Hiroshima day Assembly

Date: 8 August 2014

Criteria of CAS: Service

Approximate time: 2 hours

Venue: D Y Patil International School, Nagpur

“We are still living in the aftershock of Hiroshima, people are still the scars of history.” - Edward Bond

In August 1945, during the final stage of the Second World War, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history.

Our CAS coordinator gave us responsibility to present this to our school. We planned the whole event. I was given responsibility to explain how this occurred and how they did the bombing. Hiroshima was the primary target of the first nuclear bombing mission on August 6, with Kokura and Nagasaki as alternative targets. The 393d Bombardment Squadron B-29 Enola Gay, piloted by Tibbets, took off from North Field, Tinian, about six hours' flight time from Japan. The Enola Gay (named after Tibbets' mother) was accompanied by two other B-29s. The Great Artiste, commanded by Major Charles Sweeney, carried instrumentation, and a then-nameless aircraft later called Necessary Evil, commanded by Captain George Marquardt, served as the photography aircraft.

70,000–80,000 people, of whom 20,000 were soldiers, or around 30% of the population of Hiroshima, were killed by the blast and resultant firestorm,[133][134] and another 70,000 injured.

Over 90% of the doctors and 93% of the nurses in Hiroshima were killed or injured—most had been in the downtown area which received the greatest damage. The hospitals were destroyed or heavily damaged. Only one doctor, Terufumi Sasaki, remained on duty at the Red Cross Hospital. Nonetheless, by early afternoon, the police and volunteers had established evacuation centres at hospitals, schools and tram stations, and a morgue was established in the Asano library.

With all heart I tried to present it to the audience. I wanted them to feel and understand what the people of Hiroshima went through. We worked collaboratively to convey this message.