The atomic bombing of Hiroshima was a nuclear attack at the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States at the order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman. After six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities, the nuclear weapon “Little Boy” was dropped on Monday, August 6, 1945. The bomb killed as many as 140,000 people. Since then, thousands more have died from injuries or illness attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bomb.
On May 10-11, 1945, the Target Committee at Los Alamos, recommended Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura as possible targets. The criteria included targets larger than three miles in diameter and in a large urban area; the blast would create effective damage; and were unlikely to be attacked by August 1945. Hiroshima was described as “an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area.” The goal of the weapon was to convince Japan to surrender unconditionally.
August 6 was chosen because there had previously been cloud cover over the target. The 393rd Bombardment Squadron B-29 Enola Gay was launched from the West Pacific. The release of the bomb was uneventful. The gravity bomb known as “Little Boy’ took 57 seconds to fall from the aircraft to the predetermined detonation height above the city. It created a blast equivalent to about 13 kilotons of TNT. The radius of total destruction was about one mile.
