On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-1945). An American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki.
There were two bombs dropped, the “little Boy” and the “Fat Man”. The little boy was aboard the Enola Gay named after the pilots mother. The pilots name was Colonel Paul Tibbets. The Little Boy weighed over 9,000 pounds and carried Uranium-235. The bomb was dropped by parachute at 8:15 In the morning, and it exploded 2,000 feet above Hiroshima in a blast equal to 12-15,000 tons of TNT, destroying five square miles of the city.
Hiroshima was the primary target of the first nuclear bombing mission on August 6th, with Kokura and Nagasaki as alternate targets. The plane that dropped the bomb took off from North Field airbase on Tinian, about six hours flight time from japan. The Enola Gay was accompanied by two other planes, The Great Artiste, commanded by Major Charles Sweeney. The other plane was called the Necessary Evil. The target in Hiroshima was the Aioi Bridge, one of 81 bridges connecting the seven-branched delta of the Ota River.
Due to high winds and rain the bomb missed the Aioi Bridge by 800 feet. The area of total vaporization from the atomic bomb blast measured one half mile in diameter. Total destruction one mile in diameter. Severe blast damage as much as two and a half miles, everything flammable burned. The remaining area of the blast zone was riddled with serious blazes that stretched out to the final edge at a little over three miles in diameter.
The First Western scientists, servicemen and journalists to arrive on the scene produced vivid ad heartrending reports describing a charred landscape populated by hideously burnt people, coughing up blood and urinating blood and waiting to die.
http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/atomic_bomb_2.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/atomic-bomb-dropped-on-hiroshima
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