 1989, when the Rocky Flats plant in Colorado-where the explosive pits were made-was shut down for safety and environmental reasons. Since then, no new warheads have been produced. The remaining stockpile included warheads for well-known weapons such as the MX and Minuteman III missiles (ICBMs), Trident submarine-launched missiles, cruise missiles, and new or modified bombs.

Many of the nuclear weapons had been deployed abroad. The peak deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in NATO countries in Europe was in 1971, with some 7,300 weapons dispersed in seven countries. In the Far East, the U.S. stored some 3,250 weapons in Okinawa, South Korea, Guam and the Philippines. In 1975, some 7,400 nuclear warheads were aboard various surface and submarine craft in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and the Mediterranean Sea.

When the Cold War ended, the U.S. stockpile had about 21,500 nuclear warheads. Of these, more than 11,000 were disassembled and disposed of during the 1990s, leaving about 10,400 in the stockpile as of early 2004. Of these, only a few hundred more are slated for dismantling, which is essentially the reverse of the assembly process, except that high explosives used for detonating the nuclear "pits" are disposed of by burning (from 1981 the amount burned annually averaged about 227,000 pounds).

Various bomb parts and nuclear supplies have been returned to the primary production facilities (e.g., Honeywell Plant in Kansas City, Pinellas Plant in Clearwater, Florida, Mound Plant near Daytona, Ohio, and the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge Tennessee). Overall, some 11,751 warheads were dismantled in the decade 1990-1999.

The current Bush administration, however, harbors more ambitious plans. Plans for producing new "pits" (the explosive core of nuclear weapons) are underway at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and there are ambitious plans for a new facility capable of producing 250-900 pits annually by the year 2018.

"Mastery of Space"

The downsizing of traditional nuclear weapons programs outlined above was not due to a devaluing of nuclear power for military use. Quite the opposite: U.S. nuclear operations were shifted to a new theater-nuclear weapons in space.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was developed around a core of German space scientists smuggled into the United States at the end of World War II. The head of this group was Werner von Braun, who had led the development of the V-2 rocket that Nazi Germany used to destroy much of London, Paris, and Brussels. The "core group" consisted of 100 top scientists, though the entire group from the "master race" numbered some 1,500. It hardly seems an accident that the banner over NASA headquarters today reads "Master of Space." This involves, of course, placement of space weapons so as to have mastery over the earth below.

The key to space mastery is a whole new program called Theater Missile Defense (TMD), which uses space stations capable of destroying others' missiles in their boost phase, that is, before they get up into space. The TMD system has, then, space weapons (including space laser guns) deployed strategically above the earth, with control stations located at strategic places on the earth. The overall system requires naval control ships circling the globe, as well the cooperation of friendly nations for stationing U.S. bases, as in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan for the Far East, as well as various locations in Europe and Central Asia.

The long-range goal is control of the entire earth, which includes control of who gets "on" or "off" planet earth with their own space ships. Beyond mastery of earth is a long-range goal of exploration and eventual mining for vital resources on other planets. Of course, trips to other planets take a long time (a year to Mars), though such times can be cut by half if nuclear propellants are used.

The drawback, of course, is that expanding the use of nuclear energy in space increases the already dangerous levels of "space junk" adrift in space. It is reported that the "first 1,000 kilometers" of space is already filled with so much "space junk" that adding to it will make future space trips more difficult. There are reportedly some 110,000 pieces of such junk already swimming in space-enough to make 34 plutonium reactor cores. And in the fabricating plants on earth, nuclear radiation has induced many cases of disease and death.

A further difficulty is that the space weapons program relies on many satellites that can be easily knocked out. Its operations depend heavily on computerized systems that can go wrong (some already have). On the ground, one serious accident at, say, Cape Canaveral would require removing everything-all exposed buildings, soil, personnel, vegetation, and so on. On the other end of this spectrum, extending the militarization into deep space would require even greater use of nuclear power because it is beyond the range of the solar system.

While NASA began as a civil administration, its alliance with military programs has caused its expenses to escalate. So it has turned to the Pentagon for funds, and its operations are now "dual use." Thus, so much of its funding is now top secret that it operates on a "black budget," a new seedbed for restricting civil liberties, including citizen rights to protest its program and products.

And protest is inevitable if for no other reason than NASA's program are so costly that all other government programs such as health, education, and public welfare may eventually lose much of their government support.. Thus could a "defense against threats from the outside" trigger an eventual civil collapse within the world's richest nation.

So, Are We Safe?

While no world-threatening accidents involving nuclear weapons have yet occurred, there have been hundreds of accidents of varying seriousness. But the U.S. government's record on public disclosure has been less than forthcoming.

When in 1958 a U.S. Air Force B-47 in England experienced trouble on takeoff and jettisoned two full 1,700-gallon wingtip fuel tanks at 8,000 feet, the tanks missed a "safe impact area" and exploded behind a parked B-47 loaded with nuclear weapons. The resulting fire burned for 16 hours, destroying the parked bomber and causing release of finely powdered uranium and plutonium oxides. People in the town of Newbury, the closest downwind village, later reported "a cluster of leukemia cases."

Other NATO allies in Europe have been put at risk by nuclear accidents involving U.S. nuclear warheads. On at least four occasions between mid-October 1961 and August 1962, Jupiter missiles carrying 1.4 megaton thermonuclear warheads were struck by lightening; thermal batteries were activated, and in two cases, tritium-deuterium "boost" gas was injected into the warhead pits, partially arming them.

These are just a few of the many incidents found in the U.S. Defense Department's compilation, "Narrative Summaries of Accidents Involving U.S. Nuclear Weapons, 1950-1980," which listed only 32 "Broken Arrow"-type nuclear accidents and incidents for the 30-year period. "Broken Arrow" cases include lost weapons, burned weapons, dropped weapons, ruptured weapons, and weapons in which high explosives were inadvertently detonated. They are the most severe incidents; others include "Bent Spears," "Dull Swords," and "Empty Quivers."

