It was the best of times, it was the worst off times.  August 6, 1945.

Harry Truman was aboard the the US Cruiser Augusta, coming home from the Potsdam Conference, with Stalin and Churchill, when he was informed the US had just dropped the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.  He was exultant.  It is said he traversed the entire ship going person to person, officers and crew alike, telling them the great news, like a town crier.  "This is the greatest thing in history".

This watch belonged to Kengo Futagawa.  He was riding his bicycle to work across the Kennon Bridge, about a mile from ground zero,  at the time of the blast.  He jumped into the river terribly burned.  He made it home that day, but died on August 22 from his injuries.

.

Best guess is around 318,000 people died from that bomb drop.  70,000 people died instantly as a result of initial blast, heat, and radiation effects.  This included about twenty American airmen being held as prisoners in the city.  By the end of 1945, because of the effects of radioactive fallout the Hiroshima death toll was over 100,000.  The five-year death total exceeded 200,000, as cancer and other long-term effects took hold.

 

The world war would end shortly afterward. 

It was the best of times and the worst of times.

The world still lives in fear of nuclear weapons getting into the "wrong" hands to this day.

 

Where are the peacemakers? 

Comments

[Ed Bilger]

I wonder, how many people had already died in the Second World War by the time the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and how many casualties had been specifically attributed to Imperial Japan's actions prior to Pearl Harbor and between Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima? People's lives are much more than statistics, but these would be interesting to note.

[Tim ONeil St Louis, MO]

Official estimates are between 46-78 million people, soldiers and civilians lost their lives during World War 2.