The Times August 6th 1946

 

The destiny of Hiroshima

In the World War 2 America tried to make the Japanese to capitulate. And at the end of the war, in 1945, they dropped the world’s first atom bomb over Japan. This was the end of many Japanese people.

 

Early in the morning a year ago, on august 6th 1945, it was a certain uneasiness in the industry- and seaport town Hiroshima at the Japanese main island Honshu. So fare the town hadn’t been exposed for the firebomb attack destructions by the american B-29-planes. But the inhabitants still envisioned an attack, because Hiroshima was an important centre of industry supplies. On account of the fear of an attack, it was also accomplished an evacuation, in such a way that the number of inhabitants was reduced from 400 000 to 245 000. Later on, about 7am the air-rade warning went off when a single American waetherobservation plane flew over the town. But people were so used to such quiet safe planes that they didn’t get inside an air-rade shelter. At 7.32am it was a danger-over-signal. Immediately afterwards, at 8am, the Japanese radar registered three planes in a great height on their way towards Hiroshima. But when they assume that they were harmless recognition planes, they failed to let the air-rade warning go once again.

 

Some seconds after 8.15am two of these planes made a sudden turn separately and went different ways. At the turn’s extreme point one plane dropped three parachutes with registrations equipment; the second plane dropped an atom bomb that was disposed for detonation 656,17 yards over the town.

 

“Little Boy” obliterated a town

August 6th 2.45am the plane B-29 Enola Gay took off from Tinian. The plane, which had colonel Tibbets on the gear lever, had to use the whole runway to take off because the cargo was so heavy. The cargo was a 9, 84 feet and 4 tons heavy bombe called; Little Boy.

 

Quarter past eight in the morning (Japanese time) the Enola Gay made it to Hiroshima and Little Boy was dropped out of a parachute. The bombe was automatically trigged off 629, 92 yards over the ground, which was the right height to destroy the town. The flight crew, which had special glasses on, could see a colossal, purple gleam of light. “Oh my god, what have we done?” shouted the co-pilot, Captain Robert A. Lewis.

 

The mushroom cloud

The bomb exploded with an enormous gleam of light, which was followed by a growing fireball so intense that thousands of people in the centre were deadly burnt and many others, as fare as three or four kilometres from there, pretty much burnt. And then the pressurewave followed – it had a speed of about 800km/h, and blew up everything within a radius of almost four kilometres with the earth. Broke away wooden pieces, bricks, wallboards, shiver of glass and so on, flashed like missiles through the air. Conduits were torn up, several fires and numberless destructions and every building within the area of 13 square kilometres around the centre of the town, were totally destroyed. From a mushroom shaped cloud, which reached up to about 18 591,43 yards height over the town, it was fallen huge, heavy condensationsdrops like black rain. The people who tried to get to a park, in a river or brooks, were caught up with the enormous firestorm. The firestorm blew towards the centre, pulled up trees by the roots and drifted away huge waves in the water, and drowned the people who had sought rescue in the water. The town Hiroshima was practically damaged.  

 

<bilde> Little Boy (left) and Fat Man (right)

“Fat Man” and Nagasaki

Just three days after Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima, the second atomic bomb called Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. Fat Man was 10,50 feet, 1,64 yards in diameter, and his weight was 4,5 ton. This bomb was therefore twice as powerful as the first one, but the effect was subdued by the steep hills around the town, and the physical damages was for this reason less dramatic. Still the numbers of dead people in Nagasaki was about 100.000. In the end, America reached their goal; the Japanese government capitulated, and Fat Mat indicated the end of World War 2.

 

The victims

More than 200 000 inhabitants in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were killed by the bombs. Many people were damaged by fire and others suffered by injuries, among other things as radioactive radiation. It is difficult to estimate the exact numbers of people who died of radioactive radiation because people are still dying of cancer. In Hiroshima the results of the bomb was a great damage. Between 80.000 and 140.000 people were immediately killed and 100.000 serious hurt.     

 

 

 

Sources

A-bomb Museum (internet)

Hiroshima archive (internet)

Other sources on internet

Dictionaries

The book; Our own century (Vårt eget århundre)