The 1981 list, however, included only cases that had been publicly disclosed and those when radioactive fallout spread beyond the limits of military bases in the U.S. or in a foreign country. Seven of the cases were not reported when they happened, and only 14 were revealed at times when nuclear weapons were involved.

Other privately generated reports, along with some official government reports, put the total of nuclear weapons accidents/incidents well above 32. A 1985 General Accounting Office study noted that the navy reported 233 incidents involving nuclear weapons between 1965 and 1983. A 1989 Greenpeace publication lists a total of 383 nuclear weapons involved in navy incidents between 1965 and 1977. A 1973 Sandia Laboratories report cited a then-classified army report of 1,250 nuclear weapons accidents between 1950 and 1968, including 272 cases (22 percent) that caused detonation of the weapons' conventional high explosives. (See following table for a breakdown of these cases.)

Why the Defense Department has yet to acknowledge so many incidents beyond the 32 disclosed in 1981 is a mystery. "Continued and unnecessary secrecy about past accidents only increases suspicion, both within and outside the United States, that other serious accidents have occurred and that there has been undisclosed radiological contamination in one or more of the other countries that hosted U.S. nuclear forces during the Cold War," wrote Chuck Hansen in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists issue (Nov.-Dec., 2000) from which the above, and the following table, are taken.

So now, as the planned placement of nuclear weapons in space is reported, citizens at home and abroad are naturally concerned about the need and wisdom of placing "star wars" directly above our heads. Nothing remotely resembling democratic process has been involved in this exceedingly dangerous scheme. How will "incidents" and "accidents" be dealt with, resolved, or removed from the high heavens? The costs are reportedly so high, that many government services which the public has voted into place, and on which we depend for health, education, and an effective economy, may well be sacrificed. Is "mastery of space" worth losing mastery of our own lives?

Breakdown of the 272 weapons accidentes in the 1973 Sandia report

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AtomicBombMuseum.org - The Pursuit of Peace

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The postwar Japanese experience has been a counterpoint struggle between the persistent advocacy of a peaceful world, as evident in huge public rallies and in the many levels of personal involvement in peace studies and promotion, on the one hand, and the reckless increase in nations making and stockpiling nuclear weapons in Europe and Asia.

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Major population groupings

1. Persons present in Hiroshima or Nagasaki at bombing time. Of the regular resident population, many children and older persons had been previously evacuated, while certain outsiders were working in the cities on their specific bombing days. Overall, the estimated "physically present" population of Hiroshima on August 6 was 340,000-350,000. Nagasaki's estimated "physically present" population on August 9 was 90,000-120,000.

2. Early entrants into both cities following the bombings, mainly soldiers, firefighters, medical workers, and other helping personnel.

3. Persons who suffered radiation injuries in the areas surrounding the two bombed cities.

Almost all persons in the above groupings, young or old, also fell into one of the following groups: (1) broken families; (2) A-bomb orphans; (3) orphaned elderly.

Hiroshima

Of the city's 298 medical doctors, 270 (90%) became A-bomb victims. Casualty rates among pharmacists, nurses, and other medical professionals ranged between 80% and 93%. Eighteen emergency hospitals and 32 first-aid clinics were destroyed, and most of the workers needed to restore these health facilities were killed or injured. Nearby army medical facilities were also mostly destroyed.

In sum, approximately 90% of all medical personnel were dead or disabled, and remaining medical facilities were thrown into great disrepair and confusion.
All citizens faced desperate conditions; the young and old, all the more so.

Nagasaki

In the 2-km zone of total destruction around ground zero in Nagasaki's Urakami valley, the city's chief medical facilities were destroyed. These included Nagasaki Medical University and its related hospital, the Urakami branch of Mitsubishi Hospital, Urakami First Hospital, and some other smaller health care institutions.

Of the 70 or so doctors in private practice in the city, twenty were dead and twenty more seriously wounded; only 30 were available to help the mass of A-bomb victims.

As a major port city, Nagasaki was surrounded by various naval installations. Medical personnel from several naval hospitals (Isahaya, Sasebo, Omura, and other places) came with support personnel to give assistance, making the overall situation somewhat better than in Hiroshima.

Even so, food, clothing, medicine, and other relief supplies in Nagasaki were, as in Hiroshima, extremely scarce. Moreover, heavy rains hit both cities in September, making the struggle to survive desperately difficult and miserable.

Local ability to mobilize health care personnel and restore medical facilities was severely hampered by the overall loss of non-military economic wealth (65 billion yen nationwide). Of this total, Hiroshima (884 million yen) and Nagasaki (380 million yen) together suffered over 2% of the national total.

Political restraints on recovery

On top of the enormous physical, medical, and social damages imposed on Japan by the two atomic bombings, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Occupation (SCAP) imposed another onerous handicap: censorship. Formally termed the Press Code, officially issued by the Occupation GHQ on September 19, 1945, it prohibited the publication of all reports and studies of A-bomb damages, including medical and scientific studies of all injuries and losses suffered by A-bomb victims in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whether in newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals, books, or other public means. Thus the A-bombed citizens struggled with ignorance of the many medical and social aspects of the decimated lives.

There were minor exceptions. The Hiroshima-based magazine, Chugoku Bunka, devoted its initial issue (March 10, 1946) to A-bomb damages. A Manhattan Project team published its report, The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on June 29, 1946. And the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Team completed its report, The Effects of the Air Attack on the Cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the following day. These official documents, however, were printed in English and, in any case, did not touch deeply on the sufferings of the two A-bombed cities.

Most importantly, serious research on the extent and gravity of A-bomb damages and injuries could not be publicly printed and distributed by any Japanese persons or organizations, thus handicapping the surviving medical personnel trying to heal and assuage the thousands of A-bomb victims. The most revealing item, perhaps, is that the Japanese characters for "atomic bomb" ( genshi bakudan, or the short form, genbaku) could not even be used in public print. This applied to all forms: newspapers, magazines, books, public bulletins, and of course, movies.

