What island is Hiroshima on. "I saw the ranks of the dead": what the survivors of the hell of Hiroshima and Nagasaki say. Was an atomic bomb necessary?

Their only enemy in World War II was Japan, which also had to surrender soon. It was at this point that the United States decided to show its military might. On August 6 and 9, they dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after which Japan finally capitulated. AiF.ru recalls the stories of people who managed to survive this nightmare.

On the morning of August 6, 1945, an American B-29 "Enola Gay" bomber dropped the "Kid" atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, a mushroom cloud rose over the city of Nagasaki after a B-29 Bockscar bomber dropped a Fat Man bomb.

After the bombing, these cities turned into ruins, there was no stone left of them, the local civilians were burned alive.

According to various sources, from the explosion itself and in the first weeks after it, from 90 to 166 thousand people died in Hiroshima, and from 60 to 80 thousand in Nagasaki. However, there were those who managed to stay alive.

In Japan, such people are called hibakusha or hibakusha. This category includes not only the survivors themselves, but also the second generation - children born to women who suffered from the explosions.

In March 2012, there were 210 thousand people officially recognized by the government as hibakusha, and more than 400 thousand did not live to this moment.

Most of the remaining hibakusha live in Japan. They receive some state support, but in Japanese society there is a prejudiced attitude towards them, bordering on discrimination. For example, they and their children may not be hired, so sometimes they deliberately hide their status.

miraculous rescue

An extraordinary story happened to the Japanese Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who survived both bombings. Summer 1945 young engineer Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who worked for Mitsubishi, went on a business trip to Hiroshima. When the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on the city, it was only 3 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi's eardrums were blown out by the blast, and an incredibly bright white light blinded him for a while. He received severe burns, but still survived. Yamaguchi reached the station, found his wounded colleagues, and with them went home to Nagasaki, where he became the victim of a second bombardment.

By an evil twist of fate, Tsutomu Yamaguchi was again 3 kilometers from the epicenter. When he was telling his boss at the company office about what happened to him in Hiroshima, the same white light suddenly flooded the room. Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived this explosion as well.

Two days later, he received another large dose of radiation when he almost came close to the epicenter of the explosion, unaware of the danger.

Long years of rehabilitation, suffering and health problems followed. Tsutomu Yamaguchi's wife also suffered from the bombing - she fell under the black radioactive rain. Not escaped the consequences of radiation sickness and their children, some of them died of cancer. Despite all this, Tsutomu Yamaguchi after the war got a job again, lived like everyone else and supported his family. Until he was old, he tried not to attract much attention to himself.

In 2010, Tsutomu Yamaguchi passed away from cancer at the age of 93. He became the only person who was officially recognized by the Japanese government as a victim of the bombings in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Life is like a struggle

When the bomb fell on Nagasaki, the 16-year-old Sumiteru Taniguchi delivering mail on a bike. In his own words, he saw what looked like a rainbow, then the blast wave threw him off his bike to the ground and destroyed nearby houses.

Photo: Hidankyo Shimbun

After the explosion, the teenager survived, but was seriously injured. The tattered skin hung in tatters from his arms, and there was none on his back at all. At the same time, according to Sumiteru Taniguchi, he did not feel pain, but his strength left him.

With difficulty, he found other victims, but most of them died the night after the explosion. Three days later, Sumiteru Taniguchi was rescued and sent to the hospital.

In 1946, an American photographer took the famous photograph of Sumiteru Taniguchi with horrific burns on his back. The young man's body was mutilated for life

For several years after the war, Sumiteru Taniguchi could only lie on his stomach. He was released from the hospital in 1949, but his wounds were not properly treated until 1960. In total, Sumiteru Taniguchi underwent 10 operations.

Recovery was aggravated by the fact that then people first encountered radiation sickness and did not yet know how to treat it.

The tragedy experienced had a huge impact on Sumiteru Taniguchi. He devoted his whole life to the fight against the spread of nuclear weapons, became a well-known activist and chairman of the Council of victims during the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki.

Today, 84-year-old Sumiteru Taniguchi lectures around the world about the terrible consequences of the use of nuclear weapons and why they should be abandoned.

Round orphan

For 16 year old Mikoso Iwasa August 6 was a typical hot summer day. He was in the yard of his house when the neighboring children suddenly saw a plane in the sky. Then an explosion followed. Despite the fact that the teenager was less than one and a half kilometers from the epicenter, the wall of the house protected him from the heat and the blast wave.

However, Mikoso Iwasa's family was not so lucky. The boy's mother was at that time in the house, she was filled with rubble, and she could not get out. He lost his father before the explosion, and his sister was never found. So Mikoso Iwasa became an orphan.

And although Mikoso Iwasa miraculously escaped severe burns, he still received a huge dose of radiation. Due to radiation sickness, he lost his hair, his body became covered with a rash, his nose and gums began to bleed. He has been diagnosed with cancer three times.

His life, like the lives of many other hibakusha, turned into misery. He was forced to live with this pain, with this invisible disease for which there is no cure and which is slowly killing a person.

Among hibakusha, it is customary to remain silent about this, but Mikoso Iwasa did not remain silent. Instead, he became involved in the fight against the spread of nuclear weapons and helping other hibakusha.

To date, Mikiso Iwasa is one of the three chairmen of the Japan Confederation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Victims Organizations.

Explosion of the Little Boy atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Was it necessary to bomb Japan at all?

Disputes about the advisability and ethical side of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have not subsided to this day.

Initially, the American authorities insisted that they were necessary to force Japan to capitulate as soon as possible and thereby prevent the losses among its own soldiers that would be possible in the event of a US invasion of the Japanese islands.

However, according to many historians, the surrender of Japan even before the bombing was a matter of course. It was only a matter of time.

The decision to drop bombs on Japanese cities turned out to be rather political - the United States wanted to scare the Japanese and demonstrate their military power to the whole world.

It is also important to mention that not all American officials and high-ranking military officials supported this decision. Among those who considered the bombings unnecessary was Army General Dwight Eisenhower who later became President of the United States.

Hibakusha's attitude towards explosions is unequivocal. They believe that the tragedy that they experienced should never be repeated in the history of mankind. And that is why some of them dedicated their lives to the fight for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The tragically famous case in world history, when there was a nuclear explosion in Hiroshima, is described in all school textbooks on modern history. Hiroshima, the date of the explosion was imprinted in the minds of several generations - August 6, 1945.

