Hiroshima Day

Hiroshima Day is observed annually on the 6th of August on the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945.

Here is the entry for Hiroshima Day from World BEYOND War’s Peace Almanac:

On this day in 1945 the American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton atomic bomb — equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT — on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb destroyed four square miles of the city and killed 80,000 people. In the weeks following, thousands more died from wounds and radiation poisoning. President Harry Truman, who had assumed office less than four months earlier, claimed that he made the decision to drop the bomb after being told by his advisers that dropping the bomb would end the war quickly and would avoid the need to invade Japan, which would result in the deaths of a million American soldiers. This version of history does not hold up to scrutiny. Several months earlier, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area, had sent a 40-page memo to President Roosevelt that summarized five different offers of surrender from high-ranking Japanese officials. The USA, however, knew that the Russians had made significant advances in the east and in all likelihood would be in Japan by September, well before the U.S. could mount an invasion. If this were to pass, Japan would surrender to Russia, not the U.S. This was unacceptable to the U.S., which had already developed a post-war strategy of economic and geo-political hegemony. So, despite strong opposition from military and political leaders and Japan’s willingness to surrender, the bomb was dropped. Many have called this the first act of the Cold War. Dwight D. Eisenhower said years later, “Japan was already defeated . . . dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary.”