My eye-opening visit to Hiroshima, 80 years after the bombing
Now the 30-acre wedge of land between the Motoyasu and Honkawa rivers is the Hiroshima City Peace Memorial Park, laid down in 1955 to mark the destruction caused by the world's first atomic bomb. It targeted the T-shaped Aioi Bridge just to the north, destroying almost everything within a one-and-half-mile radius and killing 80,000 people instantly. Today the Peace Park is visited annually by 720,000 overseas travellers who, like myself, have come to learn more about the bombing and its legacy and pay our respects. For me, the visit is also a chance to explore the contemporary city beyond its tragic past, including its vibrant food scene, and the wider Hiroshima region.
'My memory is so clear and, while I have a clear memory, I want people to hear my story,' Ogura tells me when I arrive to meet her in a private room at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. There is a steeliness in her gentle voice. Ogura is a hibakusha — an atomic bomb survivor. She was just eight years old when the 'Little Boy' was dropped on Hiroshima at 8.15am on August 6, 1945.
Ogura has agreed to meet me during my few days in Hiroshima to share her first-hand account of the bombing and its aftermath. She is the founder of Hiroshima Interpreters for Peace (HIP), an activist group that 'tells the facts of Hiroshima to the world' — including to travellers interested in gaining a deeper understanding of what happened.
The weighty privilege of meeting Ogura is underscored by our location: the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which houses a necessarily shocking collection of personal stories and artefacts about the bombing in Kenzo Tange's unadorned modernist building.
Ogura pulls up a map on her PowerPoint presentation. 'We couldn't make our own bomb shelter in the city centre so my father was worried,' she explains. By August 1945 most Japanese cities had been heavily bombed, and Hiroshima residents had become used to the sound of American bombers and reconnaissance aircraft regularly flying over. Recognising that Hiroshima — a military city — would eventually be targeted, Ogura's father wanted to build his family an air-raid shelter. 'So we moved here, to Ushita.' She points to a suburb a mile and a half from their former home in the city centre, beyond the sacred Mount Futaba, the location of many temples and shrines. It was a decision that saved their lives.
'There was a strong flash and a blast,' she says. 'Then everything started to burn.' She recalls lying on the road beside her partially collapsed home. 'I couldn't breathe.' But Ogura was alive, as were her immediate family — Mount Futaba had shielded their neighbourhood from the full force of the bomb. But death was all around her, inescapable.
'I lived near a shrine, and people rushed there to seek help. So many people died in front of me. My father cremated bodies every day — over 700 victims,' she says, recalling the terrible smell of burning that permeated the city air. 'Those were my childhood memories; that is the reality of nuclear weapons.'
Ogura carried her 'invisible scars' silently into her forties, when she was persuaded to start speaking publicly — adamant that by sharing her first-hand account she could encourage people to take action to prevent a repeat (an undertaking that perhaps now seems more critical than ever). Her testimony is disarmingly frank, yet told with warmth and not a hint of pity or anger. 'There are not so many witnesses left; I want to tell my story until the last moment.'
Two hours later I emerge into the Peace Park, which is full of trees and shrubs donated by regions across Japan. Ogura's story is overwhelming and I am relieved that I have an unscheduled afternoon ahead to slowly take it all in. I wander between the stone monuments, such as the Flame of Peace and the Children's Peace Monument, topped with the statue of an origami crane and tragic 12-year-old Sadako, a local child who folded thousands of these enduring symbols of peace during her battle with leukaemia caused by the atomic radiation. Close by the graceful arching cenotaph contains books listing the names of the 344,306 victims within the radius of the hypocentre, with new names to be added during this year's 80th anniversary commemorations, as hibakusha pass away.
It's a reminder that life presses on, and that Hiroshima moves ceaselessly like any other city. The Hiroden streetcar trundles commuters past the A-Bomb Dome — the shell of the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall that is a symbol of the city — and modern buildings surround the Unesco world heritage site. A new 28,520-seat football stadium has just opened nearby, alongside an events spot with cafés, shops and a grooming parlour selling bentos for dogs.
