Hiroshima Atomic Bombing Raising Questions 75 Years Later
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were said at the time to be justified as the only way to end World War II. Seventy five years later, legal experts say they would now be war crimes.
The dawn of the nuclear age began with a blinding, flesh-melting blast directly above the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. It was 8:16 a.m. on a Monday, the start of another work day in a city of nearly 300,000 inhabitants. An estimated two-thirds of that population — nearly all civilians — would soon be dead.
The dropping by American warplanes of that first atomic bomb, -- and another, code-named Fat Man, three days later in Nagasaki — led to Japan's surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, and the
