Significance of Hiroshima

Hiroshima’s position as an army headquarters made the city important to the Japanese war effort. However, it received none of the fire-bombings that destroyed so much of so many other cities, Tokyo included. These two factors, however, ultimately doomed them to feel Little Boy’s power, as their military facilities and untouched condition made them an ideal location to test the bomb. Warned of an unprecedented strike ahead, many do flee the city, but many also remain, including its bank tellers, its firefighters, its teenagers, its homemakers. These people are the victims of an attack they do not even have a name for, and the survivors of the attack feel its psychological effects well after the physical trauma passes. More than 20,000 were killed instantly, and between 70,000 and 146,000 eventually died of the bomb’s effects.