The person’s body immediately deteriorated into bones and carbonized organs. Every object that was in the way of the blast was imprinted as a shadow on the bleached background.Īt the time of the explosion, at 8:15 in the morning, a person was sitting on the steps leading to the bank, waiting for the bank to open. The heatwave literally bleached everything inside of the blast zone. The intense heat reached 4,000 degrees Celsius (7,200 degrees Fahrenheit). The bomb incinerated everything within the blast radius of 1600 meters (one mile). The bank was only 260 meters (850 feet) from the point where the atomic bomb ‘Little Boy’ collided with the city. The shadow got the name ‘Human Shadow of Death’. But the most disturbing photo is the photo of the shadow of a person on the steps of the Sumitomo Bank in Hiroshima. Photographers took many horrific photos of the aftermath of the atomic bombings. Thousands more would die from exposure to heavy radiation in the later years. The atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On the 15th of August, Japan unconditionally surrendered. Three days later, on the 9th of August 1945, a second atomic bomb, called ‘Fat Man’, exploded above Nagasaki.
On the 6th of August 1945, the Americans dropped an atomic bomb with the name ‘Little Boy’ on Hiroshima. Using an atomic bomb in armed conflict forever changed human history. In the end, they chose a weapon that had never been used before - an atomic bomb. The Americans considered alternatives such as poisonous gas or biological weapons. The Japanese decided they’d rather die than surrender. In addition, Japan mobilized a civilian militia of 28 million women and men. The Americans estimated that the invasion would cause up to four million American casualties.Ģ.3 million soldiers defended the Japanese home islands. In 1945, the United States of America was planning the invasion of Japan to finish World War II. A human shadow on the steps of a bank in Hiroshima (Image: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)