100 Reasons to Blog4Peace ~ Hiroshima ~ August 6, 1945

**caution** Disturbing images ahead

Military personnel aboard a plane named Necessary Evil took these photographs moments after the atomic bomb from hell was unleashed first on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and three days later on the city of Nagasaki. President Harry S. Truman issued an executive ordered that obliterated  166,000 civilians in the first blast and approximately 80,000 in the second. Those are conservative estimates. More than 1/2 of the casualties occurred on the first day of the attacks.  Japan surrendered six days later and World War II ended.

The costs of human life from combat on both sides of the six-year conflict since it began was enormous for the United States and most of the world's nations, resulting in 70 million fatalities and untold stories of devastation worldwide.  But Hiroshima and Nagasaki..... these are the images that remain within our consciousness sixty-six years later. The costs? Incalculable. How can you measure the cost of this? Necessary evil? This is the only photo I could stand to place on my blog. We all know the horrific effects on the Japanese people, but sometimes, you just need to look again.

Place your family, your father, your little girl on that decimated street.

There's your reason.

Reason #89 to Blog4Peace

Join us November 4.

 Image: Australian War Museum/Public Domain Source: Wikipedia