Dulce Et Decorum Est

Donated by Kazuo Nikawa
1,600m from the hypocenter
Kan-on Bridge

Kengo Nikawa (then, 59) was exposed to the bomb crossing the Kan-on Bridge by bike going from his home to his assigned building demolition site in the center of the city. He suffered major burns on his right shoulder, back, and head and took refuge in Kochi-mura Saiki-gun. He died on August 22. Kengo was never without this precious watch given him by his son, Kazuo.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 in the morning, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb over the center of the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The bombing was the first use of nuclear weapons in the history of the world.

The bomb exploded about 200 yards over the city, creating a 13 kiloton explosion, a fireball, a shockwave, and a burst of radiation. When the bomb was dropped about 255,000 people lived in Hiroshima.

Somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 people–about one third of the population of the city–were killed instantly: some were vaporized or burned to death by the heat of the explosion; some were killed by the force of the shockwave or crushed under collapsing buildings; some died from acute radiation poisoning–that is, from their internal organs being burned away by the intense radiation from the blast. By December 1945, thousands more had died from their injuries, from radiation poisoning, or from cancers related to the radioactive burst or the fallout. It is estimated that the atomic bombing killed about 140,000 people (more than half the population) and leaving thousands more with permanent disabilities.

The explosion completely incinerated everything within a one mile radius of the city center. The shockwave and the fires ignited by the explosion damaged or completely destroyed about nine-tenths of the buildings in the city.

Almost all of the people maimed and killed were civilians: although there were some minor military bases near Hiroshima, the bomb was dropped on the city center, whereas the military bases were several miles away on the edge of town. Hiroshima was chosen as a target, in spite of its military unimportance, because It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focussing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. 1. Hiroshima was also one of the largest Japanese cities not yet damaged by the American firebombing campaign. Military planners believed it strategically important to demonstrate as much destruction as possible from the blast.

Thomas Ferebee dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. His commanding officer was the pilot of the Enola Gay, Paul Tibbets. Tibbets and Ferebee were part of the XXI Bomber Command, directed by Curtis LeMay. LeMay planned and executed the atomic bombings at the behest of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and President Harry Truman.

Kengo Nikawa died on August 22nd, 1945 because of the bombing. This is his pocket watch.

We will never know the names of many of the 140,000 other residents of Hiroshima who were killed by the bombing. We have only estimates because the Japanese government was in a shambles by this point in the war, and countless records, of those that were successfully kept, were consumed by the flames, along with the people whose lives they recorded.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 6th, 2006 at 8:15 am. It is filed under Museum displays, Photography and tagged Aerial bombardment, Burns, Cancer, Curtis LeMay, Harry S. Truman, Henry L. Stimson, Hibakusha, Hiroshima, Japan, Kazuo Nikawa, Kengo Nikawa, Nuclear weapons, Paul Tibbets, Radiation poisoning, Thomas Ferebee, World War II. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.