On August 9, 1945, an American atomic bomb fell on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. This was the second time in human history that nuclear weapons were used. The consequences of the explosion were horrendous. 74 thousand people were killed and more than fifty thousand buildings were destroyed. The tragedy happened three days after the first American atomic attack on the city of Hiroshima.
On the day of remembrance of the victims of the disaster, Komsomolskaya Pravda made a selection of 10 photographs of the horrific consequences of this nuclear attack.
1. Photo mushroom cloud over Nagasaki. A huge nuclear mushroom over Nagasaki was photographed on August 9, 1945 from a neighboring island, located 20 kilometers from the city, by the Japanese Hiromichi Matsuda. This picture was taken 20 minutes after a US bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the city.
2. Black shadow. Near the epicenter of the explosion, the temperature was so strong that most of the living beings were instantly turned into steam. The internal organs of people in seconds became boiled, and burned bones turned into stone. Shadows on the stairs, on the parapets, near the buildings - all that remains of the people who were at the epicenter of the explosion.
3. Mother and child try to move on. Photographer Yosuke Yamahata took this photograph on August 10, 1945, the day after the bombing of Nagasaki. He walked around the city and photographed the consequences of the disaster until dark and one day became the owner of the most exclusive photographs taken immediately after the tragedy.
This photo was also taken by Yosuke Yamahata the day after the nuclear explosion in Nagasaki. By the way, as a result of the fact that the photographer spent the whole day in the zone of increased background radiation, he became mortally ill. 20 years after that day, he died of cancer at the age of 48.
The photo was taken by American Stanley Troutman. A nuclear bomb that hit the city destroyed everything within a radius of six kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion, including residential buildings. According to the Manhattan Design Center, 95 percent of the people who died on the day of the Nagasaki explosion died from burns, the rest from flying debris and glass.
6. A boy carries his brother on his back. This is another photo taken on August 10, 1945 by Yosuke Yamahata. The picture, like most other photos, was made public after the end of the war by UN staff. Prior to this, the photographs had never been shown to the world media by the Japanese side.
7. Tram and its dead passengers. In the upper part of the photo - in the center - a tram is captured, which was overturned by a blast wave. And nearby in the trench from the explosion are its dead passengers. The picture was taken on September 1, 1945 by someone in the US Army.
The photo was taken by American Stanley Troutman on September 13, 1945 in the destroyed Nagasaki, a little over a month after the atomic attack. According to the most plausible data from the Manhattan Design Center, on August 9, 1945, 74,000 people died in Nagasaki. However, it is extremely difficult to determine the total number of victims. The destruction of hospitals, fire and police stations, and government offices created complete confusion in the count of the dead. There was no data on the population before the bombing. The Japanese regular census was not complete. In addition, large-scale fires completely swallowed up many bodies. All this affected the calculations of total losses.
On August 9, 1945, when the bomb was dropped, Yamahata was on assignment near Nagasaki. As soon as he learned of the tragedy, he traveled by train with writer Juna Higashi and artist Eiji Yamada to document the devastation in the city. He took 119 photographs that day, which were subsequently seized by the arriving US troops.
Yamahata was able to hide the negatives. It was these photographs that were found in the photo album of a person who was unaware of the significance of the pictures that he kept.
Describing what he saw in Nagasaki, Yamahata said "this is hell on earth".
In 1952 he wrote:
“Human memory tends to elude and critical judgment to dull with the passage of years and changes in lifestyle and circumstances. But the camera, as if capturing the cruel reality of that time, brought the reality frozen seven years ago to your eyes without the slightest embellishment.
NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!
The nuclear bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (Hiroshima) and Nagasaki (Nagasaki) claimed the lives of more than 250 thousand people.
It was the biggest massacre in the history of mankind. However, for a long time, in journalistic circles, there was a practice of falsifying real photographs from the scene. Even today, no photographs can be found in the archives, except for dilapidated ruins and buildings. Of course, these photos are also shocking in their own way, but they are very, very far from the truth.
The American occupying forces imposed strict censorship on photographic materials that directly or indirectly affect the scale of the disaster. Everything that "could in one way or another disturb the peace of our citizens" was confiscated and sent to the Pentagon archives. These photographs were kept for a long time under the headings of "top secret". Some of them were published much later, when the noise died down. One way or another, they reflect a human tragedy that we simply must NEVER FORGET.
