I remember August 6, 1945 vividly. I was fourteen years old at the time. My Dad and I were in the car, parked and waiting for my mother and two sisters, and we were listening to the car radio when the news report came that the Japanese city of Hiroshima had been struck with a new kind of bomb. It was an "atomic" bomb, the newscaster said, and preliminary reports said that the entire city had been destroyed in a gigantic fireball.

The newscaster went on to say that one of the ingredients of an atomic bomb is a substance called uranium, which is radioactive, much like radium. One of the results (he said) was that the entire region might be radioactive, and that the site of the city could be uninhabitable for decades to come. He emphasized that the entire city had been destroyed with a single bomb, dropped from a single airplane.

My dad and I sat silently for several minutes as the report continued. We knew that from here on, things were going to be different.

It may have happened here and there, but there was no rejoicing or dancing in the streets that I ever saw. People were pretty somber.

There was rejoicing and dancing in the streets a week or so later when we learned that the war was finally over.

For some insight into what was going on in Japan at this time, click here.

Don Firth