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That evening I walk from the Hilton Hiroshima — my excellent hotel base with mountain and sea views where President Biden stayed during the 2023 G7 summit — to the Hondori central entertainment area. Here teens linger late around soft-serve ice-cream stands and clothes shops such as Uniqlo, which opened its first store in Hiroshima in 1984. At the Golden Garden bar I try deep-fried oysters from the Seto Inland Sea, washed down with fragrant Teagarmot Journey IPA by Hiroshima Neighborly Brewing, a star on the city's craft beer scene (@goldengarden_beer).
It's the warm-up for the main event: okonomiyaki, Hiroshima's ubiquitous savoury pancake. On a recommendation from the hotel concierge I take a counter seat at the family-run Henkutsuya Horikawa and watch as the owner cooks up crêpes, cabbage, pork and soba noodles in a tightly choreographed dance at the teppan. The layers are piled up, flipped and topped with a fried egg and tangy okonomiyaki sauce, and the whole thing is slid over, piping hot and tasty (mains from £4; 2-20 Nagarekawacho).
The next morning I walk with Joy Jarman-Walsh, who has been a Hiroshima resident for 30 years. She reveals that okonomiyaki has roots in the postwar city, when destitute war widows sold simple pancakes with cabbage and American flour to survive. 'They cooked in the street on metal scavenged from ships in Hiroshima port,' she says.
Close to the port we visit one of the few remaining 'survivor' buildings — a thick, red-brick warehouse that, like the concrete A-Bomb Dome, managed to withstand the atomic blast. Its warped metal shutters reveal the force of the bomb, 1.6 miles way from the hypocentre. Activists hope that the empty former army clothing depot will be spared demolition and redeveloped as an extension to the busy Peace Museum and as a creative arts venue.
'Hiroshima can get really busy with day-trippers from Kyoto and Osaka,' Jarman-Walsh says — the two cities are about an hour and 40 minutes east by bullet train. 'It would be great to see people staying overnight and exploring beyond the Peace Park and Miyajima,' she adds, referring to the island south of Hiroshima famed for its incredibly picturesque red 'floating' torii gateway to the Itsukushima Shrine — another Unesco world heritage site.
With its photogenic views and cute deer (often seen on the beach in front of the red torii gate), Miyajima is beautiful but over-touristed. It is the best-known tourist attraction of the Seto Inland Sea, closely followed by the so-called Art Islands — including Naoshima, home of Yayoi Kusama's giant spotty pumpkin — almost 125 miles to the east and which have helped to put the region on the map in recent years.
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It's a real contrast to the quiet stops on the slow rail route running east along the Inland Sea coast — my next direction of travel as I delve deeper into the region. I ride the train for two hours, watching forested islands drift past in a blue haze, the calm waters interspersed with oyster farms and faded shipbuilding towns such as Kure, where the Second World War battleship Yamato — the largest ever constructed — was built. Slowly but surely the trains grow shorter and emptier.
I disembark in the former salt-trading town of Takehara to explore its preserved Edo-period (1603-1868) townscape. It's disarmingly quiet as I stroll through alleyways lined with wooden houses, earthen walls and intricate bamboo latticework. This is what the Japanese call inaka — the countryside. And that evening, as I cross onto the island of Ikuchijima, I am deep in inaka. My destination is Azumi Setoda, a 22-room contemporary ryokan housed in the grand former residence of the Horiuchi family, the wealthiest salt traders in Setoda town. It's a sought-after property, created by Adrian Zecha, the visionary founder of Aman Resorts.
I check into my 50 sq ft room, with its futon bed, wooden panelling and pocket garden concealed behind elegant yuki-mi — snow-viewing screens — that slide up and down instead of sideways. There is time for a bath. The deep Japanese cypress (hinoki) soaking tub looks inviting, but instead I head across the road to the public bathhouse (sento), which has been renovated by the hotel for guests and locals; for the latter, a sento visit remains a daily ritual.