All clocks found in the disaster area stopped at 8:15 am, the time of the explosion.
Near the epicenter of the explosion, the temperature was so strong that most of the living beings were instantly turned into steam. The shadows on the parapets from people were imprinted even half a mile south-southeast of the epicenter on the Yorozuyo Bridge. All that's left of the people in Hiroshima, sitting on rocks that haven't melted, are handfuls of black shadows.
The photo below shows how on the marble steps of the bank, on which the woman passed, only her footprint remained, scorched by the terrible heat.
On August 6, 1945, at exactly 8:15 am, the uranium-filled atomic bomb exploded 580 meters above the city of Hiroshima. It exploded with a blinding flash, a giant fireball and a temperature of more than 4000C degrees above the earth's surface. Fire waves and radiation spread instantly in every direction, creating a blast wave of super-compressed air that brings death and destruction. In a few seconds, the 400-year-old city was literally reduced to ashes. People, animals, plants and any other organic bodies were vaporized. Sidewalks and asphalt melted, the building collapsed, and the dilapidated structure was demolished by the blast.
Women, men and children, taken by surprise during an ordinary working day, were killed in a terrible way. Their internal organs instantly boiled, the bones from the terrible heat turned into solid coal.
Even not in the center of the explosion, the temperature was so high that it allowed to instantly melt stones and steel. Within a second, 75,000 people received injuries and burns incompatible with life. More than 65% of deaths were in children nine years of age and younger.
Even now, death from radiation damage overtakes the Japanese. “Without any external cause, health begins to plummet. They lose their appetite, then their hair begins to fall out. Large spots, like burns from boiling water, begin to appear all over the body. Then the bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth begins, and as a result, death.
Doctors give the patient "an injection of vitamin A to maintain the body. The result is terrible and unpredictable. The flesh begins to rot, starting from the hole at the injection site, then expands, hitting the internal organs. One way or another, it leads to death.”
The photograph shows an acquired cataract from the outbreak of an atomic bomb. The pupil is the small white dot in the center of the eyeball.
Hibakusha is a widely used Japanese term for victims or people associated in one way or another with the explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese word roughly translates to "people affected by the explosion".
They and their children have been and continue to be victims of inhuman disease-related discrimination from radiation exposure. People consider such people cursed and avoid them in every possible way.
Many of them were fired from their jobs. Hibakusha women will never marry, as many are afraid to have children from them. It is believed that nothing good will come of marriage with a hibakusha. "No one wants to marry a man who is going to die one way or another in a couple of years."
Yosuke Yamahata began photographing the aftermath of the tragedy. The city was dead. He walked through the dark, dilapidated ruins, among the dead bodies for hours. Late in the evening, he took the last photo near the medical station in the north of the city. In one day, he became the owner of the most exclusive photographs taken immediately after the disaster in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He later wrote: “A warm wind began to rise, and here and there I saw little lights from the fires, like rotten ones glowing in the dark. They were the remains of a great fire. The city of Nagasaki was completely destroyed."
The photographs of Yamahata are considered the most complete documentary evidence of the horrors of the atomic bombing. The New York Times called the photos "one of the most stunning photographs ever taken."
I suggest you watch the harsh footage from the time of the explosions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The pictures that you will see in the sequel are really not for the faint of heart and show the whole reality that happened during those unpleasant times.
Nagasaki. The photo was taken on August 10, in the area of the Mitsubishi steel plant. This is about 1 kilometer south of the epicenter of the explosion. The elderly woman appears to have lost her bearings and her sight. Also, her appearance also suggests the loss of any sense of reality.
Nagasaki. 10 a.m. August 10. Last sip. People died quickly after receiving mortal wounds
Hiroshima. Still a living person with deep burns all over his body. There were hundreds of them. They lay motionless in the streets and waited for their death.
Hiroshima. One second after death
Hiroshima
Nagasaki. An elderly woman received an average dose of radiation, but enough to kill her in a week.
Nagasaki. An exposed woman with a baby is waiting for a doctor's appointment.
Hiroshima. An attempt to cure the legs of a schoolboy. It will not be possible to save the legs, as well as the life of a schoolboy.
