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N0KFQ > TODAY 06.08.10 19:11l 51 Lines 2291 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 13814_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Aug 6
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Sent: 100806/1638Z @:N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA #:13814 [Branson] FBB7.00i $:13814_N
From: N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
To : TODAY@WW
Aug 6, 1945:
Atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima
On this day in 1945, at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American
B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world's first atom bomb,
over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are
killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are
injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the
year from the effects of the fallout.
U.S. President Harry S. Truman, discouraged by the Japanese
response to the Potsdam Conference's demand for unconditional
surrender, made the decision to use the atom bomb to end the war
in order to prevent what he predicted would be a much greater
loss of life were the United States to invade the Japanese
mainland. And so on August 5, while a "conventional" bombing of
Japan was underway, "Little Boy," (the nickname for one of two
atom bombs available for use against Japan), was loaded onto Lt.
Col. Paul W. Tibbets' plane on Tinian Island in the Marianas.
Tibbets' B-29, named the Enola Gay after his mother, left the
island at 2:45 a.m. on August 6. Five and a half hours later,
"Little Boy" was dropped, exploding 1,900 feet over a hospital
and unleashing the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT. The bomb
had several inscriptions scribbled on its shell, one of which
read "Greetings to the Emperor from the men of the Indianapolis"
(the ship that transported the bomb to the Marianas).
There were 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima before the bomb was
dropped; only 28,000 remained after the bombing. Of the city's
200 doctors before the explosion; only 20 were left alive or
capable of working. There were 1,780 nurses before-only 150
remained who were able to tend to the sick and dying.
According to John Hersey's classic work Hiroshima, the Hiroshima
city government had put hundreds of schoolgirls to work clearing
fire lanes in the event of incendiary bomb attacks. They were
out in the open when the Enola Gay dropped its load.
There were so many spontaneous fires set as a result of the bomb
that a crewman of the Enola Gay stopped trying to count them.
Another crewman remarked, "It's pretty terrific. What a relief
it worked."
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