At
the Epicenter
The first atomic bomb used in war
was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Shortly after 8 o'clock
on the morning of Monday, August 6, the Enola Gay, a U.S. B-29 bomber
that carried the bomb, flew over Hiroshima. Masanobu Furuta, an
announcer of NHK-Hiroshima, was on duty that day. He rushed to a
radio studio as soon as the air raid alarm was sounded by the Chugoku
Military Headquarters. [Information
from Chugoku Military Headquarters: 3 large enemy planes flying
west over Saijo City (Ehime Prefecture). Status of high alert for
all.] As Furuya read the phrase "over Saijo City,"
he heard a loud creaking and felt the ferroconcrete building tilt
heavily.
Hiroshima Destroyed And Alone
The "special bomb" devastated
the whole city of Hiroshima in an instant. Almost all municipal,
prefectural and military links with the outside were cut. (Japan's
2nd General Headquarters was based in Hiroshima.) The radio studios
of NHK-Hiroshima (about a kilometer from ground zero) were ruined,
and the building of the Chugoku Shimbun newspaper company was
utterly destroyed. Hardly any way was left to communicate news
of the destruction wrought by the first wartime use of an atomic
weapon to the outside. The only surviving link was a line that
NHK-Hiroshima had installed at its transmitting station at Hara
in the suburbs of the city. The devastation of Hiroshima was first
reported to the outside world by way of this single line.
A Stillborn First A-bomb Report:
"Hiroshima Completed Destroyed by a Special Bomb, 170,000
Killed"
Hara Transmitting Station was also an
emergency evacuation facility for the Hiroshima Branch Office
of the Domei-Tsushin News Agency. Satoshi Nakamura, a Domei-Tsushin
correspondent, was staying at a colleague's house in the suburbs.
He sent the initial A-bomb report to NHK-Okayama at about 11:30
a.m., asking that station to convey the report to the Okayama
Branch Office of the Domei-Tsushin.
[At roughly 8:16 am. August 6, one or two large enemy planes flew
over Hiroshima and dropped a special bomb that devastated the
city. The death toll is thought to be about 170,000.] This
report was sent to the Central Office of the Domei in Tokyo via
the Okayama Branch, then passed on to the Imperial Headquarters,
and finally stopped there.
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Beneath the Mushroom Cloud
Hiroshima was reeling under the most devastating
attack ever experienced by mankind, a true inferno beneath the
mushroom cloud.
The atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima instantaneously.
How horrendous was the weapon? Reports on the number of casualties
differ. Hiroshima's total population is said to have numbered
about 420,000, including 250,000 civilian residents, 80,000 military
personnel, and 90,000 non-residents or visitors.
At 1:30 a.m. August 7 (Japan time), U.S.
President Harry Truman announced that the new bomb dropped on
Hiroshima was an atomic bomb.
Another A-bomb Dropped - Nagasaki
The Soviet Union entered the war on August
8, and the following day, August 9, another atomic bomb was dropped,
this time on Nagasaki. The initial target was Kokura, but poor
visibility due to clouds caused the B-29 bomber carrying the A-bomb
to make a hasty change of target. The second atomic bomb in history
was dropped from an altitude of 9,600 meters above Nagasaki at
11:02 a.m.
NHK-Nagasaki was located 2,250 meters south-southeast of the epicenter
of the A-bomb blast. Its transmitter was safe thanks to sandbag
blast barriers but it could not broadcast because the army had
commandeered the power generator. The Kyushu Haiden power company
and an army team restored the service on August 13.
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