Nagasaki. The child is put on a gauze bandage. Part of the child's tissue was burned. Burns of the bones of the hands of the left hand
Nagasaki. Doctors treat the skull burn of an elderly Japanese man
Nagasaki. 230 meters south of the epicenter.
Hiroshima. Mother and her child.
Exhumation of graves in Hiroshima. When the explosion occurred, there were so many victims that they were buried quickly and in mass graves. Later they decided to re-burial.
Nagasaki - 600 meters south of the epicenter
Nagasaki. Shadow.
Hiroshima. 2.3 km. from the epicenter. The concrete parapet of the bridge collapsed.
Hiroshima - wounds 900 meters from the epicenter
Hiroshima. A 21-year-old soldier was exposed to an explosion at a distance of 1 kilometer. Doctors monitored his condition because they were unfamiliar with the effects of radiation. Starting August 18, they note that their hair has begun to fall out. Gradually other symptoms appeared. His gums are bleeding and his body is covered in purple spots due to hypodermal bleeding. His throat swells, which makes it difficult for him to breathe and swallow. Bleeding from the mouth and ulcers of the body. He eventually collapses and dies on 2 September.
Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the aircraft named Enola Gay, from which the atomic bomb had just been dropped, turned away with a shudder at what was before his eyes. “Oh my God, what have we done?!” he exclaimed in horror. Below him was a burning Hiroshima, the city resembled a "basin of boiling black oil." Later, for a long time it seemed to the pilots that they smelled the smell of roasted human flesh ...
The order to bomb Japanese cities was given by American President Harry Truman on July 25, 1945 - to bomb after August 3, as soon as the weather allows.
The weather "allowed" on 6 August. Over Hiroshima at that time there was a cloudless sky and the sun was shining. The city was famous for its beauty, and somehow miraculously escaped the nightmare of nighttime air raids, although throughout the spring and summer the inhabitants listened to the rumble of hundreds of American "superfortresses" flying at great heights.
But the inhabitants of Hiroshima did not know about the fate prepared for them. Monday 6 August began in the same way as the other days of the war. The first alarm sounded at midnight - from 5 to 6 August. Then a large squadron of American aircraft appeared, but they did not bomb the city. At about eight o'clock in the morning, Japanese observers noticed three aircraft in the sky, but decided that they would be engaged in reconnaissance, and the alarm was not announced. After two nighttime air raid alerts, few paid attention to the third one. People continued to go about their usual morning activities.
And the Enola Gay, carrying the bomb, affectionately named "The Kid," had already set off on a flight that changed human history forever. At 8:16 am Japanese time, the atomic charge exploded. According to the Japanese press, the bomb was dropped from a height of eight thousand meters by parachute and exploded at an altitude of 550 meters from the ground. About one minute passed between the opening of the parachute and the explosion, and then a mushroom that had never been seen before appeared.
Everyone saw the flash, but no sound was heard. A silent flash split the sky and turned Hiroshima into the burning inside of a blast furnace. Only those who were at a distance of 30–40 kilometers heard an unusually strong explosion, rather like a thunderclap, and only then saw a blinding flame.
At a distance of up to three hundred meters from the epicenter of the explosion, people literally evaporated, turning into a shadow on the bridge, on the wall, on the pavement. Or turned to ashes… Deadly lightning imprinted on the stone of one of the bridges the shadows of nine pedestrians. They burned, evaporated, not even having time to fall. Those who were within a radius of one kilometer in the epicenter zone received a lethal dose of ionizing radiation, the insides of the dead fell out, their faces turned into pieces of meat after burns. In the center of the explosion, even those who were hiding in shelters did not escape. Those who were at a distance of one and a half kilometers received severe burns, even further away they died under collapsing buildings.
The firestorm that arose after the explosion burned literally everything in an area of ten square kilometers. Trees, plants - all living things froze without movement, without colors. Pine trees, bamboo and other trees were singed and turned brown.
Hiroshima did not suffer a quick total death, not a sudden mass paralysis, and not instantaneous death. Men, women and children were doomed to excruciating agony, mutilation and infinitely slow extinction. In the first hours and days after the disaster, the city did not look like a quiet cemetery. Hiroshima did not look like a city destroyed by war either. This could only be the end of the world. Humanity seemed to have destroyed itself, and the survivors seemed like suicidal losers.