The first use of atomic weapons against real enemy targets occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The consequences of the explosion in each of these cities are difficult to overestimate. However, these were not the worst events during the Second World War.

History reference

Hiroshima. The year of the explosion. A major port city in Japan trains military personnel, produces weapons and vehicles. The railway interchange makes it possible to deliver the necessary cargoes to the port. Among other things, it is a fairly densely populated and densely built-up city. It is worth noting that at the time when the explosion occurred in Hiroshima, most of the buildings were wooden, there were several dozen reinforced concrete structures.

The population of the city, when the atomic explosion in Hiroshima thunders from a clear sky on August 6, consists for the most part of workers, women, children and the elderly. They go about their usual business. There were no bombing announcements. Although in the last few months before the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima, enemy aircraft will practically wipe out 98 Japanese cities from the face of the earth, destroy them to the ground, and hundreds of thousands of people will die. But this, apparently, is not enough for the surrender of the last ally of Nazi Germany.

For Hiroshima, a bomb explosion is quite rare. She had not been subjected to massive blows before. She was kept for a special sacrifice. The explosion in Hiroshima will be one, decisive. By decision of the American President Harry Truman in August 1945, the first nuclear explosion in Japan will be carried out. The uranium bomb "Kid" was intended for a port city with a population of more than 300 thousand inhabitants. Hiroshima felt the power of the nuclear explosion in full measure. An explosion of 13 thousand tons in TNT equivalent thundered at a height of half a kilometer above the city center over the Ayoi bridge at the junction of the Ota and Motoyasu rivers, bringing destruction and death.

On August 9, everything happened again. This time, the target of the deadly "Fat Man" with a plutonium charge is Nagasaki. A B-29 bomber flying over an industrial area dropped a bomb, provoking a nuclear explosion. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many thousands of people died in an instant.

The day after the second atomic explosion in Japan, Emperor Hirohito and the imperial government accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and agree to surrender.

Research by the Manhattan Project

On August 11, five days after the Hiroshima atomic bomb exploded, Thomas Farrell, General Groves' deputy for the Pacific military operation, received a secret message from the leadership.

1. A group analyzing the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima, the extent of the destruction and the side effects.
2. A group analyzing the aftermath in Nagasaki.
3. A reconnaissance group investigating the possibility of developing atomic weapons by the Japanese.

This mission was supposed to collect the most up-to-date information about technical, medical, biological and other indications immediately after the nuclear explosion occurred. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to be studied in the very near future for the completeness and reliability of the picture.

The first two groups working as part of the American troops received the following tasks:

• To study the extent of destruction caused by the explosion in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
• Collect all information about the quality of destruction, including radiation contamination of the territory of cities and nearby places.

On August 15, specialists from research groups arrived on the Japanese islands. But only on September 8 and 13, studies took place in the territories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The nuclear explosion and its consequences were considered by the groups for two weeks. As a result, they received quite extensive data. All of them are presented in the report.

Explosion at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Study group report

In addition to describing the consequences of the explosion (Hiroshima, Nagasaki), the report says that after the nuclear explosion in Japan in Hiroshima, 16 million leaflets and 500 thousand newspapers in Japanese were sent throughout Japan calling for surrender, photographs and descriptions of the atomic explosion. Campaign programs were broadcast on the radio every 15 minutes. They conveyed general information about the destroyed cities.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW:

As noted in the text of the report, the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused similar destruction. Buildings and other structures were destroyed due to such factors:
A shock wave, like the one that occurs when an ordinary bomb explodes.

The explosion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused a powerful light emission. As a result of a sharp strong increase in ambient temperature, primary sources of ignition appeared.
Due to damage to electrical networks, overturning heating devices during the destruction of buildings that caused the atomic explosion in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, secondary fires occurred.
The explosion on Hiroshima was supplemented by fires of the first and second levels, which began to spread to neighboring buildings.

The power of the explosion in Hiroshima was so huge that the areas of the cities that were directly under the epicenter were almost completely destroyed. The exceptions were some reinforced concrete buildings. But they also suffered from internal and external fires. The explosion on Hiroshima burned even the ceilings in the houses. The degree of damage to houses in the epicenter was close to 100%.

The atomic explosion in Hiroshima plunged the city into chaos. The fire escalated into a firestorm. The strongest draft pulled the fire to the center of a huge fire. The explosion on Hiroshima covered an area of ​​11.28 square kilometers from the epicenter point. Glass was shattered at a distance of 20 km from the center of the explosion throughout the city of Hiroshima. The atomic explosion in Nagasaki did not cause a "firestorm" because the city has an irregular shape, the report notes.

The power of the explosion in Hiroshima and Nagasaki swept away all buildings at a distance of 1.6 km from the epicenter, up to 5 km - the buildings were badly damaged. Urban life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been decimated, speakers say.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Consequences of the explosion. Damage Quality Comparison

It is worth noting that Nagasaki, despite its military and industrial significance at the time when there was an explosion in Hiroshima, was a rather narrow strip of coastal territories, extremely densely built up exclusively with wooden buildings. In Nagasaki, the hilly terrain partially extinguished not only the light radiation, but also the shock wave.

Special observers noted in the report that in Hiroshima, from the site of the epicenter of the explosion, one could see the entire city, like a desert. In Hiroshima, an explosion melted roof tiles at a distance of 1.3 km; in Nagasaki, a similar effect was observed at a distance of 1.6 km. All combustible and dry materials that could ignite were ignited by the light radiation of the explosion in Hiroshima at a distance of 2 km, and in Nagasaki - 3 km. All overhead power lines were completely burned out in both cities within a circle with a radius of 1.6 km, trams were destroyed 1.7 km away, and damaged 3.2 km away. Gas tanks received great damage at a distance of up to 2 km. Hills and vegetation burned out in Nagasaki up to 3 km.

From 3 to 5 km, the plaster from the walls that remained standing completely crumbled, fires devoured all the interior filling of large buildings. In Hiroshima, an explosion created a rounded area of ​​scorched earth with a radius of up to 3.5 km. In Nagasaki, the picture of the conflagrations was slightly different. The wind fanned the fire in length until the fire rested on the river.

According to the commission's calculations, the Hiroshima nuclear explosion destroyed about 60,000 out of 90,000 buildings, which is 67%. In Nagasaki - 14 thousand out of 52, which amounted to only 27%. According to reports from the Nagasaki municipality, 60% of the buildings remained undamaged.