Cameramen of the Japanese movie firm Nippon Eiga-sha were arrested by American MPs in Nagasaki on October 17, 1945, and two days later the photographing of A-bomb scenes was prohibited. A formal prohibition was issued by GHQ on December 12. It would be almost seven years later until, after the Occupation ended, the weekly magazine Asahi Gurafu ( Asahi Graph) filled an entire issue with heretofore unpublicized photographs of A-bomb damages and victims-the first A-bomb-related photos to be published in the postwar era.

One of the most moving instances of resistance to the Press Code was a small volume of tanka (a Japanese verse form of 31 syllables), penned by a hibakusha poet named Shinoe Shoda in Hiroshima. Titled Sange, it decried the cruelty of the bomb. As publication of all A-bomb-related materials was strictly banned, she took her manuscript to Tadao Nakamura, a clerk in the printing shop of a Hiroshima prison, who mimeographed 150 copies in December 1947. Shoda distributed copies to other hibakusha, all at her own expense and, of course, without SCAP permission. A hand-written copy of Sange was later donated to the Hiroshima Peace Cultural Foundation.

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Persons present in Hiroshima or Nagasaki at bombing time. Of the regular resident population, many children and older persons had been previously evacuated, while certain outsiders were working in the cities on their specific bombing days. Overall, the estimated "physically present" population of Hiroshima on August 6 was 340,000-350,000.

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The major explosive energy forms that dominate research and reports on the atomic bombings are three:

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THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMBS: "Little Boy"and "Fat Man"

There were actually two new bombs, one using uranium, the other plutonium, with different triggering devices for each. The main research and production sites were Los Alamos, New Mexico; Hanford, Washington; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The entire project operated under top secrecy, mobilizing top scientists and engineers, and at unprecedented high costs.

The Hiroshima bomb

Nicknamed "Little Boy"(for President Franklin Roosevelt), the bomb's size was 3 meters in length by 0.7 meter in diameter, using uranium 235 as its critical material. Inside a shortened smooth-bore 76.2 mm (3 in.) naval gun, a subcritical projectile of U-235 was fired at a subcritical target of U-235. At the moment of impact, a supercritical mass was formed, triggering a nuclear chain reaction, or atomic explosion. The gun barrel and heavy casing gave it a weight of over four metric tons (8,900 lbs). The subcritical material was an alloy called Oralloy, a code named derived from the secret laboratory at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where it was fabricated.

For use in the gun device, the fissile materials had to be made into geometric shapes capable of withstanding the violence of being shot down the gun's tube, then stoipped abruptly at the target, and held together long enough to detonate.

The Nagasaki bomb

Nicknamed "Fat Man" (for England's Prime Minister Winston Churchill), this bomb had a core of plutonium 239, was 3.5 meters in length by 1.5 meters in diameter, and it weighed 4.5 tons. Its plutonium core was surrounded by 64 explosive charges arranged in an inner and outer shell. The explosive charges were fabricated in geometrical shapes in a configuration similar to a soccer ball-an extremely difficult and demanding procedure. When the two shells were detonated, the shockwave slammed into a tamper surrounding the plutonium nucleus, causing a rapid increase in density that compressed the slightly sub-critical plutonium core, rapidly increasing its density, making it supercritical, thus exploding in a nuclear chain reaction.

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There were actually two new bombs, one using uranium, the other plutonium, with different triggering devices for each. The main research and production sites were Los Alamos, New Mexico; Hanford, Washington; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The entire project operated under top secrecy, mobilizing top scientists and engineers, and at unprecedented high costs.

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The U.S. had been at war with Japan since the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the day Japan also bombed Manila and took control of the Philippines. By mid-1942, Japanese forces had gained control of all East Asia, most of Southeast Asia, and half…

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The unspeakable second's explosive sequence

0.0 second: Temperature at burst point reaches several million degrees F within one-millionth of a second following detonation. All bomb material becomes ionized gas & gamma rays.

0.1 second: Bomb explodes and fireball forms. In addition to heat and blast force, radiation was 3% of total energy, of which gamma rays & neutrons damaged living organisms, soil and ground structures.

0.15 second: Shock wave expands rapidly, heating air to luminous condition. Fireball visible for following 10 seconds.

0.2 second: Thermal energy, especially infrared wave-lengths, causes most of thermal burns to humans.

1.0 second: Fireball reaches maximum diameter of 200-300 meters.

Blast (50% of energy) is now complete. Overpressure at hypocenter (or "ground zero," directly below the burst point) in Hiroshima reaches an estimated 4.5-6.7 tons per square meter, and moves through the air and across the ground at the approximate speed of sound. Maximum pressure at Nagasaki's hypocenter may have been as high as 10 tons per square meter.

Recent research has found that in the initial "non-instant" (0.0 sec.) a powerful neutron burst struck a mile-wide area directly below burst point before the bomb casing exploded. This pre-explosion burst was caused by the initial impact of the uranium bullet with the core of uranium 235. This finding resolved a long-perplexing question of a young man near ground zero who died (Sept. 3) with symptoms of severe internal bleeding but no surface burns.

Suddenly there was a brilliant flash, like a photographer's magnesium flash. Then came a blast with a deafening bang, and I felt as though I had been kicked in the guts....The world was all black.- F.J.Johnson. Australian prisoner of war, Nagasaki.

Physical Devastation

The Hiroshima bomb was exploded over the city center, which was crowded with large public buildings and countless wood-frame residences and shops. Beneath the huge column of smoke that arose from the explosion, tens of thousands were already dead or dying. As fires raced out of control, destruction of wooden structures and reinforced concrete buildings alike was virtually complete within 2 km (1.2 mi.) of ground zero.

In Nagasaki, the more powerful bomb destroyed an estimated 12,000 buildings by blast and burning. Virtually nothing was left standing of the valley's homes, schools and factories. Worshippers in shrines, temples, and churches perished as they prayed.

In both cities, fires generated by the explosions' intense heat, and fed by broken gas and electrical lines, raged out of control. Fire stations and equipment had been destroyed, fire fighters were dead or injured, and water pipes were ruptured.