Hiroshima remained a living city, only full of chaotic traffic. It was a city of torment and suffering, in which, day and night, the screams and groans of helplessly swarming people did not stop for a minute. Everyone who could still somehow walk or hobble was looking for something: water, something to eat, a doctor, or just medicine. They searched for their loved ones and often found them when their suffering was over.
And three days later, at about ten o'clock in the morning on August 9, an atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. Before that, American planes also appeared over the city, and an alarm was announced. Then there was a retreat, and when two planes reappeared over the city, they were no longer paid attention to.
Nagasaki is divided by a large mountain into two parts: the old and the new city. The bomb fell and exploded over the new city, and the old one suffered less, as the mountain prevented the distribution of deadly rays. But at the center of the explosion, the temperature reached 10,000°C. At this temperature, stones and sand melted, tiles on the roofs of houses were covered with bubbles. The fire that had begun spread quickly, and people fled in panic, not knowing where. The fiery avalanche, bringing death, caused an air wave of monstrous destructive power. It rushed at a speed of 700 meters per second, while the strongest typhoons reach speeds of 60-80 meters per second. Even in the small town of Cuba, located at a distance of 27 kilometers from Nagasaki, glass flew out of the windows.
People died in terrible agony. Subjected to the action of an atomic bomb, they died immediately if they were given a drink on the same day or simply washed their wounds with water. The radiation affected the bone marrow. In people who looked perfectly healthy, even a few years after the disaster, their hair suddenly fell out, their gums began to bleed, their skin became covered with dark spots, and then they died.
From the action of radiation, white blood cells were destroyed, of which there are about eight thousand in the human body per cubic millimeter of blood. After exposure to ionizing radiation, their number decreased to three thousand, two, one, and even only to ... two hundred or three hundred. Therefore, people began to bleed heavily from the nose, throat and even from the eyes. The body temperature rose to 41-42°C, and after two or three days the person died.
On the day of the atomic explosion, 430,000 people lived in Hiroshima. At the beginning of February 1946, the statistics were as follows: 78,150 people died, 13,983 were missing, 9,428 were seriously injured, 27,997 people received minor injuries, and 176,987 other injuries. A total of 306,545 people were injured.
In Nagasaki (at the end of October 1945), out of two hundred thousand people, 23,573 died, 1,924 went missing, 23,345 were injured, and 90,000 received various injuries.
These are the figures for the death of only the civilian population, in addition to him, another two hundred thousand soldiers of the Japanese army died.
... In Hiroshima there is the Museum of the World, on the exhibits and photographs of which appears the city-ashes, turned into a fiery hell, through which the survivors roam. In many of the photographs, the dreaded deadly mushroom rises again and again.
Already the first photographs had the most depressing effect on the American pilot Claude Iserli, the commander of the escort aircraft, who reconnoitered the weather before the bombing. He became withdrawn, even unsociable, and soon began to have bouts of severe depression. In 1947, he was demobilized, refusing his pension. The pilot did not tolerate conversations when he was called a "war hero." He didn't want money or fame. Claude Iserli refused an offer to make a film based on his biography, as well as a $10,000 fee for it.
The sight of the destroyed Hiroshima constantly haunted him, and he wrote a letter to the municipality of the city, in which he called himself a criminal. However, the American authorities did not recognize him as a criminal, and then he decided to commit a real crime. Twice Claude Iserli joined the criminal gangs that committed robberies. But he, as a "war hero", was released twice. In October 1960, the American authorities decided to imprison him for life in an insane asylum - in a ward for the especially violent and incurable.
And the inhabitants of Hiroshima rebuilt their city, only at the epicenter of the atomic explosion they left the skeleton of a destroyed building with a scorched dome and empty eye sockets of windows - the Atomic House - unrepaired. The monument in the center of the park is conceived in such a way that the person standing in front of it looks into the past. Under the vault, only the eternal flame is visible, blazing behind the monument, and further - in the streams of hot air, the naked Nuclear House sways unsteadily, as if bending from the heat.
When in August 1945 all living things around this building burned down, the gingo tree also turned into a torch. But contrary to all the assertions that nothing living could exist here for seventy years, already in the spring of the next year a sprout appeared from the ground, which eventually turned into a mighty tree fifteen meters high. The amazing resilience of gingo is due to the fact that it appeared on our planet long before the dinosaurs. Charles Darwin called it a "living fossil", and the Japanese themselves call their relic "a tree that survived the Apocalypse."
