Any concentrated naval force could be blown right off the water.” His armies cannot concentrate troops or supplies. The enemy’s cities can be wiped out in a single raid. General Hutchinson said, “A nation which controls No one doubted that it would revolutionize warfare. High-ranking officers were generally agreed that a few more atomic raids might force a Japanese surrender. This proved that the lethal effects did not linger and that life was possible a mile from the bomb’s impact Of town and a train with its steam up in the marshalling yards a mile from the center of impact. They showed persons moving in the outskirts It was stressed that this estimate was based solely on visible havoc and did not include death or injury from atomic rays released by the bomb. Photos taken Tuesday by the 5th Air Force. 8 - The one atomic bomb that crashed on Hiroshima Monday may have killed at least 200,000 persons, according to conservative estimates by photo interpreters here after several hours study of reconnaissance The Herald’s correspondent based in Okinawa, Homer Bigart, reported on the havoc caused by the bombing of Hiroshima:

Newsreel footage of the Hiroshima blast and its aftermath. New York Herald Tribune, European Edition, August 7, 1945 Accurate assessment of the new weapon’s damage is not available yet, Army officialsĪdded, promising that details would be released as soon as possible. The Army reported that “an impenetrable cloud of dust and smoke” cloaked Hiroshima after it was hit by the new weapon. Hiroshima is a major quartermaster depot and has large ordnance machine tool and aircraft plants as well as being a port. Said, adding that after the war American scientists would share the discovery with scientists of other nations. The harnessing of atomic energy may in the future supplement the power that now comes from coal, oil and dams, he President Truman said this discovery may open the way for an entirely new concept of force and power. He said: “They may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on The President said the atomic bomb was the answer to the Japanese rejection of the three-power Potsdam ultimatum. We shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.” “We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productiveĮnterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. “We’ve spent $2,000,000,000 on the greatest scientific gamble in history - and won,” President Truman said. From 65,000 to 125,000 persons are now working in secrecy at the factories near Knoxville, Tennessee, at Pasco, Wash., and Santa Fe, N.M., he revealed. Some lesser factories for the production of atomic power. In the meantime, he said, American and British scientists studied the problem and developed two principal plants and The President said the Germans had failed in their search for a way to harness atomic energy to war. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosened against those who brought the war to the Far East.”

President Truman said in a statement issued at the White House that the bomb has “added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction” on the enemy. Hours on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base, produced more than 2,000 times the blast of the largest bomb ever used before. The bomb dropped within the last twenty-four 6 - President Truman announced today that the Army Air Forces have released on the Japanese an atomic bomb containing more power than 20,000 tons of TNT.

His statement is summarized in the above edition of the New York Herald Tribune, printed the day after the attack: President Truman spoke 16 hours after the first bomb was dropped. Below, our coverage of the event and of the immediate aftermath. Seventy years have passed since the bombing of Hiroshima, which was followed by the bombing of Nagasaki three days later.

Nytimes front page may 31