Many corpses were found at places where there was some water-rivers, old wells, fire-safety cisterns, ponds, and the like. People who did not die instantly had, it appears, exerted themselves to the limit just to find some water.- Marina Transport Rescue Team member, Hiroshima.

Hiroshima's gigantic firestorm leveled 13 square kilometers (5 sq. mi.), destroying some 92% of the city's structures. Nagasaki's firestorm, hemmed in by the valley, consumed some 22.7% of the entire city's structures. The bodies of many people who were close to ground zero in the two cities were shattered by blast or burned beyond recognition in the firestorms.

Houses and trees were leveled as far as the eye could see, and fires began breaking out in the ruins. At the roadside I saw the corpse of a man who had been leading a horse cart, still on his feet, with his hair standing on end like wire.... The river was filled with the dead and half-dead; burned children were screaming, 'Mommy! Mommy!' and mothers searched for their children, calling their names in faltering voices.- Ms. Hide Kurokawa, Nagasaki

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0.0 second: Temperature at burst point reaches several million degrees F within one-millionth of a second following detonation. All bomb material becomes ionized gas & gamma rays. 0.1 second: Bomb explodes and fireball forms. In addition to heat and blast force, radiation was 3% of total energy, of which gamma rays & neutrons damaged living organisms, soil and ground structures.

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The earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last week killed thousands of people and caused incredible damage to homes, schools, roads and office buildings. But the damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and another nearby plant has put words such as radiation, nuclear reactors and fuel rods on the front page of the newspaper and all over the Internet and television. KidsPost answers some questions you might have about nuclear energy and what's happening in Japan.
What is nuclear energy?
It's the energy in the center (or nucleus) of an atom. Atoms make up everything in the universe and are held together with great force. In a process called fission, atoms are broken apart, and the energy released can be used to generate electricity at power plants, including the one in Japan that was damaged. Atoms of uranium, a common element that can be mined from the Earth, are used in nuclear reactions. In fission, a tiny particle called a neutron hits a uranium atom; the atom splits, releasing more neutrons and generating a chain reaction. That reaction releases huge amounts of energy. That energy can boil water to create steam, which in turn causes turbines to spin, generating electricity in a power plant.
What is a nuclear reactor?
A nuclear reactor is the device in a power plant where fission takes place. Pieces of uranium about the size of your fingertip get stacked up in 12-foot-long metal tubes, called rods. Bunches of rods form the core of the reactor.
So what happened in Japan?
Rods are normally kept under water, which keeps the reactor core cool. When the earthquake hit last Friday, the entire electrical grid went down, just as it can here when we have an ice storm. The nuclear plant switched to a backup system of generators. But an hour after the earthquake, the tsunami hit the plant, knocking out the generators. Backup batteries lasted only eight hours. Without power, the water couldn't circulate and began to boil away, allowing the rods to get hot. The inability to keep cooling water on the fuel rods led to explosions and fires. Those events have sent radioactive elements into the air. High levels of radiation can be dangerous, even deadly. Close to the reactors, the radition levels have gone up and down. About 50 workers trying to fix the problem are risking their lives to save their fellow citizens.
Are people getting sick now?
No. People within 19 miles of the plant have been told to stay indoors. There is medicine that can treat the effects of radiation sickness, but it has not been given to people yet.
What will happen next?
Nobody knows for sure. If there isn't water available to keep the fuel rods cool, the fingertip-size pellets can melt, like candles. This melting damages the core, which could lead to the release of more radioactive gases.
Is nuclear power safe?
That question has been asked for many years, and you will hear much more debate about it now because of the events in Japan. Nuclear power is very efficient. For example, one of those small uranium pellets can produce as much electricity as 150 gallons of oil. Many people see nuclear power as an alternative energy source. The situation at the Japanese reactors will have people talking about developing other power sources, including solar and wind.

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The earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan killed thousands of people and caused incredible damage. But the damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has put words like radiation, nuclear reactors and fuel rods on the front page of the newspaper KidsPost answers some questions you might have about nuclear energy and what's happening in Japan.

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On August 6, 1945, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Twelve men were on that flight. Some chose to keep a low profile and others spoke out about their place in history. Almost all had something to say after the war.

The 509th Composite Group was formed by the U.S. Army Air Force to deliver and deploy the first atomic bombs during World War II. The group was segregated from the rest of the military and trained in secret. Even those in the group only knew as much as they needed to know in order to perform their duties. The group deployed to Tinian in 1945 with 15 B-29 bombers, flight crews, ground crews, and other personnel, a total of about 1770 men. The mission to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan (special mission 13) involved seven planes, but the one we remember was the Enola Gay.

Air Force captain Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk did not know the destructive force of the nuclear bomb before Hiroshima. He was 24 years old at that time, a veteran of 58 missions in North Africa. Paul Tibbets told him this mission would shorten or end the war, but Van Kirk had heard that line before. Hiroshima made him a believer. Van Kirk felt the bombing of Hiroshima was worth the price in that it ended the war before the invasion of Japan, which promised to be devastating to both sides.

I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run. There were a lot of lives saved. Most of the lives saved were Japanese.

In 2005, Van Kirk came as close as he ever got to regret.

I pray no man will have to witness that sight again. Such a terrible waste, such a loss of life. We unleashed the first atomic bomb, and I hope there will never be another. I pray that we have learned a lesson for all time. But I'm not sure that we have.

After the war, Van Kirk got a masters degree in chemical engineering and worked for DuPont until his retirement. Van Kirk passed away in 2014.

Thomas Ferebee pushed the button that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. He slept in the plane both before and after he did his part. After the war, Ferebee stayed with the Air Force, serving in the Strategic Air Command and in Vietnam. He retired as a full Colonel.

Colonel Ferebee, who retired from the Air Force in 1970, always argued that the Hiroshima bomb was necessary. "I'm convinced that the bombing saved many lives by ending the war," he told Newsweek magazine in 1970.