Survivor in Hiroshima
And these are all “flowers” compared to what could happen in the future if a world war breaks out. Think, people, about what you do every day. It is "create", by birthright. Take a look at the world around you. Look at the people you meet every day. Almost every person lives in fear and hatred, and only occasionally allows himself to be happy and joyful. It is these feelings: dissatisfaction with oneself, dissatisfaction with life, dissatisfaction with work, dissatisfaction with salary, racism, not wanting to accept other people as they are, etc. (I can go on forever) lead a person to commit such deeds as theft, or murder. If negative emotions prevail over positive ones, war will begin. Don't let yourself wallow in negative emotions. Be happy, regardless of the circumstances, because all the circumstances that happen to us in life - we choose ourselves. Something only happens because we let it happen. Do not choose fear, pain, sadness, hatred - choose love, joy, laughter. And don't just choose it for yourself, but give it to people around you. And give not for some selfish purpose, but simply because it is pleasant. Remember the children's cartoon? "Flowers? For me? Why?" - "Just!". The government can do whatever it pleases. But it will not be able to do anything if the people do not allow it to be done. The bomber pilots made a choice - to listen to the order of the commander, and destroy two huge cities and their inhabitants. If they had made a different choice, nothing would have happened. Yes, they would lose their jobs, and other pilots would be hired to take their place. And those, in turn, could also decide not to bomb cities, and so on. In the end, there would be no pilots who would agree to this. It is unlikely that Truman personally sat at the helm. I made this little digression on the topic "if only, if only" in order to show that the fate of the world, the fate of mankind depends on each individual person, because society is not one person, it is an accumulation of hundreds of individual personalities. And if the person himself changes, the world around him changes. Checked. Therefore, once again I ask you to take a look at the photographs and answer one question for yourself: do you want such a tragedy to repeat itself and touch the whole world, or not? And if not, take action! Sam
August 6, 1945, 8:15 am. A lone figure sat on the stone steps near the Sumitomo Bank in Hiroshima. The right hand of this man was holding a cane, and the left, most likely, lay on his chest.
Suddenly, in a fraction of a second, the figure disappeared - the man's body was incinerated before he knew what was happening around. In place of the stranger, only a shadow remained, which served as an unimaginably eerie outline of the last moment before the atomic bomb exploded over the city.
Innocent victims who didn't realize they were gone
When the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima (and three days later on Nagasaki), Japan was forever changed. 90% of the city turned into ruins, 70,000 people were dead, thousands of people were struck by radiation. Within a few days, the emperor announced an unconditional cessation of armed struggle. By the way, Japan became the first country in the world to breastfeed the lethality of the atomic bomb.
There, among the rubble imprinted on buildings and sidewalks, were the haunting outlines of people who captured their last moments on earth. These shadows showed how quickly the attack took its toll.
Photographs that have survived from those times serve as evidence of how once alive and well figures were in motion, holding on to handrails, reaching for doorknobs or walking behind their comrades.
Terrifying shadows - an imprint of a terrible past
When the bomb exploded approximately 610 meters above the city, the explosion pushed a wave of heat outward. According to data from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the heat was so intense that it bleached the buildings and grounds in the blast zone, leaving behind a dark trail of whatever was in its path.
"Shadows of Hiroshima" were left not only by people. Any object that was in the path of the explosion was also imprinted in the background, including stairs, window panes, plumbing valves, and bicycles. Even if there was nothing in the way, the heat itself left an imprint, marking the sides of the buildings with waves of heat and beams of light.
Shadows that continue to haunt the people of Japan
Perhaps the most famous of the "Shadows of Hiroshima" is the one that shows how a certain figure was sitting on a coastal staircase. This is one of the full pictures left by the explosion. The shadow remained an imprint of a terrible past for 20 years before it was sent to the museum.
In 1967, the man's shadow was still around the Sumitomo Bank building, as clear as ever. These prints were stored somewhere for several decades, until they were eventually washed away by rain and not destroyed by the wind.
When the bank scheduled the restoration, some of the steps were removed and taken to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Today, everyone can see the terrifying shadows of the Japanese city, which testify to the destructive power and death that nuclear weapons bring.