It was the 6th of August, that much we knew when the boys took off in the morning dew. Feeling nervous, sick and ill at ease, they flew at the heart of the Japanese (Yass 72).
As they approached Hiroshima in the Enola Gay, they all had hopeful looks on their faces. "Not long now, folks . . . the Colonel and I are standing by and giving the boys what they want . . . There will be a short intermission while we bomb our target
. . . My God!" (Yass 73) As the great bomb plummeted from the sky, the crew turned the plane broadside to get the best view, which was described as a "terrific spectacle." A mass of purplish gray dust about three miles in diameter, the lower part of the mushroom as well as the top was all boiling. The mushroom smoke had reached the same altitude of the plane when another mushroom arose just as turbulent as the other. It looked as if it were coming from a huge burning fire, and it seemed to settle back to earth again. The purple clouds and flames below whirled around as the whole town was pulverized: "Mission successful" (Yass 73).
It was a clear beautiful morning in Hiroshima when the siren sounded at 7 o'clock. Then again at 8 another siren sounded, signaling all was clear; the people of Hiroshima began their day just as they would any other. Then all of a sudden a tremendous flash of light cut across the sky and blasted the earth over a radius of 800 yards from the center (Harson 4). The blast was so powerful that it caused wooden as well as stone houses and build-ings to crash inward, leaving nothing but ashes of ruins. Most deaths and destruction occurred within a fraction of a second, although fire and rain (which was actually condensed moisture from the cloud of dust and fission fragments) added to the ruins for days after the blast. Bodies of men, women and children were thrown about the streets and cries of the terrified wounded filled the air: "Everything had been scorched to the ground, everythi...