Japan and the world commemorated the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, inaugurating a new era of human history.
At 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber known as the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, unleashing a destructive force never seen before. Tens of thousands were instantly vaporized or killed in the immediate blast wave, with tens of thousands more dying of radiation sickness over the ensuing weeks and months. Three days later, another, more powerful plutonium bomb was dropped on Nagasaki after clouds obscured the intended target of Kokura, killing many thousands more. The bombs, combined with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria on Aug. 9, precipitated Japan’s surrender on Aug. 15, finally ending the deadliest war in human history.
The 80th anniversary of this pivotal event in history is particularly notable, as it will be the last milestone for most of the few remaining survivors. According to NPR, the average age of survivors is over 86.
Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui led the commemoration at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, warning against the increased dangers associated with nuclear buildups, referencing escalating tensions over the War in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East.
“These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” he said. “They threaten to topple the peacebuilding frameworks so many have worked so hard to construct.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was among the roughly 55,000 people at the ceremony. The commemoration drew representatives from 120 countries and regions, the highest number since the annual ceremonies began. Among the representatives were those from Russia and Belarus.
The ceremony included a moment of silence at 8:15 a.m. and the release of white doves. Many of the dwindling number of survivors were also in attendance, including one of the youngest — 79-year-old Kosei Mito, who suffered radiation poisoning in his mother’s womb.
“There will be nobody left to pass on this sad and painful experience in 10 years or 20 years,” Minoru Suzuto, a 94-year-old survivor, told NPR. “That’s why I want to share [my story] as much as I can.”
The atomic bomb was created as part of the Manhattan Project, an effort by the United States to unite hundreds of its greatest scientific minds to harness a then-theoretical superweapon. The first nuclear weapon was detonated in secret at Alamogordo Bombing Range in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, inaugurating the Atomic Age.
The existence of the atomic bomb was unknown to almost everyone worldwide when it was first detonated on Aug. 6. Even most of the American airmen who flew on the pivotal mission were kept in the dark until it detonated.
William Laurence, whose B-29, The Great Artiste, accompanied the Enola Gay in a supporting role, was awestruck by the purple-pink light, followed by a massive column of brown smoke and ash above him.
“We watched it shoot upward like a meteor coming from the earth instead of from outer space, becoming ever more alive as it climbed skyward through the white clouds. It was no longer smoke, or dust, or even a cloud of fire. It was a living thing, a new species of being, born right before our incredulous eyes,” he said of the incident.
President Harry S. Truman finally unveiled the existence of the atomic bomb shortly after, promising its continued use if the Japanese Empire didn’t immediately surrender.
“It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East,” he told the public.
Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb remains, 80 years later, arguably the single most controversial decision in human history. The ethics of the atomic bomb’s use, its necessity, the effect it had on Japan’s ultimate decision to surrender, its legality, the choice of Hiroshima as the target, and numerous other factors remain hotly debated by historians and laymen to this day.
Critics tend to argue that the atomic bombs were unnecessary, inflicting unspeakable devastation on cities filled with civilians against an enemy that was already defeated and soon going to surrender. Others argue that the strategic air campaign, combined with the blockade of the Japanese mainland, would have starved Japan into submission.
The two most recent, definitive English-language accounts of the final year of the Pacific War; Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944–1945 by Waldo Heinrichs and Marc Gallicchio, published in 2017, and Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944–1945 by Ian Toll, published in 2020, largely support the traditional interpretation, that the atomic bomb was necessary to end the war quickly.
Heinrichs and Gallicchio documented the tremendous logistical and morale issues that risked hampering the United States’s planned invasion of Japan in November that year, Operation Olympic, which required moving millions of U.S. soldiers across the globe against a fanatical populace. Despite the destruction of Japan’s navy and most of its air force, the military high command was aware of U.S. public fatigue and so still confident of its ability to inflict enough casualties against invading U.S. troops to precipitate a negotiated peace short of what the U.S. desired. The shock of the atomic bombs was the critical factor in breaking the deadlock among the Japanese high command.
“Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that Truman and Marshall understood that the atomic bomb had been indispensable and that it alone had brought the kind of victory they sought,” Heinrichs and Gallicchio concluded.
Toll hit on many of the same themes, outlining the fanaticism of the Japanese military and threats of a coup if their leaders tried to pursue peace. It was only the shock of the atomic bomb that precipitated the decisive intervention of the emperor, who demanded surrender on nearly all of the Allies’ conditions.
“Given the circumstances, and Truman’s limited options, I believe it was justified to use this new weapon to hasten the war’s end,” Toll wrote in an August 2020 article for the National World War II Museum.
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In Twilight of the Gods, Toll relayed the recollection of Paul Fussell, a then-21-year-old Army lieutenant who was set to invade Japan after he learned of the bombing.
“We cried with relief and joy. We were going to live. We were going to grow up to adulthood after all,” he said.