The value of research

The commission's report describes in great detail many positions of the study. Thanks to them, American specialists have made a calculation of the possible damage that each type of bomb can bring over European cities. The conditions of radiation contamination were not so obvious at that time and were considered insignificant. However, the power of the explosion in Hiroshima was visible to the naked eye, and proved the effectiveness of the use of atomic weapons. The sad date, the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima, will forever remain in the history of mankind.

Nagasaki, Hiroshima. In what year there was an explosion, everyone knows. But what exactly happened, what destruction and how many victims did they bring? What losses did Japan suffer? A nuclear explosion was devastating enough, but many more people died from simple bombs. The nuclear explosion on Hiroshima was one of the many deadly attacks that befell the Japanese people, and the first atomic attack in the fate of mankind.

The prerequisites for a major war in the Pacific region began to emerge as early as the middle of the 19th century, when the American Commodore Matthew Perry, on the instructions of the US government at gunpoint, forced the Japanese authorities to stop the policy of isolationism, open their ports to American ships and sign an unequal treaty with the United States, giving serious economic and political advantages to Washington.

At a time when most of the Asian countries were completely or partially dependent on the Western powers, Japan had to carry out lightning-fast technical modernization in order to maintain its sovereignty. At the same time, a feeling of resentment against those who forced them to one-sided "openness" took root among the Japanese.

By its own example, America demonstrated to Japan that with the help of brute force it is supposedly possible to solve any international problems. As a result, the Japanese, who for centuries practically did not go anywhere outside their islands, began an active expansionist policy directed against other Far Eastern countries. Korea, China and Russia became its victims.

Pacific Theater of Operations

In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria from the territory of Korea, occupied it and created the puppet state of Manchukuo. In the summer of 1937, Tokyo launched a full-scale war against China. In the same year, Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing fell. On the territory of the latter, the Japanese army staged one of the most heinous massacres in world history. From December 1937 to January 1938, the Japanese military killed, using mostly edged weapons, up to 500 thousand civilians and disarmed soldiers. The murders were accompanied by monstrous torture and rape. Rape victims, from young children to older women, were then brutally murdered as well. The total number of deaths as a result of Japanese aggression in China amounted to 30 million people.

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In 1940, Japan began to expand into Indochina, in 1941 it attacked British and American military bases (Hong Kong, Pearl Harbor, Guam and Wake), Malaysia, Burma and the Philippines. In 1942, Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia, the American Aleutian Islands, India and the islands of Micronesia became victims of Tokyo aggression.

However, already in 1942, the Japanese offensive began to stall, and in 1943 Japan lost the initiative, although its armed forces were still quite strong. The counter-offensive of British and American troops in the Pacific theater of operations progressed relatively slowly. Only in June 1945, after bloody battles, the Americans were able to occupy the island of Okinawa, annexed to Japan in 1879.

As for the position of the USSR, in 1938-1939, Japanese troops tried to attack Soviet units in the area of ​​​​Lake Khasan and the Khalkhin Gol River, but were defeated.

Official Tokyo was convinced that it was facing too strong an opponent, and in 1941 a neutrality pact was concluded between Japan and the USSR.

Adolf Hitler tried to force his Japanese allies to break the pact and attack the USSR from the east, but Soviet intelligence officers and diplomats managed to convince Tokyo that this could cost Japan too much, and the treaty remained in de facto force until August 1945. The United States and Great Britain received the fundamental consent to Moscow's entry into the war with Japan from Joseph Stalin in February 1945 at the Yalta Conference.

Manhattan Project

In 1939, a group of physicists, enlisting the support of Albert Einstein, handed over a letter to US President Franklin Roosevelt stating that Nazi Germany in the foreseeable future could create a weapon of terrible destructive power - the atomic bomb. The American authorities became interested in the nuclear issue. In the same 1939, the Uranium Committee was created as part of the US National Defense Research Committee, which first assessed the potential threat, and then began preparations for the United States to create its own nuclear weapons.

• Manhattan Project
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The Americans attracted emigrants from Germany, as well as representatives of Great Britain and Canada. In 1941, a special Bureau of Scientific Research and Development was created in the United States, and in 1943, work began under the so-called Manhattan Project, the purpose of which was to create ready-to-use nuclear weapons.

In the USSR, nuclear research has been going on since the 1930s. Thanks to the activities of Soviet intelligence and Western scientists who had left-wing views, information about the preparations for the creation of nuclear weapons in the West, starting in 1941, began to massively flock to Moscow.

Despite all the difficulties of wartime, in 1942-1943, nuclear research in the Soviet Union was intensified, and representatives of the NKVD and the GRU actively engaged in the search for agents in American scientific centers.

By the summer of 1945, the United States had three nuclear bombs - the plutonium "Thing" and "Fat Man", as well as the uranium "Kid". On July 16, 1945, a test explosion of the Stuchka was carried out at the test site in New Mexico. The American leadership was satisfied with his results. True, according to the memoirs of Soviet intelligence officer Pavel Sudoplatov, just 12 days after the first atomic bomb was assembled in the United States, its scheme was already in Moscow.

On July 24, 1945, when US President Harry Truman, most likely for the purpose of blackmail, told Stalin in Potsdam that America had weapons of "extraordinary destructive power," the Soviet leader only smiled in response. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was present at the conversation, then concluded that Stalin did not understand at all what was at stake. However, the Supreme Commander was well aware of the Manhattan project and, after parting with the American president, told Vyacheslav Molotov (USSR Foreign Minister in 1939-1949): “It will be necessary today to talk with Kurchatov about speeding up our work.”

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Already in September 1944, an agreement in principle was reached between the United States and Great Britain on the possibility of using the nuclear weapons being created against Japan. In May 1945, the Los Alamos target selection committee rejected the idea of ​​launching nuclear strikes on military targets because of the "miss possibility" and the "psychological effect" that was not strong enough. They decided to hit the cities.

Initially, the city of Kyoto was also on this list, but US Secretary of War Henry Stimson insisted on choosing other targets, since he had fond memories of Kyoto - he spent his honeymoon in this city.