That evening a fantastic multi-course meal is served beneath a lattice of ancient beams inside Azumi Setoda's lofty main building, presented on antique Kyushu pottery once owned by the Horiuchi family. The chef Kenya Akita's menu uses produce from a 30-mile radius (including Inland Sea fish and vegetables from his garden), with dishes such as octopus bisque and sea bream carpaccio.
The elevated, Japanese-style hospitality, known as omotenashi, is highly personalised and reason enough to seek out Azumi Setoda, but so too is the chance to become immersed in rural life: picking citrus fruits, fishing and sailing. I seize the chance to borrow a hotel bike and cycle through lemon groves along part of the Shimanami Kaido, a 37-mile purpose-built bike route that connects Honshu with Shikoku via islands in the Inland Sea.
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Before I depart Azumi Setoda I take a walk with the hotel's guide, Julian Rodriguez, who has weaved together an illuminating history of life in this once-vital port, in part by listening to the stories of local octogenarians. There's the stone lantern lighthouse that guided ships through narrow rapids, the island-hopping library boat and the overgrown sauna-like 'stone bath' caves once used by locals.
There are 'sketch points' marking the exact spots where the local watercolour artist Ikuo Hirayama painted scenes of Setoda. One such view is of the vermillion Kojoji pagoda, built by Buddhist monks who outgrew their monastery on the mainland 600 years ago — now designated an official 'National Treasure'.
I think back to my time with Ogura. 'When I tell my story I see people's faces and I let them think,' she said. 'I show them the direction; I want them to decide to do something.'
For me, that is to pass on the message that Hiroshima is a place of compelling stories and friendly, open people eager to share them. I urge you to visit, to listen and make a life-affirming connection to authentic Japan. Kate Crockett was a guest of Hiroshima Tourism Association (dive-hiroshima.com) and InsideJapan Tours, which has nine nights' B&B with stays in Kyoto, Osaka and Hiroshima from £4,273pp, including all domestic transport, some private guiding and activities (insidejapantours.com). Fly to Tokyo or Osaka
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Hiroshima's fading legacy: the race to secure survivor's memories amid a new era of nuclear brinkmanship
The fires were still burning, and the dead lay where they had fallen, when a 10-year-old Yoshiko Niiyama entered Hiroshima, two days after it was destroyed by an American atomic bomb. 'I remember that the air was filled with smoke and there were bodies everywhere … and it was so hot,' Niiyama says in an interview at her home in the Hiroshima suburbs. 'The faces of the survivors were so badly disfigured that I didn't want to look at them. But I had to.' Niiyama and her eldest sister had rushed to the city to search for their father, Mitsugi, who worked in a bank located just 1km from the hypocentre. They had been evacuated to a neighbourhood just outside the city, but knew something dreadful had happened in Hiroshima when they saw trucks passing their temporary home carrying badly burned victims. As Hiroshima prepares to mark 80 years since the city was destroyed in the world's first nuclear attack, the 90-year-old is one of a small number of hibakusha – survivors of the atomic bombings – still able to recall the horrors they witnessed after their home was reduced to rubble in an instant. At 8:15am on 6 August, the Enola Gay, a US B-29 bomber, dropped a nuclear bomb on the city. 'Little Boy' detonated about 600 metres from the ground, with a force equivalent to 15,000 tonnes of TNT. Between 60,000 and 80,000 people were killed instantly, with the death toll rising to 140,000 by the end of the year as victims succumbed to burns and illnesses caused by acute exposure to radiation. Three days later, the Americans dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, killing 74,000. And on 15 August, a demoralised Japan surrendered, bringing an end to the second world war. Niiyama, one of four sisters, never found her father or his remains, which were likely incinerated along with those of his colleagues. 'My father was tall, so for a long time whenever I saw a tall man from behind, I would run up to him thinking it might be him,' she says. 'But it never was.' With the number of people who survived the bombing and witnessed its immediate aftermath dwindling by the year, it is being left to younger people to continue to communicate the horrors inflicted on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For decades Niiyama, who is a registered hibakusha, said nothing of the trauma she had suffered as a schoolgirl, not even to members of her own family. 'I didn't want to remember what had happened,' she says. 