Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan by J. Samuel Walker

Author:J. Samuel Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6: Hiroshima and Nagasaki

At 2:45 A.M. on August 6, 1945, a B-29 under the command of Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, a 29-year-old veteran pilot, began to roll down a runway on Tinian Island to take off on its historic mission to Hiroshima. The plane, which Tibbets had named Enola Gay after his mother, carried a crew of 12 men and an atomic bomb fueled with uranium 235. As it flew over Iwo Jima, it was joined by two other B-29s; their crews would seek scientific information on and take photographs of the blast. Tibbets informed his crew after takeoff that the cargo they would deliver was an atomic bomb, but otherwise the flight was uneventful. The weather was clear and the Enola Gay did not encounter resistance from anti-aircraft fire or enemy fighters. The fleet of just three planes caused little alarm when it appeared over Hiroshima; no warning sirens sounded and citizens saw no reason to seek shelter.

At about 8:15 A.M. (Hiroshima time) the Enola Gay’s bombardier released the bomb. It was festooned with messages that would never be read, some obscene, some wrathful; one offered “Greetings to the Emperor from the men of the Indianapolis.” Forty-three seconds after leaving the plane, the bomb exploded, proving that the uranium 235, gun-type design worked as Manhattan Project scientists had promised. Even at 30,000 feet and 11 miles from ground zero, the Enola Gay was hit by two strong shock waves that bounced it around in the air and made a noise, as one crew member recalled, “like a piece of sheet metal snapping.” When the plane circled back to take a look at the effects of the atomic bomb, even the battle-hardened veterans aboard were stunned. Copilot Robert Lewis declared: “We were struck dumb at the sight. It far exceeded all our expectations. Even though we expected something terrific, the actual sight caused all of us to feel that we were Buck Rogers 25th Century Warriors.” Tail gunner Robert Caron described the mushroom cloud from the explosion as “a spectacular sight, a bubbling mass of purple-gray smoke.”1

On the ground the bomb produced a ghastly scene of ruin, desolation, and human suffering. After the bomb exploded in the air about 1,900 feet above Hiroshima, witnesses reported seeing a searing flash of light, feeling a sweeping rush of air, and hearing a deafening roar, which was intensified by the sound of collapsing buildings. The city lay on flat ground on the edge of Hiroshima Bay, and the level surface on which it was situated allowed the destructive energy of the atomic bomb to flow evenly outward from the point of detonation. As a result, an area of about 4.4 square miles surrounding ground zero was almost completely devastated. Only a few structures that had been built to withstand earthquakes were strong enough to weather the atomic blast.

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