That doesn't mean he had no opinion on the further use of such weapons.

"Now we should look back and remember what just one bomb did, or two bombs," he told The Charlotte Observer in 1995, the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. "Then I think we should realize that this can't happen again."

Colonel Ferebee died in Florida in 2000, at the age of 81.

Army Air Force radar specialist Jacob Beser was the only man who served on both the Enola Gay in the Hiroshima bombing mission and the Bock's Car three days later when its crew bombed Nagasaki. He couldn't look at the detonation of the bombs because he was charged with monitoring for outside signals that could have detonated the bomb early and monitoring for signals of the proper detonation. This is addition for keeping an eye on radar for any enemy planes.

In this 1985 interview for the Washington Post, Beser was asked if he would do it again.

Given the same circumstances in the same kind of context, the answer is yes. However, you have to admit that the circumstances don't exist now. They probably never will again. I have no regrets, no remorse about it. As far as our country was concerned, we were three years downstream in a war, going on four. The world had been at war, really, from the '30s in China, continuously, and millions and millions of people had been killed. Add to that the deliberate killing that went on in Europe, [and] it's kind of ludicrous to say well, geez, look at all those people that were instantly murdered. In November of 1945 there was an invasion of Japan planned. Three million men were gonna be thrown against Japan. There were about three million Japanese digging in for the defense of their homeland, and there was a casualty potential of over a million people. That's what was avoided. If you take the highest figures of casualties of both cities, say, 300,000 combined casualties in Hiroshima [and] Nagasaki, versus a million, I'm sorry to say, it's a good tradeoff. It's a very cold way to look at it, but it's the only way to look at it. Now looking into tomorrow, that's something else again. I don't have any pat answers for that.

After the war, Beser was an engineer at Sandia Laboratories where nuclear research continued and at Westinghouse where he worked on classified projects for the military. He retired in 1985. In 1988, Beser wrote a book called Hiroshima and Nagasaki Revisited. He died of cancer in 1992 at age 71.

There isn't a lot of biographical information available on radar operator Joe Stiborik, except for some of his reminiscences of the mission.

Joe Stiborik remembered the crew sitting in stunned silence on the return flight. The only words he recollected hearing were Lewis's "My God, what have we done." He explained, "I was dumbfounded. Remember, nobody had ever seen what an A-bomb could do before. Here was a whole damn town nearly as big as Dallas, one minute all in good shape and the next minute disappeared and covered with fires and smoke...There was almost no talk I can remember on our trip back to the base. It was just too much to express in words, I guess. We were all in a kind of state of shock. I think the foremost thing in all our minds was that this thing was going to bring an end to the war and we tried to look at it that way."

Stiborik died of a heart attack in 1984 at age 69.

Morris Jeppson was only 23 years old when he was assigned to accompany the atomic bomb on the Enola Gay. It was his duty to arm the bomb and make sure it would work. Jeppson had the power to abort the mission if it didn't. It was his first and last mission of the war. Jeppson had worked in developing the mechanics of the bomb, and after the war he continued on the nuclear path. He studied physics at Berkeley and worked in the radiation laboratory there. Then he worked on developing hydrogen thermonuclear weapons at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. Jeppson went on to invent and market hi-tech machinery for medical and industrial uses.

In 1995, Jeppson looked back at the Hiroshima mission.

Until the 509th reunion that year Jeppson hadn't given the mission much thought. "Those bomb plugs were just kicking around in a drawer" for years, he says. Still, he maintains that dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was a necessary means to help end the war. He points to wartime concerns that Germany was developing nuclear bomb technology. "If that had happened, the world would be an entirely different place (today)," he says.

Jeppson passed away in 2010.

Richard Nelson was the youngest of the Enola Gay crew. He was 20 years old in August of 1945. He relayed the news of the atomic bomb to his superiors in code, who forwarded it to President Truman: "Results excellent." After the war, Nelson got a degree in business administration and made a career as a salesman. Fifty years later, he had no regrets about his part in the mission.

"War is a terrible thing," he told The Riverside Press-Enterprise on the 50th anniversary of the bombing. "It takes and it destroys. Anyone feels sorry for people who are killed. We are all human beings. But I don't feel sorry I participated in it. If I had known the results of the mission beforehand, I would have flown it anyway."

Nelson died from emphysema in 2003 at age 77.

Enola Gay tail gunner Bob Caron wrote a book about the mission called Fire of a Thousand Suns. Despite his description of the bomb's effects, he never regretted being part of the mission.

In an interview with the Rocky Mountain News published two weeks before he died, Mr. Caron said he had no regrets about his role in the World War II bombing. "No remorse, no bad dreams," he said. "We accomplished our mission."

Caron died of pneumonia in 1995. He was 75 years old.

Wyatt Duzenbury kept tabs on the Enola Gay's engines and other systems while others tended the bomb and the mission itself. He considered it an honor to be chosen for the secret bombing mission that was to shorten the war. After 1945, he stayed with the Air Force. In his retirement, he looked back at the mission.

...he told the Lansing State Journal in 1985, "We were told to go, cranked up, dropped it, and came home." He told the newspaper that he didn't feel guilty about his mission, but did "not feel good about the 100,000 people who died." In an earlier interview, he said, "Personally, I feel that if we hadn't dropped that bomb, and the other crew hadn't dropped its bomb on Nagasaki, it would have cost thousand of US soldiers' lives establishing a beach head for the invasion of Japan."

Duzenbury died in 1992 at age 71.

Robert Shumard assisted flight engineer Wyatt Duzenbury in keeping the Enola Gay running. In a 1960 interview, Shumard said he didn't feel honored to do what they did, but he felt honored to be selected for the mission. And given the circumstances, he would do it again.

"Nobody actually wants to cause the destruction we caused," he said. "But it was through a necessity rather than a wanton type of destruction. It was something that had to be done. As much as a man has gangrene in his leg, and they have to cut it off. It's something that has to be done. It was a cancer in the world situation that had to be removed, that's all."