• Atomic bomb "Baby"
• Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory

On July 25, Truman approved a list of cities for potential nuclear strikes, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The next day, the Indianapolis cruiser delivered the Baby bomb to the Pacific island of Tinian, to the location of the 509th mixed aviation group. On July 28, the then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, George Marshall, signed the combat order on the use of atomic weapons. Four days later, on August 2, 1945, all the components needed to assemble the Fat Man were delivered to Tinian.

The target of the first strike was the seventh most populous city in Japan - Hiroshima, where at that time about 245 thousand people lived. On the territory of the city was the headquarters of the fifth division and the second main army. On August 6, a US Air Force B-29 bomber under the command of Colonel Paul Tibbets took off from Tinian and headed for Japan. Around 08:00, the plane was over Hiroshima and dropped the "Baby" bomb, which exploded 576 meters above the ground. At 08:15, all clocks in Hiroshima stopped.

The temperature under the plasma ball formed as a result of the explosion reached 4000 °C. About 80 thousand inhabitants of the city died instantly. Many of them turned to ashes in a split second.

Light emission left dark silhouettes from human bodies on the walls of buildings. In the houses located within a radius of 19 kilometers, glass was broken. The fires that arose in the city united into a fiery tornado that destroyed people who tried to escape immediately after the explosion.

On August 9, an American bomber headed for Kokura, but there was heavy cloud cover in the city area, and the pilots decided to strike at the alternate target - Nagasaki. The bomb was dropped by taking advantage of a gap in the clouds through which the city stadium was visible. The Fat Man exploded at an altitude of 500 meters, and although the explosion was more powerful than in Hiroshima, the damage from it was less due to the hilly terrain and the large industrial area, in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bwhich there was no residential development. Between 60 and 80 thousand people died during the bombing and immediately after it.

• Consequences of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the American army on August 6, 1945

Some time after the attack, doctors began to notice that people who seemed to be recovering from wounds and psychological shock began to suffer from a new, previously unknown disease. The peak of the number of deaths from it came three to four weeks after the explosion. So the world learned about the consequences of exposure to radiation on the human body.

By 1950, the total number of victims of the bombing of Hiroshima as a result of the explosion and its consequences was estimated at about 200 thousand, and Nagasaki - at 140 thousand people.

Causes and consequences

In the mainland of Asia at that time there was a powerful Kwantung Army, on which official Tokyo had high hopes. Due to the rapid mobilization measures, its number was not reliably known even to the command itself. According to some estimates, the number of soldiers of the Kwantung Army exceeded 1 million people. In addition, Japan was supported by collaborationist forces, in the military formations of which there were several hundred thousand more soldiers and officers.

On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. And the very next day, with the support of the Mongolian allies, the USSR advanced its troops against the forces of the Kwantung Army.

“At present, the West is trying to rewrite history and reconsider the contribution of the USSR to the victory over both fascist Germany and militaristic Japan. However, only the entry into the war on the night of August 8-9, the Soviet Union fulfilling its allied obligations, forced the leadership of Japan to announce surrender on August 15. The offensive of the Red Army on the forces of the Kwantung group developed rapidly, and this, by and large, led to the end of the Second World War, ”said Alexander Mikhailov, a historian of the Victory Museum, in an interview with RT.

• Surrender of the Kwantung Army
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According to the expert, over 600,000 Japanese soldiers and officers surrendered to the Red Army, including 148 generals. The influence of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the end of the war Alexander Mikhailov urged not to overestimate. “The Japanese were initially determined to fight to the end against the United States and Great Britain,” he stressed.

As noted by Viktor Kuzminkov, senior researcher at the Institute of the Far East of the Russian Academy of Sciences, associate professor at the Institute of Foreign Languages ​​of the Moscow State Pedagogical University, the “military expediency” of launching a nuclear strike on Japan is only a version officially formulated by the leadership of the United States.

“The Americans said that in the summer of 1945 it was necessary to start a war with Japan on the territory of the metropolis itself. Here the Japanese, according to the US leadership, had to offer desperate resistance and could allegedly inflict unacceptable losses on the American army. And the nuclear bombing, they say, should have nevertheless persuaded Japan to surrender, ”the expert explained.

According to the head of the Center for Japanese Studies at the Institute of the Far East of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Valery Kistanov, the American version does not stand up to scrutiny. “There was no military necessity for this barbaric bombardment. Today, even some Western researchers recognize this. In fact, Truman wanted, firstly, to intimidate the USSR with the destructive power of a new weapon, and secondly, to justify the huge costs of developing it. But it was clear to everyone that the entry of the USSR into the war with Japan would put an end to it, ”he said.

Viktor Kuzminkov agrees with these conclusions: "Official Tokyo hoped that Moscow could become a mediator in the negotiations, and the entry of the USSR into the war left Japan no chance."

Kistanov stressed that ordinary people and members of the elite in Japan speak differently about the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Ordinary Japanese remember this disaster as it really was. But the authorities and the press are trying not to pedal some of its aspects. For example, in newspapers and on television, atomic bombings are very often spoken about without mentioning which particular country carried them out. The current American presidents for a long time did not visit the memorials dedicated to the victims of these bombings at all. The first was Barack Obama, but he never apologized to the descendants of the victims. However, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also did not apologize for Pearl Harbor, ”he said.

According to Kuzminkov, the atomic bombings changed Japan very much. “A huge group of “untouchables” appeared in the country - hibakusha, born to mothers exposed to radiation. They were shunned by many, the parents of young people and girls did not want hibakusha to marry their children. The consequences of the bombings penetrated people's lives. Therefore, today many Japanese are consistent supporters of a complete rejection of the use of atomic energy in principle,” the expert concluded.

After the Interim Committee decided to drop the bomb, the Target Committee determined the locations to be hit, and President Truman issued the Potsdam Declaration as Japan's final warning. The world soon understood what "complete and utter annihilation" meant. The first and only two atomic bombs in history were dropped on Japan in early August 1945 at the end.

Hiroshima

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped its first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. It was called "Baby" - a uranium bomb with an explosive power equivalent to about 13 kilotons of TNT. During the bombing in Hiroshima there were 280-290 thousand civilians, as well as 43 thousand soldiers. Between 90,000 and 166,000 people are believed to have died within four months of the explosion. The US Department of Energy estimated that in five years at least 200,000 or more people were killed by the bombing, and in Hiroshima, 237,000 people were killed directly or indirectly by the bomb, including burns, radiation sickness, and cancer.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima, codenamed Operations Center I, was approved by Curtis LeMay on August 4, 1945. The B-29 aircraft carrying the Kid from Tinian Island in the Western Pacific to Hiroshima was called the Enola Gay, after the mother of the crew commander, Colonel Paul Tibbets. The crew consisted of 12 people, among whom were co-pilot Captain Robert Lewis, bombardier Major Tom Fereby, navigator Captain Theodore Van Kirk and tail gunner Robert Caron. Below are their stories about the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan.