'And many hibakusha stayed quiet as they knew they might face discrimination, like not being able to marry or find a job. There were rumours that children born to hibakusha would be deformed.' It was only when her granddaughter, Kyoko Niiyama, then a high school student, asked her about her wartime experiences that Niiyama broke her silence. 'When my children are older, they'll naturally ask about what happened to their grandmother,' says the younger Niiyama, 35, a reporter for a local newspaper and the mother of two young children. 'It would be such a shame if I wasn't able to tell them … that's why I decided to ask my grandmother about the bomb.' She is one of a growing number of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki studying to become 'family successors' – a local government initiative that certifies the descendants of first-generation hibakusha to record and pass on the experiences of the only people on earth to have lived through nuclear warfare. 'Now that the anniversary is approaching, I can talk to her again,' Kyoko says. 'This is a really precious time for our family.' Last year, survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks won recognition for their campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons when Nihon Hidankyo – a nationwide network of hibakusha – was awarded the Nobel peace prize. But survivors face a race against time to ensure that their message lives on in a world that is edging closer to a new age of nuclear brinkmanship. The world's nine nuclear states are spending billions of dollars on modernising, and in some cases expanding, their arsenals. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has refused to rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons in his war against Ukraine, and last week a veiled nuclear threat by the country's former leader, Dmitry Medvedev, prompted Donald Trump – who had earlier compared US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks – to claim that he had moved two nuclear submarines closer to the region. North Korea's development of nuclear weapons continues unchecked. 'The hibakusha have spent their lifetimes courageously telling their stories again and again, essentially reliving their childhood traumas – to make sure the world learns the reality of what nuclear weapons actually do to people and why they must be abolished, so that no one else goes through what they have suffered,' says Melissa Parke, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. 'These brave hibakusha deserve to have their decades of campaigning vindicated and to witness the elimination of nuclear weapons in their lifetimes. This would provide some nuclear justice.' The number of registered survivors of both attacks fell to just below 100,000 this year, according to the health ministry, compared with more than 372,000 in 1981. Their average age is 86. Just one of the 78 people confirmed to have been within 500 metres of the hypocentre of the blast in Hiroshima is still alive – an 89-year-old man. On the eve of the anniversary, the ministry said it would no longer conduct a survey every 10 years to assess the living conditions and health of hibakusha, saying it wanted to 'lessen the burden' on ageing survivors. Niiyama, who struggles to walk, will watch Wednesday's ceremony at home and pause to remember her father, whose memory is represented by a teacup he used that was retrieved from the devastation. 'I don't like the month of August,' she says. 'I have nightmares around the anniversary. I don't want to think about that day, but I can't forget it. But I'm glad I still remember that I'm a hibakusha.'
The Independent
4 hours ago
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Japan's aging atomic bomb survivors speak out against nuclear weapons
Eighty years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a dwindling number of the aging Japanese survivors are increasingly frustrated by growing nuclear threats and the acceptance of nuclear weapons by global leaders. The U.S. attack on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and three days later on Nagasaki killed more than 200,000 people by the end of that year. Others survived but with radiation illness. About 100,000 survivors are still alive. Many hid their experiences to protect themselves and their families from discrimination that still exists. Others couldn't talk about what happened because of the trauma they suffered. Some survivors have begun to speak out late in their lives, hoping to encourage others to push for the end of nuclear weapons. An English-speaking guide at Hiroshima's peace park Despite numerous health issues, survivor Kunihiko Iida, 83, has devoted his retirement years to telling his story as a way to advocate for nuclear disarmament. He volunteers as a guide at Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park. He wants to raise awareness among foreigners because he feels their understanding of the bombings is lacking. It took him 60 years to be able to talk about his ordeal in public. When the U.S. dropped a uranium bomb on Hiroshima, Iida was 900 meters (yards) away from the hypocenter, at a house where his mother grew up. He was 3 years old. He remembers the intensity of the blast. It was as if he was thrown out of a building. He found himself alone underneath the debris, bleeding from shards of broken glass all over his body. 