Naval gunnery officer William "Deke" Parsons was pulled from sea duty to work on the Manhattan Project in 1943. He helped turn the nuclear bomb into a weapon of war, from development to assembly to delivery. He armed the first atomic bomb while the Enola Gay was airborne. After the war, Parsons continued in nuclear weapons development, rising to the rank of Rear Admiral. He oversaw the Operation Crossroads nuclear testing project and also served on the Atomic Energy Commission. Parsons witnessed seven of the first eight nuclear explosions. There are no quotes available from Parsons as he was still serving in the Navy when he died of a sudden heart attack in 1953. He was 52 years old.

Air Force flier Robert Lewis was a pilot first and foremost. He was upset that commander Paul Tibbets had named his plane the Enola Gay. But he was also dedicated to the mission, and earned Tibbets' respect despite the animosity between the two. Lewis wrote a diary of the mission in a notebook during the flight to Hiroshima, against orders. He later sold it for $37,000. It was resold in 2002 for almost ten times that much. He is often quoted:

"As the bomb fell over Hiroshima and exploded, we saw an entire city disappear. I wrote in my log the words: 'My God, what have we done?'"

Some sources say that quote was a revision after the fact. Later in life, Lewis defended the mission.

Over the past half century, some of the crew have returned to the city to take part in the annual commemoration celebrations. Lewis never did. For him "it was just a job of work. I helped make the world a safer place. Nobody has dared launch an atomic bomb since then. That is how I want to be remembered. The man who helped to do that."

Lewis died of a heart attack at age 65 in 1983.

Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets was chosen to head the bomb delivery mission in September of 1944, and he selected the rest of the crew. At that time, the Manhattan Project was preparing to drop a bomb on Europe as well as Asia. After the mission, Tibbets remained in the Air Force until 1966, achieving the rank of Brigadier General. He worked as an aviation executive until his retirement in 1970.

In a 2002 interview with Studs Terkel, Tibbets said he never had second thoughts about the mission:

Number one, I got into the air corps to defend the United States to the best of my ability. That's what I believe in and that's what I work for. Number two, I'd had so much experience with airplanes... I'd had jobs where there was no particular direction about how you do it and then of course I put this thing together with my own thoughts on how it should be because when I got the directive I was to be self-supporting at all times. On the way to the target I was thinking: I can't think of any mistakes I've made. Maybe I did make a mistake: maybe I was too damned assured. At 29 years of age I was so shot in the ass with confidence I didn't think there was anything I couldn't do. Of course, that applied to airplanes and people. So, no, I had no problem with it. I knew we did the right thing because when I knew we'd be doing that I thought, yes, we're going to kill a lot of people, but by God we're going to save a lot of lives. We won't have to invade [Japan].

Tibbets died in 2007 at age 92. He had requested cremation and no physical memorial, because it would become a pilgrimage site for nuclear protesters.
This post originally appeared in 2010.

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The Crew of the Enola Gay on Dropping the Atomic Bomb

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In this Aug. 6, 1945, file photo, survivors of the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare are seen as they await emergency medical treatment in Hiroshima, Japan. (AP Photo, File)
This post was originally written last year to mark the 70th anniversary of the U.S. nuclear attack on Hiroshima. It has been updated in conjunction with President Obama's visit to the shrine on Friday.
Seven decades ago, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It almost instantly leveled most of the city and killed as many as 140,000 people. Three days later, on Aug. 9, another American bomber dropped a nuclear device on the city of Nagasaki, killing 40,000 to 80,000 people.

The devastation was followed by World War II's swift conclusion. It's seared into the collective global memory -- no other time in history has a nuclear weapon been used in war. The simple fact of the atomic bomb's awesome power went on to shape a half-century of Cold War geopolitics.

The justification for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings remains the source of perennial historical study and debate. As the world marks the events' 70th anniversary this week, the legacy of what was first unleashed above Hiroshima now looms over newer conversations about disarmament and the nuclear programs of emerging powers.

But what of the victims? Swaths of Hiroshima disappeared in a blistering flash, yet there were survivors. Here are some of the eyewitness testimonies of what took place on that terrible day in August 1945. (They have been gleaned from a number of oral history projects, all of which are easily accessible online.)

Yasuhiko Taketa was on his way to middle school, like many of the "hibakusha," or survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who live to this day. At a train station, according to a speech he later delivered, he saw a "dazzling flash of light, brighter than even the sun," and then "an earsplitting roar" followed by a seismic explosion that shattered glass everywhere.

"My forehead felt hot, and I unconsciously touched it with my hand," narrates Taketa. "When I looked at the sky over Hiroshima, I saw a tiny, glittering, white object, about the size of a grain of rice, tinged with yellow, and red, which soon grew into a monstrous fireball. It was travelling in my direction, and I felt as though it was going to envelop me."

Akiko Takakura, a 20-year-old at the time, was near the hypocenter, or "ground zero" of the bomb. This was how she described the apocalyptic moment:

What I felt at that moment was that Hiroshima was entirely covered with only three colors. I remember red, black and brown, but, but, nothing else. Many people on the street were killed almost instantly. The fingertips of those dead bodies caught fire and the fire gradually spread over their entire bodies from their fingers. A light gray liquid dripped down their hands, scorching their fingers.

Those who found shelter after the explosion entered a strange, hideous world, where everyone's hair was literally fried and human shadows were etched onto stone.

"I felt the city of Hiroshima had disappeared all of a sudden," said Akihiro Takahashi, a 14-year-old at the time in line for school, whose testimony was recorded by researchers in the late 1980s. "Then I looked at myself and found my clothes had turned into rags due to the heat. I was probably burned at the back of the head, on my back, on both arms and both legs. My skin was peeling and hanging like this."

Michiko Hachiya was then the director of a hospital in Hiroshima. He recorded the dazed, stumbling confusion of those still alive in the aftermath of the explosion. It was published in English in 1955.