Pilot Paul Tibbets: “We turned to look at Hiroshima. The city was covered with this terrible cloud ... it boiled, growing, terribly and incredibly high. For a moment everyone was silent, then they all spoke at once. I remember Lewis (co-pilot) hitting me on the shoulder saying, “Look at this! Look at it! Look at it!" Tom Ferebby feared that radioactivity would make us all sterile. Lewis said that he felt the splitting of atoms. He said it tasted like lead."

Navigator Theodor Van Kirk recalls the shockwaves from the explosion: “It was like you were sitting on a pile of ash and someone hit it with a baseball bat… The plane was pushed, it jumped, and then a noise similar to the sound of sheet metal being cut. Those of us who have flown over Europe quite a bit thought it was anti-aircraft fire close to the plane.” Seeing an atomic fireball: “I'm not sure any of us expected to see this. Where we had clearly seen the city two minutes ago, now it was no more. All we saw was smoke and fire crawling up the mountainside.”

Tail gunner Robert Caron: “The fungus itself was a stunning sight, a seething mass of purple-gray smoke, and you could see the red core, inside which everything was burning. Flying away, we saw the base of the fungus, and below a layer of debris several hundred feet and smoke, or whatever they have ... I saw fires starting in different places - flames swinging on a bed of coals.

"Enola Gay"

Six miles under the crew of the Enola Gay, the people of Hiroshima were waking up and getting ready for the day's work. It was 8:16 am. Until that day, the city had not been subjected to regular aerial bombardment like other Japanese cities. It was rumored that this was due to the fact that many residents of Hiroshima emigrated to where President Truman's mother lived. Nevertheless, citizens, including schoolchildren, were sent to fortify houses and dig fire-fighting ditches in preparation for future bombardments. This is exactly what the residents were doing, or else they were going to work on the morning of August 6. Just an hour earlier, the early warning system had gone off, detecting a single B-29 carrying the Kid towards Hiroshima. The Enola Gay was announced on the radio shortly after 8 o'clock in the morning.

The city of Hiroshima was destroyed by an explosion. Of the 76,000 buildings, 70,000 were damaged or destroyed, and 48,000 of them were razed to the ground. Those who survived recalled how impossible it is to describe and believe that in one minute the city ceased to exist.

College professor of history: “I went up Hikiyama Hill and looked down. I saw that Hiroshima had disappeared… I was shocked by the sight… What I felt then and still feel, now I simply cannot explain in words. Of course, after that I saw many more terrible things, but this moment when I looked down and did not see Hiroshima was so shocking that I simply could not express what I felt ... Hiroshima no longer exists - it is in general all I saw was that Hiroshima simply doesn't exist anymore.

Explosion over Hiroshima

Physician Michihiko Hachiya: “There was nothing left but a few reinforced concrete buildings…Acres and acres of the city was like a desert, with only scattered piles of bricks and tiles everywhere. I had to rethink my understanding of the word "destruction" or pick up some other word to describe what I saw. Devastation might be the right word, but I don't really know the word or words to describe what I saw."

Writer Yoko Ota: “I got to the bridge and saw that Hiroshima was completely razed to the ground, and my heart was trembling like a huge wave ... the grief that stepped over the corpses of history pressed on my heart.”

Those who were close to the epicenter of the explosion simply evaporated from the monstrous heat. From one person there was only a dark shadow on the steps of the bank, where he sat. Miyoko Osugi's mother, a 13-year-old fire-fighting schoolgirl, did not find her sandaled foot. The place where the foot had stood remained bright, and everything around was blackened from the explosion.

Those residents of Hiroshima who were far from the epicenter of the "Kid" survived the explosion, but were seriously injured and received very serious burns. These people were in uncontrollable panic, they were struggling to find food and water, medical care, friends and relatives and tried to escape from the firestorms that engulfed many residential areas.

Having lost all orientation in space and time, some survivors believed that they had already died and ended up in hell. The worlds of the living and the dead seemed to come together.

Protestant priest: “I had the feeling that everyone was dead. The whole city was destroyed… I thought it was the end of Hiroshima – the end of Japan – the end of mankind.”

Boy, 6 years old: “There were a lot of dead bodies near the bridge… Sometimes people came to us and asked for water to drink. Their heads, mouths, faces bled, pieces of glass stuck to their bodies. The bridge was on fire… It was all like hell.”

Sociologist: “I immediately thought that it was like hell, which I always read about ... I had never seen anything like this before, but I decided that this should be hell, here it is - fiery hell, where, as we thought, those who didn’t escape… And I thought that all these people that I saw were in the hell that I read about.”

Fifth grade boy: "I had the feeling that all the people on earth had disappeared, and only five of us (his family) remained in the other world of the dead."

Grocer: “People looked like… well, they all had blackened skin from burns… They had no hair because the hair was burned, and at first glance it was not clear whether you were looking at them from the front or from behind… Many of them died on the road - I still see them in my mind - like ghosts ... They were not like people from this world.

Hiroshima destroyed

Many people wandered around the center - near hospitals, parks, along the river, trying to find relief from pain and suffering. Soon, agony and despair reigned here, as many injured and dying people could not get help.

Sixth-grader girl: “Swollen bodies floated on seven previously beautiful rivers, cruelly breaking into pieces the childish naivete of a little girl. The strange smell of burning human flesh pervaded the city, which had turned into a pile of ashes."

Boy, 14 years old: “Night came and I heard many voices crying and groaning in pain and begging for water. Someone shouted: “Damn it! War cripples so many innocent people!” Another said: “I am in pain! Give me water!" This man was so burned that we could not tell if he was a man or a woman. The sky was red with flames, it burned like heaven had been set on fire.”

