all other
previous bombing attacks on Germany and Japan, such as the incendiary
raids on Hamburg in 1943 and on Tokyo in 1945, were not comparable to
the paralyzing effect of the atomic bombs. In addition to the huge
number of persons who were killed or injuried so that their services in
rehabilitation were not available, a panic flight of the population
took place from both cities immediately following the atomic
explosions. No significant reconstruction or repair work was
accomplished because of the slow return of the population; at the end
of November 1945 each of the cities had only about 140,000 people.
Although the ending of the war almost immediately after the atomic
bombings removed much of the incentive of the Japanese people toward
immediate reconstruction of their losses, their paralysis was still
remarkable. Even the clearance of wreckage and the burning of the many
bodies trapped in it were not well organized some weeks after the
bombings. As the British Mission has stated, "the impression which
both cities make is of having sunk, in an instant and without a
struggle, to the most primitive level."

Aside from physical injury and damage, the most significant effect of
the atomic bombs was the sheer terror which it struck into the peoples
of the bombed cities. This terror, resulting in immediate hysterical
activity and flight from the cities, had one especially pronounced
effect: persons who had become accustomed to mass air raids had grown
to pay little heed to single planes or small groups of planes, but
after the atomic bombings the appearance of a single plane caused more
terror and disruption of normal life than the appearance of many
hundreds of planes had ever been able to cause before. The effect of
this terrible fear of the potential danger from even a single enemy
plane on the lives of the peoples of the world in the event of any
future war can easily be conjectured.

The atomic bomb did not alone win the war against Japan, but it most
certainly ended it, saving the thousands of Allied lives that would
have been lost in any combat invasion of Japan.

EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
Hiroshima--August 6th, 1945

by Father John A. Siemes, professor of modern philosphy at Tokyo's
Catholic University

Up to August 6th, occasional bombs, which did no great damage, had
fallen on Hiroshima. Many cities roundabout, one after the other, were
destroyed, but Hiroshima itself remained protected. There