Hiroshima is a beautiful modern city located near the southwestern tip of the main Japanese island of Honshu. It had been a military center with the headquarters of the Japanese southern army and a military depot prior to the end of World War II. The city is now a manufacturing center with a major university and medical school. It is most profoundly remembered because it was the first city to be exposed to the devastation of an atomic bomb.

At 8:15 A.M. on the morning of August 6, 1945, a single B29 bomber flying in from Tinian Island in the Marinas released the bomb at 2,000 ft (606.6 m) above the city. The target was a "T"-shaped bridge near the city center. The only surviving building in the city center after the atomic bomb blast was a domed cement building at ground zero, just a few yards from the...