Three days after the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, on August 9, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. It was a 21-kiloton plutonium bomb, which was called "Fat Man". On the day of the bombing, about 263,000 people were in Nagasaki, including 240,000 civilians, 9,000 Japanese soldiers and 400 prisoners of war. Until August 9, Nagasaki was the target of US small-scale bombing. Although the damage from these explosions was relatively minor, it caused great concern in Nagasaki and many people were evacuated to the countryside, thus depopulating the city during the nuclear attack. It is estimated that between 40,000 and 75,000 people died immediately after the explosion, and another 60,000 people were seriously injured. In total, by the end of 1945, about 80 thousand people died, presumably.

The decision to use the second bomb was made on August 7, 1945 in Guam. By doing so, the US wanted to demonstrate that they had an endless supply of new weapons against Japan and that they would continue to drop atomic bombs on Japan until she surrendered unconditionally.

However, the original target of the second atomic bombing was not Nagasaki. The officials chose the city of Kokura, where Japan had one of the largest munitions factories.

On the morning of August 9, 1945, a B-29 Boxcar, piloted by Major Charles Sweeney, was supposed to deliver the Fat Man to the city of Kokura. Accompanying Sweeney were Lieutenant Charles Donald Albery and Lieutenant Fred Olivy, gunner Frederick Ashworth and bombardier Kermit Beahan. At 3:49 a.m., the Bockscar and five other B-29s left Tinian Island for Kokura.

Seven hours later, the plane flew up to the city. Thick clouds and smoke from fires following an air raid on the nearby city of Yawata obscured much of the sky over Kokura, obscuring the target. Over the next fifty minutes, pilot Charles Sweeney made three bombing runs, but bombardier Beehan failed to drop the bomb because he could not visually identify the target. By the time of the third approach, they were discovered by Japanese anti-aircraft guns, and Second Lieutenant Jacob Bezer, who was monitoring the Japanese radio, reported the approach of Japanese fighters.

Fuel was running out, and the crew of the Boxcar decided to attack the second target, Nagasaki. When the B-29 flew over the city 20 minutes later, the sky above it was also covered with dense clouds. Gunner Frederick Ashworth proposed bombing Nagasaki using radar. At this point, a small window in the clouds, discovered at the end of a three-minute bombing approach, allowed bombardier Kermit Behan to visually identify the target.

At 10:58 a.m. local time, Boxcar dropped Fat Man. 43 seconds later, at an altitude of 1650 feet, about 1.5 miles northwest of the intended aiming point, an explosion occurred, the yield of which was 21 kilotons of TNT.

The radius of complete destruction from the atomic explosion was about one mile, after which the fire spread throughout the northern part of the city - about two miles south of the bomb site. Unlike the buildings in Hiroshima, almost all of the buildings in Nagasaki were of traditional Japanese construction - wooden frames, wooden walls and tiled roofs. Many small industrial and commercial enterprises were also located in buildings that were not able to withstand explosions. As a result, the atomic explosion over Nagasaki leveled everything within its radius of destruction to the ground.

Due to the fact that it was not possible to drop the Fat Man right on target, the atomic explosion was limited to the Urakami Valley. As a result, most of the city was not affected. The Fat Man fell into the industrial valley of the city between Mitsubishi's steel and arms works to the south and Mitsubishi-Urakami's torpedo works to the north. The resulting explosion had a yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT, about the same as the explosion of the Trinity bomb. Almost half of the city was completely destroyed.

Olivi: “Suddenly, the light of a thousand suns flashed in the cockpit. Even with my tinted welding goggles on, I flinched and closed my eyes for a couple of seconds. I assumed we were about seven miles from ground zero and flying away from the target, but the light blinded me for a moment. I have never seen such a strong blue light, maybe three or four times brighter than the sun above us.”

“I have never seen anything like it! The biggest explosion I have ever seen... This column of smoke is hard to describe. A huge white mass of flame boils in a mushroom cloud. It is salmon pink. The base is black and slightly separated from the fungus.

“The mushroom cloud was moving straight towards us, I immediately looked up and saw how it was approaching the Boxcar. We were told not to fly through the atomic cloud because it was extremely dangerous for the crew and aircraft. Knowing this, Sweeney swerved the Boxcar sharply to starboard, away from the cloud, with the throttles wide open. For a few moments we could not understand whether we had escaped from the ominous cloud or whether it had captured us, but gradually we separated from it, much to our relief.

Tatsuichiro Akizuki: “All the buildings that I saw were on fire ... Electric poles were shrouded in flames, like many huge matches ... It seemed that the earth itself spewed fire and smoke - the flames twisted and ejected right from the ground. The sky was dark, the ground was scarlet, and clouds of yellowish smoke hung between them. Three colors - black, yellow and scarlet - swept ominously over people who rushed about like ants trying to escape ... It seemed that the end of the world had come.

Effects

On August 14, Japan surrendered. Journalist George Weller was "the first on Nagasaki" and described a mysterious "atomic sickness" (the onset of radiation sickness) that killed patients who outwardly appeared to have escaped the bomb. Controversial at the time and for many years to come, Weller's papers were not allowed for publication until 2006.

controversy

The debate over the bomb—whether a test demonstration was necessary, whether the Nagasaki bomb was necessary, and much more—continues to this day.

An American B-29 Superfortress bomber named "Enola Gay" took off from Tinian Island early on August 6 with a single 4,000 kg uranium bomb called "Little Boy". At 8:15 a.m., the "baby" bomb was dropped from a height of 9,400 m above the city and spent 57 seconds in free fall. At the moment of detonation, a small explosion provoked the explosion of 64 kg of uranium. Of these 64 kg, only 7 kg passed the splitting stage, and of this mass, only 600 mg turned into energy - explosive energy that burned everything in its path for several kilometers, leveling the city with a blast wave, starting a series of fires and plunging all living things into radiation flow. It is believed that about 70,000 people died immediately, another 70,000 died from injuries and radiation by 1950. Today in Hiroshima, near the epicenter of the explosion, there is a memorial museum, the purpose of which is to promote the idea that nuclear weapons cease to exist forever.

May 1945: selection of targets.

During its second meeting at Los Alamos (May 10-11, 1945), the Targeting Committee recommended as targets for the use of atomic weapons Kyoto (the largest industrial center), Hiroshima (the center of army warehouses and a military port), Yokohama (the center of military industry), Kokuru (the largest military arsenal) and Niigata (military port and engineering center). The committee rejected the idea of ​​using these weapons against a purely military target, as there was a chance of overshooting a small area not surrounded by a vast urban area.
When choosing a goal, great importance was attached to psychological factors, such as:
achieving maximum psychological effect against Japan,
the first use of the weapon must be significant enough for international recognition of its importance. The committee pointed out that Kyoto's choice was supported by the fact that its population had a higher level of education and thus were better able to appreciate the value of weapons. Hiroshima, on the other hand, was of such a size and location that, given the focusing effect of the hills surrounding it, the force of the explosion could be increased.
US Secretary of War Henry Stimson struck Kyoto off the list due to the city's cultural significance. According to Professor Edwin O. Reischauer, Stimson "knew and appreciated Kyoto from his honeymoon there decades ago."

