Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

August 6 & 9, 1945 · Pacific Theater

Phases

1. 1Aug 6 — HiroshimaAugust 6, 1945 — 8:15 AM
2. 2Aug 9 — NagasakiAugust 9, 1945 — 11:02 AM
3. 3Aug 15 — The Voice of the CraneAugust 9–15, 1945

August 6, 1945 — 8:15 AM

At 8:15 AM the B-29 Enola Gay releases a single bomb over Hiroshima; forty-three seconds later it detonates 600 meters above the Shima Surgical Clinic with the force of 15,000 tons of TNT. Within the first second, everything within a mile of the hypocenter is destroyed; the firestorm that follows consumes four square miles of the city. Perhaps 70,000 people die that morning, and tens of thousands more from burns and radiation by year’s end. No one on the ground had any warning the atomic age had begun.

• ●The hypocenter — 600m above the Shima clinic
• ●Near-total destruction — four square miles
• ●The Genbaku Dome — left standing as the world’s memorial