These Images Of The Hiroshima Nuclear Bombing Are Still Shocking 75 Years Later
The nuclear weapons were devastating in their destruction, and have served as a cautionary tale for decades.
On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima. The city was a strategic military target, and had been placed off-limits from earlier firebombing raids. The atomic bomb was intended as a tactic to end a long and extremely bloody conflict between the US and Japan in the Pacific. It is estimated that 140,000 people, or one-third of the population, had died as a result of the blast by the end of the year. Most of the casualties were civilians.
Despite repeated calls for Japan to surrender, they refused, and so three days later, on Aug. 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, a major seaport. The second bomb killed an estimated 70,000 people. On Aug. 12, Japan surrendered.
No reports about how local populations were affected by the bombs appeared in the American press until September, and stories about radiation sickness were dismissed as Japanese propaganda. While images of the mushroom cloud were published, photos showing the aftermath were suppressed until the American occupation ended in 1952, and even then they were not widely seen in the US. Seventy-five years later, the photos remain shocking, and important, historic documents of the unprecedented power of nuclear warfare.
In this Aug. 6, 1945, photo released by the US Army, a mushroom cloud billows about one hour after a nuclear bomb was detonated above Hiroshima, Japan.
An aerial view of Hiroshima, some time after the atomic bomb was dropped on this Japanese city.
Hiroshima is seen in ruins following the atomic bomb attack of Aug. 6, 1945.
An atomic bomb victim reveals her wounds, Japan, 1945.
A man recovering after the explosion of the atomic bomb in August 1945 Hiroshima, Japan.
Victims of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, Japan, 1945.
Victims of the atomic bomb, Hiroshima, Japan, 1945.
Left: Keloids, which are dense, fibrous growths that cover scar tissue, are seen on the back of a survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bomb. Right: The burned arms and hands of a Nagasaki survivor.
Bodies of atomic bomb victims are gathered before cremation in August 1945, in Hiroshima, Japan.
Battered religious figures on a hill above a valley after the Americans dropped an atomic bomb in Nagasaki, Japan.
Nagasaki, Japan, September 1945.
A view of the ruins of the city of Hiroshima following the first dropping of the atomic bomb by the United States on Aug. 6, 1945.
Skeletons of trees dominate the landscape in Hiroshima, Sept. 8, 1945, left in ruins after the world's first atomic bomb attack.
A general view from the Hiroshima Higashi Police Station on Aug. 10, 1945, in Hiroshima, Japan.
Soldiers and civilians walk through the grim remains of Hiroshima two days after the atomic bomb explosion of Aug. 6, 1945.
Workers treat patients at the Fukuromachi Relief Station who have been exposed to radiation from the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August 1945.
A Japanese woman attends to her wounded child on the floor of a damaged bank building converted into a hospital, Hiroshima, Japan, Oct. 6, 1945.
A huge expanse of ruins left the explosion of the atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, in Hiroshima.
President Harry S. Truman, with a radio at hand, reads reports of the first atomic bomb raid on Japan while en route home aboard a cruiser.
The atomic bomb exploding over Nagasaki in 1945.
Survivors of the atomic bomb attack of Nagasaki walk through the destruction as fire rages in the background, Aug. 9, 1945.
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Kate Bubacz is the Photo Director for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
Contact Kate Bubacz at kate.bubacz@buzzfeed.com.
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