Pictured is Secretary of War Henry Stimson.

On July 16, the world's first successful test of an atomic weapon was carried out at a test site in New Mexico. The power of the explosion was about 21 kilotons of TNT.
On July 24, during the Potsdam Conference, US President Harry Truman informed Stalin that the United States had a new weapon of unprecedented destructive power. Truman did not specify that he was referring specifically to atomic weapons. According to Truman's memoirs, Stalin showed little interest, remarking only that he was glad and hoped that the US could use him effectively against the Japanese. Churchill, who carefully observed Stalin's reaction, remained of the opinion that Stalin did not understand the true meaning of Truman's words and did not pay attention to him. At the same time, according to Zhukov's memoirs, Stalin perfectly understood everything, but did not show it, and in a conversation with Molotov after the meeting he noted that "It will be necessary to talk with Kurchatov about speeding up our work." After the declassification of the operation of the American intelligence services "Venona", it became known that Soviet agents had long been reporting on the development of nuclear weapons. According to some reports, agent Theodor Hall, a few days before the Potsdam conference, even announced the planned date for the first nuclear test. This may explain why Stalin took Truman's message calmly. Hall had been working for Soviet intelligence since 1944.
On July 25, Truman approved the order, beginning August 3, to bomb one of the following targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, or Nagasaki, as soon as the weather allowed, and in the future, the following cities, as bombs arrived.
On July 26, the governments of the United States, Britain, and China signed the Potsdam Declaration, which set out the demand for Japan's unconditional surrender. The atomic bomb was not mentioned in the declaration.
The next day, Japanese newspapers reported that the declaration, which had been broadcast over the radio and scattered in leaflets from airplanes, had been rejected. The Japanese government has not expressed a desire to accept the ultimatum. On July 28, Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki stated at a press conference that the Potsdam Declaration was nothing more than the old arguments of the Cairo Declaration in a new wrapper, and demanded that the government ignore it.
Emperor Hirohito, who was waiting for a Soviet response to the evasive diplomatic moves [what?] of the Japanese, did not change the decision of the government. On July 31, in a conversation with Koichi Kido, he made it clear that the imperial power must be protected at all costs.

An aerial view of Hiroshima shortly before the bomb was dropped on the city in August 1945. Shown here is a densely populated area of ​​the city on the Motoyasu River.

Preparing for the bombing

During May-June 1945, the American 509th Combined Aviation Group arrived on Tinian Island. The group's base area on the island was a few miles from the rest of the units and was carefully guarded.
On July 26, the Indianapolis cruiser delivered the Little Boy atomic bomb to Tinian.
On July 28, the Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, George Marshall, signed the order for the combat use of nuclear weapons. The order, drafted by Major General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, called for a nuclear attack "on any day after August 3rd, as soon as the weather permits." On July 29, US Strategic Air Command General Karl Spaats arrived on Tinian, delivering Marshall's order to the island.
On July 28 and August 2, components of the Fat Man atomic bomb were brought to Tinian by planes.

Commander A.F. Birch (left) numbers the bomb, codenamed "The Kid", physicist Dr. Ramsey (right) will receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1989.

"Kid" was 3 m long and weighed 4,000 kg, but contained only 64 kg of uranium, which was used to provoke a chain of atomic reactions and the subsequent explosion.

Hiroshima during World War II.

Hiroshima was located on a flat area, slightly above sea level at the mouth of the Ota River, on 6 islands connected by 81 bridges. The population of the city before the war was over 340 thousand people, which made Hiroshima the seventh largest city in Japan. The city was the headquarters of the Fifth Division and the Second Main Army of Field Marshal Shunroku Hata, who commanded the defense of all of Southern Japan. Hiroshima was an important supply base for the Japanese army.
In Hiroshima (as well as in Nagasaki), most buildings were one- and two-story wooden buildings with tiled roofs. Factories were located on the outskirts of the city. Outdated fire equipment and insufficient training of personnel created a high fire hazard even in peacetime.
The population of Hiroshima peaked at 380,000 during the course of the war, but before the bombing, the population gradually decreased due to systematic evacuations ordered by the Japanese government. At the time of the attack, the population was about 245 thousand people.

Pictured is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber of the US Army "Enola Gay"

Bombardment

The main target of the first American nuclear bombing was Hiroshima (Kokura and Nagasaki were spares). Although Truman's order called for the atomic bombing to begin on August 3, cloud cover over the target prevented this until August 6.
On August 6, at 1:45 am, an American B-29 bomber under the command of the commander of the 509th mixed aviation regiment, Colonel Paul Tibbets, carrying the atomic bomb "Baby" on board, took off from Tinian Island, which was about 6 hours from Hiroshima. Tibbets' aircraft ("Enola Gay") flew as part of a formation that included six other aircraft: a spare aircraft ("Top Secret"), two controllers and three reconnaissance aircraft ("Jebit III", "Full House" and "Straight Flash"). Reconnaissance aircraft commanders sent to Nagasaki and Kokura reported significant cloud cover over these cities. The pilot of the third reconnaissance aircraft, Major Iserli, found out that the sky over Hiroshima was clear and sent a signal "Bomb the first target."
Around 7 a.m., a network of Japanese early warning radars detected the approach of several American aircraft heading towards southern Japan. An air raid alert was issued and radio broadcasts stopped in many cities, including Hiroshima. At about 08:00 a radar operator in Hiroshima determined that the number of incoming aircraft was very small—perhaps no more than three—and the air raid alert was called off. In order to save fuel and aircraft, the Japanese did not intercept small groups of American bombers. The standard message was broadcast over the radio that it would be wise to go to the bomb shelters if the B-29s were actually seen, and that it was not a raid that was expected, but just some kind of reconnaissance.
At 08:15 local time, the B-29, being at an altitude of over 9 km, dropped an atomic bomb on the center of Hiroshima. The fuse was set to a height of 600 meters above the surface; an explosion equivalent to 13 to 18 kilotons of TNT occurred 45 seconds after the release.
The first public announcement of the event came from Washington, DC, sixteen hours after the atomic attack on the Japanese city.

