Channel: Dark5

Category: Education

Tags: unbelievablebefore and afterworld war 2incrediblephotowwii then and now photosphotosworld war iiww2momentstop5wwiithen and nowtop 5

Description: After almost six years of uninterrupted fighting and being completely surrounded in the East and the West by the Allied armies, Adolf Hitler committed suicide, and the Third Reich finally surrendered on May 7, 1945. However, there was no time for rejoicing, as the unrelenting Japanese forces kept fighting till the last man. As the Imperial Japanese Army was unwilling to surrender, the American command was confronted with two options. One was invading the Japanese mainland with the Army and Marines, which would lead to more bloodshed on both sides. The second was deploying an unprecedented weapon of mass destruction: the atomic bomb. US forces firmly believed that this action would lead to the immediate surrender of Japan and serve as a deterrent to Stalin and the Soviets, but it would ultimately take two atomic bombs over the two most Catholic Japanese cities to force the empire into submission. The crew of B29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the first bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and the effects of the warhead were devastating. The bomb, codenamed Little Boy, detonated with the force of over 15,000 tons of TNT. There were over 80,000 casualties, and it destroyed over 5 square miles of the city. Another 70,000 survivors would eventually perish in the following years due to radiation exposure. The once vibrant and beautiful downtown shopping district where hundreds of merchants sold their goods was reduced to rubble and scattered utility poles. In addition, the Street of Temples close to Teramachi, a place of worship and family gatherings, was completely destroyed, and all the humble wooden houses that stood along the bank of the Otagawa river suffered the same fate. Meanwhile, the Hiroshima Station, another of the city’s icons, was the only structure left standing. And the Product Exhibition Hall near the Motoyasugawa river, regarded as the detonation’s ground zero, was severely damaged and is known today as the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. The city eventually came back from the tragedy and regained its population, while some of the lost architecture has been partially restored.