Hiroshima

The Associated Press reports that at least 50,000 people have gathered today in Hiroshima on the 68th anniversary of nuclear bombs being dropped on the city.  BBC News reaches into the archives to note their original coverage of the attack:

The first atomic bomb has been dropped by a United States aircraft on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
President Harry S Truman, announcing the news from the cruiser, USS Augusta, in the mid-Atlantic, said the device was more than 2,000 times more powerful than the largest bomb used to date.
An accurate assessment of the damage caused has so far been impossible due to a huge cloud of impenetrable dust covering the target. Hiroshima is one of the chief supply depots for the Japanese army.
The bomb was dropped from an American B-29 Superfortress, known as Enola Gay, at 0815 local time. The plane's crew say they saw a column of smoke rising and intense fires springing up.


Eyewitness To History offers Dr. Michihiko Hachiya's account of when the bombing took place:

Clad in drawers and undershirt, I was sprawled on the living room floor exhausted because I had just spent a sleepless night on duty as an air warden in my hospital.
Suddenly, a strong flash of light startled me - and then another. So well does one recall little things that I remember vividly how a stone lantern in the garden became brilliantly lit and I debated whether this light was caused by a magnesium flare or sparks from a passing trolley.
Garden shadows disappeared. The view where a moment before had been so bright and sunny was now dark and hazy. Through swirling dust I could barely discern a wooden column that had supported one comer of my house. It was leaning crazily and the roof sagged dangerously. 
 Moving instinctively, I tried to escape, but rubble and fallen timbers barred the way. By picking my way cautiously I managed to reach the roka [an outside hallway] and stepped down into my garden. A profound weakness overcame me, so I stopped to regain my strength. To my surprise I discovered that I was completely naked How odd! Where were my drawers and undershirt?
What had happened?
All over the right side of my body I was cut and bleeding. A large splinter was protruding from a mangled wound in my thigh, and something warm trickled into my mouth. My check was torn, I discovered as I felt it gingerly, with the lower lip laid wide open. Embedded in my neck was a sizable fragment of glass which I matter-of-factly dislodged, and with the detachment of one stunned and shocked I studied it and my blood-stained hand.
Where was my wife?
Suddenly thoroughly alarmed, I began to yell for her: 'Yaeko-san! Yaeko-san! Where are you?' Blood began to spurt. Had my carotid artery been cut? Would I bleed to death? Frightened and irrational, I called out again 'It's a five-hundred-ton bomb! Yaeko-san, where are you? A five- hundred-ton bomb has fallen!'

IOL explains, "The Hiroshima bombing killed more than 140 000 people either immediately or in the months that followed from horrific burns or radiation. The United States dropped a second nuclear bomb on August 9 on Nagasaki, killing another 70 000 people. Emperor Hirohito surrendered on August 15. "

Journalist Sherwood Ross has a poem about the bombing.

Hiroshima

© by Sherwood Ross

     

I am the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto

A graduate of Emory College, Atlanta,

Pastor of the Methodist Church of Hiroshima

I was in a western suburb when the bomb struck

Like a sheet of sunlight.

Fearing for my wife and family

I ran back into the city

Where I saw hundreds and hundreds fleeing

Every one of them hurt in some way.

The eyebrows of some were burned off

Skin hung from their faces and hands

Some were vomiting as they walked

On some naked bodies the burns had made patterns

Of the shapes of flowers transferred

From their kimonos to human skin.

Almost all had their heads bowed

Looked straight ahead, were silent

And showed no expression whatever.

Under many houses I heard trapped people screaming

Crying for help but there were none to help

And the fire was coming.

I came to a young woman holding her dead baby

Who pleaded with me to find her husband

So he could see the baby one last time.

There was nothing I could do but humor her.

By accident I ran into my own wife

Both she and our child were alive and well.

For days I carried water and food to the wounded and the dying.

I apologized to them: “Forgive me,” I said, “for not sharing your burden.”

I am the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto

Pastor of the Methodist Church of Hiroshima

I was in a western suburb when the bomb struck

Like a sheet of sunlight.

(The above is based on the book “Hiroshima” by John Hersey. Sherwood Ross is a newspaper reporter and formerly worked as a columnist for UPI and Reuters. He is well known as a poetry reader in the Miami area. Reach him at sherwood.ross@gmail.com)

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