"There were the shadowy forms of people, some of whom looked like walking ghosts. Others moved as though in pain, like scarecrows, their arms held out from their bodies with forearms and hands dangling," Hachiya wrote. "These people puzzled me until I suddenly realized that they had been burned and were holding their arms out to prevent the painful friction of raw surfaces rubbing together."

So many had, in an instant, lost those dearest to them. Eiko Taoka, then 21-years-old, was carrying her 1-year-old infant son in her arms aboard a streetcar. He didn't survive the day. "I think fragments of glass had pierced his head," she recounts. "His face was a mess because of the blood flowing from his head. But he looked at my face and smiled. His smile has remained glued in my memory."

Miyo Watanabe, then a volunteer at a steel factory, endured the initial blast by lying on her stomach. When she came to, she walked through a desolation.

Watanabe remembers this chilling scene:

...a woman lying dead at a house by the river bank, her neck stuck through with a piece of glass blown by the blast. The glass must have cut the artery. Blood was scattered around her. She had been suckling her baby. The baby was still absorbed in sucking the breast.

And she describes the horrific sights in makeshift hospital wards, where all the living victims ached with a desperate thirst:

They were delirious, begging for water. Those whose backs were burned lay on their stomachs, and those whose front was burned lay on their back. They could not even move to change their position. Their wounds and burns were covered with countless flies laying eggs there. Those eggs hatched into maggots, and these crawled all over their bodies causing them infernal agony.

Burn injuries were ubiquitous, recounts Hiroshi Sawachika, then a 28-year-old army doctor.

"The smell was quite strong," he said. "It's a sad reality that the smell human beings produce when they are burned is the same as that of the dried squid when it is grilled."

Sawachika tended to hundreds of patients that day, with limited knowledge of what to do. The exposure to radiation suffered by countless survivors would have a range of ill effects in the decades to come.

"I learned that the nuclear weapons which gnaw the minds and bodies of human beings should never be used," he concludes. "Even the slightest idea using nuclear arms should be completely exterminated."

Archive footage from the plane that dropped 'Little Boy' on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and the aftermath of that detonation. (Video: Internet Archive)

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What it was like to survive the atomic bombing of Hiroshima

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What survivors from Hiroshima endured seventy years ago.

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On the morning of August 6, 1945, the world's first deployed atomic bomb was dropped by a U.S. aircraft over the Japanese city Hiroshima. A desperate but devastating attempt to bring the relentless Second World War to a close, the act destroyed 90% of the city. Sixty-four kilograms (141 pounds) of uranium-235 were loaded into the " Little Boy" bomb, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 66,000 individuals, and injuring a further 69,000.

Just three days later, following refusal to relinquish, Nagasaki suffered a similar fate, this time to 6.2 kilograms (13.7 pounds) of plutonium-239. Named "Fat Man," the bomb was the second and final time that nuclear weapons were used during warfare. Although estimated figures of casualties vary widely for both events, in part due to discrepancies over the pre-bombing city populations, it is thought that the second bombing racked up a smaller yet still significant death toll of 39,000, alongside 25,000 injuries.

Blasting through windows, reducing buildings to piles of rubble and ash, exposing thousands to deadly radiation, triggering fires and general destruction, it's hard to truly imagine the consequences of these war-ending bombings. But to mark the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima event and prevent it from fading from our minds, Kuang Keng Kuek Ser and colleagues at Public Radio International have developed an interactive application that allows you to visualize the destruction Little Boy would cause today.
Public Radio International
Using data from several reports, the application creates an estimate of the damage and fatalities that would result if the Hiroshima atomic bomb hit a modern day city. For example, if detonated above London, U.K., damage would ensue within a 12-mile radius of ground zero. For those 0.5 miles around the target spot, highlighted by the dark red bullseye, an estimated 90% of people would die as a result of fire and destructive blast pressures. Up to a mile around ground zero, all buildings and other city features would be destroyed.

Taking this one step further, Stevens Institute of Technology nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein has come up with a similar idea, but his simulator " NukeMap " allows you to select different bombs and provides a more detailed explanation of the estimated effects on today's cities.

[H/T: Washington Post]

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These Simulations Let You Visualize What It Would Look Like If The The Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Hit Your City

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These Simulations Let You Visualize What It Would Look Like If The The Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Hit Your City

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Animation shows the deadly evolution of nuclear weapons

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Maj. Andrei Durnovtsev, a Soviet air force pilot and commander of a Tu-95 Bear bomber, holds a dubious honor in the history of the Cold War.

Durnovtsev flew the aircraft that dropped the most powerful nuclear bomb ever. It had an explosive force of 50 megatons, or more than 3,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima weapon.

Over the years, historians identified many names for the test bomb.

Andrei Sakharov, one of the physicists who helped design it, simply called it "the Big Bomb." Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev called it "Kuzka's mother," a reference to an old Russian saying that means you are about to teach someone a harsh, unforgettable lesson.

The Central Intelligence Agency blandly dubbed the test "Joe 111." But a more popular name born out of Russian pride and a sheer awe sums it all up -the Tsar Bomba, or "the King of Bombs."

"As far as I can tell the term did not surface until after the end of the Cold War," Alex Wellerstein, a historian at the Stevens Institute of Technology and blogger, told War Is Boring. "Before that it was just called the 50 megaton or 100 megaton bomb."

"I think we make a lot more of the Tsar Bomba today than anytime other than the immediate period in which it was tested."

"Americans like to point to it as an example of how crazy the Cold War was, and how crazy the Russians are and were," Wellerstein added. "Russians seem to take pride in it."

***

On Oct. 30, 1961, Durnovtsev and his crew took off from an airfield on the Kola Peninsula and headed to the Soviet nuclear test area above the Arctic Circle at Mityushikha Bay, located in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.

The test project's scientists painted the Bear bomber and its Tu-16 Badger chase plane white to limit heat damage from the bomb's thermal pulse. That's at least what the scientists hoped the paint would do.

The bomb also had a parachute to slow its drop, giving both planes time to fly about 30 miles from ground zero before the nuke detonated. This gave Durnovtsev and his comrades a chance to escape.