'Mommy, help!' he tried to scream, but his voice didn't come out. Eventually he was rescued by his grandfather. Within a month, his 25-year-old mother and 4-year-old sister died after developing nosebleeds, skin problems and fatigue. Iida had similar radiation effects through elementary school, though he gradually regained his health. He was almost 60 when he finally visited the peace park at the hypocenter, the first time since the bombing, asked by his aging aunt to keep her company. After he decided to start telling his story, it wasn't easy. Overwhelmed by emotion, it took him a few years before he could speak in public. In June, he met with students in Paris, London and Warsaw on a government-commissioned peace program. Despite his worries about how his calls for nuclear abolishment would be perceived in nuclear-armed states like Britain and France, he received applause and handshakes. Iida says he tries to get students to imagine the aftermath of a nuclear attack, how it would destroy both sides and leave behind highly radioactive contamination. 'The only path to peace is nuclear weapons' abolishment. There is no other way,' Iida said. A regular at anti-war protests Fumiko Doi, 86, would not have survived the atomic bombing on Nagasaki if a train she was on had been on time. The train was scheduled to arrive at Urakami station around 11 a.m., just when the bomb was dropped above a nearby cathedral. With the delay, the train was 5 kilometers (3 miles) away. Through the windows, Doi, then 6, saw the flash. She covered her eyes and bent over as shards of broken windows rained down. Nearby passengers covered her for protection. People on the street had their hair burnt. Their faces were charcoal black and their clothes were in pieces, she said. Doi told her children of the experience in writing, but long hid her status as a survivor because of fear of discrimination. Doi married another survivor. She worried their four children would suffer from radiation effects. Her mother and two of her three brothers died of cancer, and two sisters have struggled with their health. Her father, a local official, was mobilized to collect bodies and soon developed radiation symptoms. He later became a teacher and described what he'd seen, his sorrow and pain in poetry, a teary Doi explained. Doi began speaking out after seeing the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster following a strong earthquake and tsunami, which caused radioactive contamination. She travels from her home in Fukuoka to join anti-war rallies, and speaks out against atomic weapons. 'Some people have forgotten about the atomic bombings ... That's sad," she said, noting that some countries still possess and develop nuclear weapons more powerful than those used 80 years ago. 'If one hits Japan, we will be destroyed. If more are used around the world, that's the end of the Earth,' she said. 'That's why I grab every chance to speak out.' At Hiroshima, learning from survivors After the 2023 Hiroshima G7 meeting of global leaders and the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the grassroots survivors' group Nihon Hidankyo last year, visitors to Hiroshima and Nagasaki peace museums have soared, with about one third of them coming from abroad. On a recent day, most of the visitors at the Hiroshima peace park were non-Japanese. Samantha Anne, an American, said she wanted her children to understand the bombing. 'It's a reminder of how much devastation one decision can make,' Anne said. Katsumi Takahashi, a 74-year-old volunteer specializing in guided walks of the area, welcomes foreign visitors but worries about Japanese youth ignoring their own history. On his way home, Iida, the survivor and guide, stopped by a monument dedicated to the children killed. Millions of colorful paper cranes, known as the symbol of peace, hung nearby, sent from around the world. Even a brief encounter with a survivor made the tragedy more real, Melanie Gringoire, a French visitor, said after Iida's visit. 'It's like sharing a little piece of history.' ___
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
The full horror of the bombing of Hiroshima: Historian IAIN MACGREGOR reveals all 80 years on - as graphic shows how mission that wiped out 80,000 people in an instant unfolded
