Hiroshima 75 Years -- August 6, 2020

75 years ago today, on 06-August-1945, B-29 Enola Gay of the 509th Composite Group of the US Army Air Force, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The blast and fire storm killed 70,000-80,000 people right away. In the next few months 100,000 to 150,000 more people died from the effects. Many survivors still suffer from radiation exposure. 

I have been involved in many discussions, in school and with friends, about the righteousness of the decision to drop the bomb. Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan, would have killed as many Allied troops as had been killed throughout the war up to that point. Millions of Japanese people, civilian and military, would have died from starvation, injuries or suicide.  I think we had to do it.  I am sorry we had to do it.