When the planes reached their destination at the predetermined altitude of 34,000 feet, he ordered the bomb dropped. The chute opened, and the bomb started its three-minute descent to its detonation altitude two-and-a-half miles above the earth.

Durnovtsev pushed the throttles to the max.

Then the bomb exploded.

The five-mile wide fireball reached as high in the sky as the Bear bomber. The shock wave caused the Bear to drop more than half a mile in altitude before Durnovtsev regained control of his aircraft.

The blast broke windows more than 500 miles away. Witnesses saw the flash through heavy cloud cover more than 600 miles from the blast site.

Its mushroom cloud boiled up into the atmosphere until it was 45 miles above ground zero - essentially, on the lower boundaries of space. The top of the mushroom cloud spread out until it was 60 miles wide. The nuke's thermal pulse burned the paint off of both planes.

And that was small compared to the Soviets' original plan.

The designers originally intended the bomb to have a 100-megaton yield. They used a three-stage Teller-Ulam lithium dry-fuel configuration - similar to the thermonuclear device first demonstrated by the United States during the Castle Bravo shot.

Concerns about fallout prompted Russian scientists to use lead tampers that dialed down the yield to half of the bomb's capabilities. Interestingly enough, Tsar Bomba was one of the "cleanest" nuclear weapons ever detonated, because the bomb's design eliminated 97 percent of the possible fallout.

Even its size was monstrous. It was 26 feet long, about seven feet in diameter and weighed more than 60,000 pounds - so large it couldn't even fit inside of the bomb bay of the modified Bear bomber used to drop it.

The Tsar Bomba was so big, it's doubtful whether it could ever have been a practical weapon delivered by a Soviet bomber.

Because of the distance from the Soviet Union to America, removal of the fuselage fuel tanks to accommodate the bomb - combined with its sheer weight - meant that a Bear bomber wouldn't have sufficient fuel for the mission even with aerial refueling.

However, the CIA investigated whether the Soviets planned to place similar warheads on super-powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles that would target American cities.

The reason was accuracy. Or rather, the lack thereof. Because of the NATO alliance's nuclear advantages, the U.S. could place bombers and intermediate range ballistic missiles fairly close to Soviet targets in Eastern Europe.

By the late 1950s and early 1960s, the U.S. placed intermediate-range ballistic missiles such as the Thor in the United Kingdom and Turkey, and Honest John and Matador missiles in West Germany.

The shorter flight distance for those missiles meant they had a better chance of delivering their nuclear warheads effectively on target.

Russian nuclear weapons had further to travel, so there was more chance of missing the mark. But for a 100-megaton warhead ... close enough will do.

Consider the damage a 100-megaton version of the Tsar Bomba could inflict on Los Angeles - say, if detonated directly above the U.S. Bank Tower, the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.

On a clear day, an airburst at 14,000 feet above ground level would produce a nuclear fireball two miles wide that would be hotter than the surface of the sun, reducing concrete and steel skyscrapers to ashes.

Within five miles of ground zero, everyone not killed by the blast and heat would receive a lethal dose of 500 rems of high-energy radiation. Up to 20 miles away from the detonation, the blast wave would gut every building - even concrete and steel reinforced buildings.

Up to 50 miles away, anyone exposed to the flash of the weapon would receive third-degree burns. In short, a Tsar Bomba warhead would completely devastate the entire Los Angeles metropolitan area.

In 1963, Khrushchev said the Soviet Union possessed a 100-megaton bomb that it deployed to East Germany. But the premier's claim has divided historians on whether it was true, or was just boasting.

As for Sakharov, his experience building and testing Tsar Bomba changed his life, prompting him to abandon weapons research.

He became an outspoken critic of Soviet efforts to create an anti-ballistic missile defense system, an advocate for civil rights in the Soviet Union and much-persecuted political dissident who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

And Durnovtsev? Immediately after successfully dropping Tsar Bomba, the Soviet air force promoted him to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In addition, he received the Hero of the Soviet Union award, the highest honor bestowed for service to the Soviet state.
This piece first appeared in War Is Boring here.

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Revealed: The Most Powerful Nuclear Bomb Ever

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It had an explosive force of 50 megatons, or more than 3,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima weapon.

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Ingeniously Charting The Horrifying Power Of Today’s Nuclear Bombs

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The mushroom cloud of Russia’s biggest nuke was 8 times the height of Mt. Everest. This infographic will give you a visceral feel for that that means.

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While Germany had surrendered, the continued. One of the most significant events of World War Two happened in 1945. This was the dropping of on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by American forces.

The decision to drop the atom bomb was taken by President Harry S. Truman, who had replaced Franklin Roosevelt following his death in April 1945. On 6 August 1945, Truman ordered an atom bomb to be dropped on the city of Hiroshima. It was dropped by a bomber plane named the Enola Gay. It is thought that at least 140,000 people were killed, of a total population of around 350,000.

When the atom bomb was dropped:

The temperature at the centre of the explosion reached 3000ºC - 4000ºC - three times hotter than volcanic lava.

Everything within a mile of the centre of the blast was flattened.

Fires spread and around 67 per cent of Hiroshima's buildings were destroyed.

Three days after the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a second one was dropped on the city of Nagasaki by a bomber plane called Bockscar. A further 74,000 people, at least, were killed. The Japanese Emperor, Hirohito, announced that Japan would surrender on 15 August. They formally signed a surrender agreement on 2 September.

This brought World War Two to an end.

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Find out about World War Two with BBC Bitesize History. For students between the ages of 11 and 14.

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Kids learn about the history of the Atomic Bomb during World War II. Dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki of Japan to end WW2.

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Atomic Bomb Background Before the war, many scientists had been investigating the possibility of generating energy and even weapons from the atom, the building block of the universe and everything that surrounds us. The famous scientist Albert Einstein represented these leading thinkers by writing to the American president Franklin Roosevelt in August 1939. He told

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What it Was Like to Survive the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima