The impact of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima
Hear Encyclopædia Britannica editor Michael Ray talk about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the United States on August 6, 1945.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER: On August 6, 1945, the bomber, Enola Gay, took off from a US airbase in the Northern Mariana Islands. And at around 8:15 AM, dropped the atomic bomb, Little Boy, on the city of Hiroshima. Little Boy was a gun-assembly fission bomb. And it was less powerful than the plutonium bomb that would be dropped on Nagasaki several days later.
Approximately 70,000 people were killed immediately or shortly after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Roughly, a hundred thousand people were killed in the conventional firebombing attack on Tokyo several months before the atomic bomb was dropped. Conventional bombs would do much more damage to Japanese cities, which were largely wood construction, than the two atomic bombs. But the psychological effect of the atomic bombs was much greater than the incendiary bombs that had been raining on Japan since the US took the Northern Mariana Islands and began long-distance bombing.
Prior to the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, Hiroshima had not been targeted by American bombers throughout the war, thus the damage from the atomic bomb was more easy to assess for American planners. And they could see just how much damage had been caused by this single weapon. Many were affected by radiation sickness. And beyond the initial deaths that occurred due to the blast and the heat, hundreds of thousands would continue to suffer the effects of radiation poisoning for many, many years to come.
Hiroshima has since become the center of the anti-nuclear weapons movement in the world. The church that remained standing after the bomb has become a center of the global peace movement. And Peace Memorial Park is a museum to those killed in the bombing and for the global anti-nuclear movement.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Approximately 70,000 people were killed immediately or shortly after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Roughly, a hundred thousand people were killed in the conventional firebombing attack on Tokyo several months before the atomic bomb was dropped. Conventional bombs would do much more damage to Japanese cities, which were largely wood construction, than the two atomic bombs. But the psychological effect of the atomic bombs was much greater than the incendiary bombs that had been raining on Japan since the US took the Northern Mariana Islands and began long-distance bombing.
Prior to the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, Hiroshima had not been targeted by American bombers throughout the war, thus the damage from the atomic bomb was more easy to assess for American planners. And they could see just how much damage had been caused by this single weapon. Many were affected by radiation sickness. And beyond the initial deaths that occurred due to the blast and the heat, hundreds of thousands would continue to suffer the effects of radiation poisoning for many, many years to come.
Hiroshima has since become the center of the anti-nuclear weapons movement in the world. The church that remained standing after the bomb has become a center of the global peace movement. And Peace Memorial Park is a museum to those killed in the bombing and for the global anti-nuclear movement.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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