At 8.15am on August 6, 1945, 'Little Boy' was released from Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress captained by Colonel Paul Tibbets Junior. The first atomic weapon to be used in warfare dropped silently for 43 seconds, with a parachute billowing behind slowing its descent enough to allow Tibbets and his crew to escape the ensuing explosion. At approximately 1,890feet above the Japanese city of Hiroshima it detonated, unleashing a blinding flash and a force of unprecedented magnitude. The bomb missed its target by 800 feet, striking above the Shima Surgical Hospital instead of the Aioi Bridge. The blast obliterated everything within the surrounding square mile. Enola Gay's crew, now six miles away, were rocked by the shockwave. Observers aboard Necessary Evil – one of three other B29s in the mission – began recording the aftermath, capturing the white mushroom cloud rising above 45,000 feet. The immediate reaction aboard the aircrafts was a mix of awe and unease. The usual post-mission levity was absent. Instead, a subdued silence settled over the crews as they turned back south-eastwards toward base. Over Hiroshima, chaos had erupted. The temperature at Ground Zero was estimated to be several thousand degrees, approximately the surface temperature of the sun. The explosion, equal parts fireball and shockwave, levelled buildings, incinerated bodies, and blocked out the sun. Five square miles of the city centre would be consumed by firestorms. Forty thousand were killed in the blink of an eye. At least thirty thousand more would succumb to their injuries over the next forty-eight hours. The mission that was unlike any the world had known had been set in motion from Tinian Island in the Pacific Ocean in the early hours of August 6, 1945. Colonel Tibbets, leading a group of elite aviators from the 509th Composite Group, had been personally visited by General Curtis LeMay, commander of the XX Bomber Command, who handed him sealed orders: 'Special Bombing Mission No. 13'. Hiroshima, a port city in southern Japan, had been chosen because it was deemed a vital urban industrial area and therefore a legitimate military target. Secondary and tertiary targets were designated as Kokura and Nagasaki. No friendly aircraft would be allowed within a 50-mile radius of these locations during the strike, ensuring both secrecy and safety. A safety cordon of U.S. Navy ships and submarines would be positioned towards the Home Islands if the crew should need to ditch in the sea. Preparations on the base were meticulous and cloaked in strict security. LeMay informed Tibbets that 32 copies of the orders were disseminated across bases in Guam, Iwo Jima, and Tinian. Little Boy, an enriched uranium-based device, was carefully guarded, with its components kept disarmed to mitigate risk. Even General LeMay himself was thoroughly searched before the military policeman would allow him to accompany Tibbets to view the 'gadget' in the technical area. Captain William 'Deak' Parsons, who had been assigned from the Manhattan Project as Tibbets' weaponeer, had convinced the 'Tinian Chiefs' - the military and scientific leaders on the base – to arm the bomb only after take-off to avoid the risk of accidental detonation on the base's enormous runway. With the Enola Gay prepared and painted with Tibbets's mother's name on the nose, the 12foot-long bomb was lifted into the aircraft's belly. It bore messages from base crews, including one that read, 'To Emperor Hirohito, from the Boys of the Indianapolis.' The crew, despite understanding the gravity of their mission from their final briefing that night, struggled with the enormity of what lay ahead. They were told to get some rest before the operation, but few could sleep. Tibbets himself played cards to pass the time. He had earlier informed his men that they would be dropping a bomb unlike any other, one capable of unleashing the destructive force of 15,000 tons of TNT. Two key changes were introduced: the aircraft's call sign would be altered from 'Victor' to 'Dimples', and the Enola Gay would fly at a lower altitude at the start of the mission to allow Captain Parsons to arm the bomb safely. The early morning hours saw a flurry of movement as the aircrews departed. Reporters and Manhattan Project officials gathered to document the historic moment. The Enola Gay, unusually heavy with both bomb and extra fuel, took off just before 3 a.m. alongside Necessary Evil and the two other B-29s, The Great Artiste and Big Stink. An hour earlier, three B-29s had taken off to report on weather conditions above the three principal targets. Their information would determine where Tibbet's would drop his lethal payload. En route, as the Enola Gay passed over Iwo Jima, Parsons and his assistant, Lieutenant Jeppson, crawled into the bomb bay and successfully armed the bomb. The aircraft then climbed to its operational altitude of 30,000feet. Soon, Tibbets was informed that Hiroshima was bathed in clear blue skies. It would be the principal target. As the crew approached the city, bombardier Major Tom Ferebee – making use of the hours of preparation that had gone into