On August 9, 1945, three days after the first atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the industrial shipbuilding city of Nagasaki. The primary target for the day’s mission had been Kokura (now part of Kitakyushu), a port to the north of Nagasaki, but poor weather caused a change of plan. The B-29 "Superfortress" bombers diverted to Nagasaki, where the atomic bomb, "Fat Man", was dropped. Although not quite as devastating as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, it killed more than 40,000 people. Within a week, Japan surrendered, bringing an end to World War II. This article from The Times that appeared on September 10, 1945, describes the bombing run to Japan.
Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki
A Pillar of Purple Fire
WITNESS’S ACCOUNT
 |
| The Nagasaki mushroom cloud. A dense column of smoke rises more than 60,000 feet into the air over the Japanese port of Nagasaki, the result of an atomic bomb, the second ever used in warfare, dropped on the industrial center August 8, 1945, from a U.S. B-29 Superfortress. |
NEW YORK, SEPT. 9-The New York Times published to-day a vivid account by an eye-witness of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It was written by William A. Laurence, a science writer for that newspaper and a Nobel prizewinner, who was a consultant to the War Department’s special service that developed the atomic bomb.
Laurence flew in one of the three Super-Fortresses that made the mission to Nagasaki, and most of his account was written en route. He describes in detail, first, the loading of the leading aeroplane with its terrible cargo, and the departure of the mission at midnight, when "threatening black skies" were being "torn open at intervals by great lightning flashes"; a frightening encounter with a storm itself an hour away from the target, with static electricity-what seamen call St. Elmo’s fire-covering the aircraft’s nose and wing tips in blue flame and making "great luminous disks" of its propellers; the emergence from the storm into breaking day; and at last arriving over the Japanese mainland, but shut off from sight of the mission’s primary target by a thick umbrella of clouds.
The aeroplanes circled for some time over their target of first choice before setting out for Nagasaki, 100 miles to the west. They circled again over Nagasaki before finding an opening in the clouds.
"It was 12.01," Laurence wrote, "and the goal of our mission had arrived. We heard the prearranged signal on our radio, put on our arc welders’ glasses, and watched tensely the manoeuvrings of the strike ship about half a mile in front of us.
"THERE SHE GOES!"
"‘There she goes!’ someone said. Out of the belly of the Great Artiste (the
leading aircraft) what looked like a black object went downward. Our
plane swung around to get out of range; but even though we were turning
away in the opposite direction, and in spite of the fact that it was
broad daylight in our cabin, all of us became aware of a giant flash
that broke through the barrier of our arc welders’ lenses and flooded
our cabin with intense light. We removed our glasses after the first
flash, but the lights still lingered on, a bluish-green light that
illuminated the entire sky all around. A tremendous blast wave struck
our ship and made it tremble from nose to tail. This was followed by
four more blasts in rapid succession, each resounding like the boom of
cannon fire, hitting our plane from all directions.
 |
| The patient's skin is burned in a pattern corresponding to the dark portions in the pattern of a kimono worn at the time of the explosion. Atomic bomb survivor. Ca. 1945. |
"Observers in the tail of our ship saw a giant ball of fire rise as though from the bowels of the earth, belching forth enormous white smoke rings. Next they saw a giant pillar of purple fire, 10,000 ft. high, shooting skyward with enormous speed. By the time our ship had made another turn in the direction of the atomic explosion the pillar of purple fire had reached the level of our altitude. Only about 45 seconds had passed. Awestruck we watched the pillar of fire shoot upward like a meteor coming from the earth instead of from outer space, becoming ever more alive as it climbed skyward through the white clouds. It was no longer smoke or dust or even a cloud of fire, it was a living thing, a new species of being, born right before our incredulous eyes. At one stage of its evolution, covering millions of years in terms of seconds, the entity assumed the form of a giant square totem pole, which at its base was about three miles long, tapering off to a mile at the top. Its bottom was brown, its centre was amber, its top white. But it was a living totem pole, carved with many grotesque masks grimacing at the earth.
GIANT MUSHROOM
 |
| In the background, a Roman Catholic cathedral on a hill in Nagasaki. Ca. 1945. Concrete and stone structures survived the bomb's blast effects better than the average wood-and-rice paper home. |
"Then, just when it appeared as though the whole thing had settled down into a state of permanence, there came shooting out of the top a giant mushroom that increased the height of the pillar to a total of 45,000ft. The mushroom-top was even more alive than the pillar, seething and boiling in a white fury of creamy foam, sizzling upwards and then descending earthward, a thousand ‘Old Faithful’ geysers rolled into one.
"It kept struggling in an elemental fury like a creature in the act of breaking the bonds that held it down. In a few seconds it had freed itself from its gigantic stem and floated upward with tremendous speed, its momentum carrying it into the stratosphere to a height of about 60,000 ft. But no sooner did this happen than another mushroom, smaller in size than the first one, began emerging out of the pillar. It was as though a decapitated monster was growing a new head.
"As the first mushroom floated off into the blue it changed its shape into a flowerlike form, its giant petal curving downward, creamy white outside, rose-coloured inside. It still retained that shape when we last gazed at it from a distance of about 200 miles."
The Domei agency reported yesterday that 126,000 persons had been killed at Hiroshima where the first atomic bomb fell. Casualties as listed by Hiroshima prefectural government were: Instantly killed, 66,000; died of injuries, 60,000; missing and believed dead, 10,000; seriously injured, 14,000; slightly injured, 104,000.
Source: The Times [http://www.the-times.co.uk/]
