plosion in Hiroshima. All these reports were transmitted to
the Headquarters of the Japanese General Staff.

Military headquarters repeatedly tried to call the Army Control Station
in Hiroshima. The complete silence from that city puzzled the men at
Headquarters; they knew that no large enemy raid could have occurred,
and they knew that no sizeable store of explosives was in Hiroshima at
that time. A young officer of the Japanese General Staff was
instructed to fly immediately to Hiroshima, to land, survey the damage,
and return to Tokyo with reliable information for the staff. It was
generally felt at Headquarters that nothing serious had taken place,
that it was all a terrible rumor starting from a few sparks of truth.

The staff officer went to the airport and took off for the southwest.
After flying for about three hours, while still nearly 100 miles from
Hiroshima, he and his pilot saw a great cloud of smoke from the bomb.
In the bright afternoon, the remains of Hiroshima were burning.

Their plane soon reached the city, around which they circled in
disbelief. A great scar on the land, still burning, and covered by a
heavy cloud of smoke, was all that was left of a great city. They
landed south of the city, and the staff officer immediately began to
organize relief measures, after reporting to Tokyo.

Tokyo's first knowledge of what had really caused the disaster came
from the White House public announcement in Washington sixteen hours
after Hiroshima had been hit by the atomic bomb.

Nagasaki

Nagasaki had never been subjected to large scale bombing prior to the
explosion of the atomic bomb there. On August 1st, 1945, however, a
number of high explosive bombs were dropped on the city. A few of
these bombs hit in the shipyards and dock areas in the southwest
portion of the city. Several of the bombs hit the Mitsubishi Steel and
Arms Works and six bombs landed at the Nagasaki Medical School and
Hospital, with three direct hits on buildings there. While the damage
from these few bombs were relatively small, it created considerable
concern in Nagasaki and a number of people, principally school
children, were evacuated to rural areas for safety, thus reducing the
population in the city at the time of the atomic attack.

On the morning of August 9th, 1945, at about 7:50 A.M., Japanese time,
an air raid alert was sounded in Nagasaki, but the "All clear" signal
was given at 8:30. When only two B-29 sup