By Christopher Miskimon
At 0812 hours on August 6, 1945, the B29 bomber carrying the atomic bomb began its final bomb run. One minute later, the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, gave control of the plane to his bombardier, Major Thomas Ferebee. Below them, Corporal Tsuchiya Keiji balanced his platoon leader’s breakfast tray as he carried it to him. Tominaga Chieko laid on a futon in her home, nursing a stomach ache while her father prepared to go to work. Here and there, people heard or saw the aircraft approaching, seeing the sun glint off its silver fuselage. No alert went out from the air defense headquarters. Even if it had, people in the city turned off their radios at this time of day as an electricity saving measure. Hiroshima’s warning sirens stayed silent.
This work gathers the experiences of the last surviving witnesses of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The author has spent years interviewing them and researching the events in deep detail. The result is a book which gives a minute-by-minute description of what the bombing was like for those on the ground and the aftermath they faced.
Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses (M.G. Sheftall, Dutton Books, New York NY, 2024, 545pp., notes, bibliography, index, $36, HC)
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