Hiroshima

Hiroshima

On August 6, 1945 the nuclear weapon Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima by Enola Gay, a U.S. Air Force B-29 bomber which was designed exclusively to hold the bomb, killing an estimated 80,000 people and seriously damaging 80% of the city. In the next months, an estimated 60,000 more people died from injuries or radiation poisoning. Since 1945, several thousand more have died of illnesses caused by the bomb. It was the second such device to be detonated, the first being the successful test at the Manhattan Project's desert test site, and the first ever to be used in military action. It has been claimed that the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were major factors that led to the Japanese surrender, and the official end of World War II. In Hersey’s book, Hiroshima, he works hard to bring to life what so many people could only imagine. By giving life to characters and putting them into situations during the bombings we, as readers, are able to try to put ourselves into these situations.

In chapter one we are introduced to the main characters described in Hiroshima, providing a window into the normal lives of each in the hours leading up to the explosion. For the most part the lives of the characters seem normal, like the lives we all live, but there is also a fair amount of wartime anxiety and disruption. Everyone’s lives are touched by the war, even in the most indirect ways. Hersey shows how wartime hardship is woven into every character’s daily existence: Mrs. Nakamura, for example, every night she has taken herself and her children to a place of protection and because of this habitual action the siren warnings have lost the importance to her. Many people, it seems, are both anxious and unconcerned at the same time. The other common facet in each character’s story is the sheer confusion generated by the bombing. Many people anticipate hearing the sound of approaching planes or the warnings or the air-raid sirens, but nobody hears anything before the bomb is dropped. The first moment is, as Hersey describes it, a “noiseless flash,” amazingly bright and powerful, toppling and demolishing buildings before anyone even hears a sound. Most of the people who survive are just lucky to be in a safe place at the right time. Hersey refrains from making unambiguous ethical judgments, but it’s difficult to miss the fact that the confusion and chaos that the populace of Hiroshima undergoes reflect the United States’ intentional decision not to warn the civilians in Hiroshima about the looming bomb attack.

The complete perplexity of the citizens of Hiroshima, and emphasis of