MB DRO ROSHI

[pynchonoid]

[...] At 1:45 a.m. on August 6, 1945, a US B-29
bomber, named Enola Gay, took off from Tinian Island
in the Mariana Islands. It carried the world’s second
atomic bomb, the first having been detonated three
weeks earlier at a US test site in Alamogordo, New
Mexico. The Enola Gay carried one atomic bomb, with an
enriched uranium core. The bomb had been named “Little
Boy.” It had an explosive force of some 12,500 tons of
TNT. At 8:15 a.m. that morning, as the citizens of
Hiroshima were beginning their day, the Enola Gay
released its horrific cargo, which fell for 43 seconds
before detonating at 580 meters above Shima Hospital
near the center of the city. 

Here is a description from a pamphlet published by the
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum of what happened
immediately following the explosion:

“The temperature of the air at the point of explosion
reached several million degrees Celsius (the maximum
temperature of conventional bombs is approximately
5,000 degrees Celsius). Several millionths of a second
after the explosion a fireball appeared, radiating
white heat. After 1/10,000th of a second, the fireball
reached a diameter of approximately 28 meters with a
temperature of close to 300,000 degrees Celsius. At
the instant of the explosion, intense heat rays and
radiation were released in all directions, and a blast
erupted with incredible pressure on the surrounding
air.”

As a result of the blast, heat and ensuing fires, the
city of Hiroshima was leveled and some 90,000 people
in it perished that day. The world’s second test of a
nuclear weapon demonstrated conclusively the awesome
power of nuclear weapons for killing and maiming.
Schools were destroyed and their students and teachers
slaughtered. Hospitals with their patients and medical
staffs were obliterated. The bombing of Hiroshima was
an act of massive destruction of a civilian
population, the destruction of an entire city with a
single bomb. Harry Truman, president of the United
States, upon being notified, said, in egregiously poor
judgment, “This is the greatest thing in history.”

[...] In his first speech to the US public about the
bombing of Hiroshima, which he delivered on August 9,
1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki,
Harry Truman reported: “The world will note that the
first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military
base. That was because we wished in this first attack
to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of
civilians.” While Hiroshima did have a military base
in the city, it was not the base that was targeted,
but the center of the city. The vast majority of the
victims in Hiroshima were ordinary civilians,
including large numbers of women and children. Truman
continued, “But that attack is only a warning of
things to come.” Truman went on to refer to the “awful
responsibility which has come to us,” and to “thank
God that it has come to us, instead of to our
enemies.” He prayed that God “may guide us to use it
in His ways and for His purpose.” It was a chilling
and prophetic prayer.

By the end of 1945, some 145,000 people had died in
Hiroshima, and some 75,000 people had died in
Nagasaki. Tens of thousands more suffered serious
injuries. Deaths among survivors of the bombings have
continued over the years due primarily to the effects
of radiation poisoning. [...] 


Remembering Hiroshima & Nagasaki
By David Krieger
<http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/03.08/0801krieger_hiroshima%2Bnagasaki.htm>

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