this moment – took control. He scanned for the Aioi Bridge—a familiar T-shaped landmark selected as the aiming point. When it was in view, Ferebee initiated the final bomb run. Below, the population of the city were making their way to work, opening shops, and children arriving at school. Civilians had no warning of what was coming. Families had only recently returned to their homes after a false air raid warning. Eight-year-old Howard Kakita, visiting from the U.S., was playing with his brother when the bomb exploded. Their grandmother, injured by shattered glass, managed to walk, bloodied but alive. The boys escaped serious injury, but their once-grand home was engulfed in flames. As they fled westward, they encountered endless scenes of horror: burned bodies lining the riverbanks, survivors with skin hanging from their limbs, and others pleading for water. Many who drank soon died, their internal injuries beyond saving. Similarly, 13-year-old Setuko Thurlow had been working at a military office as part of Japan's student mobilisation program when she saw a brilliant flash. Moments later, she found herself buried under rubble. Freed by a stranger's voice, she emerged into a nightmare. Her friends were either crushed or burned alive. She joined others fleeing toward the hills, surrounded by charred, groaning survivors. They brought water to the dying and watched helplessly as the city burned through the night, with black radioactive soot raining from the sky. Other survivors told stories of miraculous escapes, impossible injuries, and unthinkable sights. Sumiko Ogata, a child at the time, carried her injured brother through fire and ruin, dodging collapsing bridges and stepping over bodies. Mitsuko Koshimizu, who had been attending school that morning, found herself digging out classmates and teachers from the rubble. The imagery was haunting: people burned black, the lines between the living and dead blurred by pain and fire. Everywhere, cries for help echoed into the void, with no medical services left to answer them. The blast had obliterated 90 per cent of Hiroshima's structures. Fourteen of the city's sixteen hospitals were gone. Nearly all medical personnel were dead. The fire brigade and emergency services were decimated. Communication lines were cut. Train tracks were twisted and melted. Entire districts had vanished. What was once a thriving city was now a flattened, burning wasteland. Despite the widespread devastation, Tokyo remained largely unaware. The initial state-run news bulletins downplayed the destruction. Even local Japanese officials could not grasp the scale. With Hiroshima's infrastructure destroyed, it was nearly impossible to coordinate relief. In desperation, survivors fled into the surrounding mountains, seeking refuge. In total, it's estimated that 80,000 people died instantly, with tens of thousands more succumbing in the days and weeks that followed. Back on Tinian, the mood was a surreal mix of triumph and exhaustion. The Enola Gay touched down at 2:58 p.m. (local time), and the crews were met by cheering officers and generals. General Carl Spaatz, commander of U.S. Pacific Air Forces in the Pacific, pinned the Distinguished Service Cross on Tibbets's chest. When asked by General LeMay if there were more bombs, Tibbets confirmed there was another one—'Fat Man'—a plutonium bomb, ready for use. The mission's success was confirmed via telegrams to President Truman, who was aboard the USS Augusta as it steamed across the North Atlantic from his conference with Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill at Potsdam. Bursting with excitement, perhaps relief, he stood on his chair in the ship's mess hall and declared to the watching crew that it was the greatest event in history. The ship rang with cheers and whistles as the news spread across the ship. Yet, for the men who had flown the mission, the sense of victory was tempered by an eerie quiet. The usual high-spirited joking and celebration were noticeably absent. Aboard Necessary Evil, the plane's navigator, Lieutenant Russell Gackenbach, noted the strange silence in his plane: 'Instead of relief, there was awe and an overwhelming awareness that they had participated in something the world had never seen before—something that would change warfare and humanity forever.' From above, the mushroom cloud continued to rise, churning into the sky like a living force. Tibbets later recalled that even Dante would have been terrified by what he saw. For those on the ground, the aftermath was Dante's Inferno made real. Hiroshima, a port city once full of life that had launched the Imperial Japanese fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 to start the war in the Pacific, had become a graveyard of ash and silence. Iain MacGregor is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and the author of The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It (Constable).
