"Prior to the atomic bomb explosion, Hiroshima had not been bombed at all. This was a highly unusual situation, given that so many Japanese cities had been virtually flattened by repeated raids, and it is speculated that this was a deliberate policy in order to measure exactly how much damage the atomic bomb had done.
Dropped from the USAF B-29 Enola Gay, the bomb exploded at
8.15 am and approximately 75 000 people were killed almost immediately by the blast and
subsequent fires. In comparison, all the bombing in WW II killed about 30 000 people in
London and about another 30 000 in the rest of the UK. The Hiroshima death toll has
probably now reached 200 000 as people continue to die from the radiation after-effects.
Even today, certain types of cancers still occur among Hiroshima’s population in
greater numbers than other comparable cities.
The first atomic explosion, the testing of a plutonium bomb, had taken place less than
three weeks previously in the USA. The Hiroshima bomb used uranium, while the bomb dropped
on Nagasaki three days later on 9 August used plutonium. On 2 September the Japanese
surrendered. Ever since these events, there has been speculation as to whether it was
necessary to drop the bomb, whether a demonstration of its capabilities could have
prompted the Japanese surrender and whether a warning should have been given. Whether the
Japanese would have resorted to using atomic weapons if they had invented them first has
raised less speculation.
What is certain is that two bombs equivalent to a total of 38 kilotons of TNT brought
Japan to its knees, despite a history of spectacular suicide which had shown that death
was very often preferable to surrender. Also, the horrendous camage at Okinawa had clearly
shown that an invasion of the Japanese mainland was not going to be an easy task.
Today, nuclear weapons can have an explosive power equivalent to 50 megatons of TNT, over
1 000 times greater than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined. Given the devastating
effects achieved by two relatively small nuclear bombs, why on earth do we still need
thousands of much larger weapons just a button’s push away?" – Tony Wheeler