A photo taken from one of the two American bombers of the 509th Composite Group, shortly after 08:15, August 5, 1945, shows smoke rising from the explosion over the city of Hiroshima.

When the portion of uranium in the bomb went through the fission stage, it was instantly converted into the energy of 15 kilotons of TNT, heating the massive fireball to a temperature of 3,980 degrees Celsius.

explosion effect

Those closest to the epicenter of the explosion died instantly, their bodies turned to coal. Birds flying past burned up in the air, and dry, flammable materials such as paper ignited up to 2 km from the epicenter. Light radiation burned the dark pattern of clothes into the skin and left the silhouettes of human bodies on the walls. People outside the houses described a blinding flash of light, which simultaneously came with a wave of suffocating heat. The blast wave, for all who were near the epicenter, followed almost immediately, often knocking down. Those in the buildings tended to avoid exposure to the light from the explosion, but not the blast wave—glass shards hit most rooms, and all but the strongest buildings collapsed. One teenager was blasted out of his house across the street as the house collapsed behind him. Within a few minutes, 90% of people who were at a distance of 800 meters or less from the epicenter died.
The blast wave shattered glass at a distance of up to 19 km. For those in the buildings, the typical first reaction was the thought of a direct hit from an aerial bomb.
Numerous small fires that simultaneously broke out in the city soon merged into one large fire tornado, which created a strong wind (speed of 50-60 km/h) directed towards the epicenter. The fiery tornado captured over 11 km² of the city, killing everyone who did not have time to get out within the first few minutes after the explosion.
According to the memoirs of Akiko Takakura, one of the few survivors who were at the time of the explosion at a distance of 300 m from the epicenter:
Three colors characterize for me the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima: black, red and brown. Black because the explosion cut off the sunlight and plunged the world into darkness. Red was the color of blood flowing from wounded and broken people. It was also the color of the fires that burned everything in the city. Brown was the color of burnt, peeling skin exposed to light from the explosion.
A few days after the explosion, among the survivors, doctors began to notice the first symptoms of exposure. Soon, the number of deaths among survivors began to rise again as patients who seemed to be recovering began to suffer from this strange new disease. Deaths from radiation sickness peaked 3-4 weeks after the explosion and began to decline only after 7-8 weeks. Japanese doctors considered vomiting and diarrhea characteristic of radiation sickness to be symptoms of dysentery. The long-term health effects associated with exposure, such as an increased risk of cancer, haunted the survivors for the rest of their lives, as did the psychological shock of the explosion.

The shadow of a man who was sitting on the steps of the stairs in front of the bank entrance at the time of the explosion, 250 meters from the epicenter.

Loss and destruction

The number of deaths from the direct impact of the explosion ranged from 70 to 80 thousand people. By the end of 1945, due to the action of radioactive contamination and other post-effects of the explosion, the total number of deaths was from 90 to 166 thousand people. After 5 years, the total death toll, including deaths from cancer and other long-term effects of the explosion, could reach or even exceed 200,000 people.
According to official Japanese data as of March 31, 2013, there were 201,779 "hibakusha" alive - people affected by the effects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This figure includes children born to women exposed to radiation from the explosions (mostly living in Japan at the time of count). Of these, 1%, according to the Japanese government, had serious cancers caused by radiation exposure after the bombings. The number of deaths as of August 31, 2013 is about 450 thousand: 286,818 in Hiroshima and 162,083 in Nagasaki.

View of the destroyed Hiroshima in the autumn of 1945 on one branch of the river passing through the delta on which the city stands

Complete destruction after the release of the atomic bomb.

Color photograph of the destroyed Hiroshima in March 1946.

The explosion destroyed the Okita plant in Hiroshima, Japan.

Look at how the sidewalk has been raised and how a drainpipe sticks out of the bridge. Scientists say this was due to the vacuum created by the pressure from the atomic explosion.

Twisted iron beams are all that remains of the theater building, located about 800 meters from the epicenter.

The Hiroshima Fire Department lost its only vehicle when the western station was destroyed by an atomic bomb. The station was located 1,200 meters from the epicenter.

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Nuclear pollution

The concept of "radioactive contamination" did not yet exist in those years, and therefore this issue was not even raised then. People continued to live and rebuild the destroyed buildings in the same place where they were before. Even the high mortality of the population in subsequent years, as well as illnesses and genetic abnormalities in children born after the bombings, were not initially associated with exposure to radiation. The evacuation of the population from the contaminated areas was not carried out, since no one knew about the very presence of radioactive contamination.
It is rather difficult to give an accurate assessment of the extent of this contamination due to lack of information, however, since technically the first atomic bombs were relatively low-yield and imperfect (the "Kid" bomb, for example, contained 64 kg of uranium, of which only approximately 700 g reacted division), the level of pollution of the area could not be significant, although it posed a serious danger to the population. For comparison: at the time of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, several tons of fission products and transuranium elements, various radioactive isotopes accumulated during the operation of the reactor, were in the reactor core.

Terrible consequences...

Keloid scars on the back and shoulders of a victim of the Hiroshima bombing. The scars formed where the victim's skin was exposed to direct radiation.

Comparative preservation of some buildings

Some reinforced concrete buildings in the city were very stable (due to the risk of earthquakes), and their framework did not collapse, despite being quite close to the center of destruction in the city (the epicenter of the explosion). Thus stood the brick building of the Hiroshima Chamber of Industry (now commonly known as the "Genbaku Dome", or "Atomic Dome"), designed and built by Czech architect Jan Letzel, which was only 160 meters from the epicenter of the explosion (at the height of the bomb detonation 600 m above the surface). The ruins became the most famous exhibit of the Hiroshima atomic explosion and were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996, despite objections raised by the US and Chinese governments.

A man looks at the ruins left after the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.

People lived here

Visitors to the Hiroshima Memorial Park look at a panoramic view of the aftermath of the July 27, 2005 atomic explosion in Hiroshima.

A memorial flame in honor of the victims of the atomic explosion on a monument in the Hiroshima Memorial Park. The fire has been burning continuously since it was ignited on August 1, 1964. The fire will burn until "until all the atomic weapons of the earth are gone forever."