Hiroshima

On August 6, 1945, the United States became the first and only country in history to carry out a nuclear attack when it dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

While the death toll of the bombing remains a subject of debate, at least 70,000 people were killed, though other figures are nearly twice as high.

Three days later, the US dropped another atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing at least 40,000 people.

The stunning toll on Japanese civilians at first seemed to have little impact on public opinion in the US, where pollsters found approval for the bombing reached 85 percent in the days afterwards.

To this day, US politicians continue to credit the bombing with saving American lives and ending World War II.

But as the US marks the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, perceptions have become increasingly mixed. A Pew Research Center poll last month indicated that Americans are split almost evenly into three categories.

Nearly a third of respondents believe the use of the bomb was justified. Another third feels it was not. And the rest are uncertain about deciding either way.

“The trendline is that there is a steady decline in the share of Americans who believe these bombings were justified at the time,” Eileen Yam, the director of science and society research at Pew Research Center, told Al Jazeera in a recent phone call.

“This is something Americans have gotten less and less supportive of as time has gone by.”

Tumbling approval rates

Doubts about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the advent of nuclear weapons in general, did not take long to set in.

“From the beginning, it was understood that this was something different, a weapon that could destroy entire cities,” said Kai Bird, a US author who has written about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

His Pulitzer Prize-winning book, American Prometheus, served as the basis for director Christopher Nolan’s 2023 film, Oppenheimer.

Bird pointed out that, even in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, some key politicians and public figures denounced it as a war crime.

Early critics included physicist Albert Einstein and former President Herbert Hoover, who was quick to speak out against the civilian bloodshed.

“The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul,” Hoover wrote within days of the bombing.

Over time, historians have increasingly cast doubt on the most common justification for the atomic attacks: that they played a decisive role in ending World War II.

Some academics point out that other factors likely played a larger role in the Japanese decision to surrender, including the Soviet Union’s declaration of war against the island nation on August 8.

Others have speculated whether the bombings were meant mostly as a demonstration of strength as the US prepared for its confrontation with the Soviet Union in what would become the Cold War.

Accounts from Japanese survivors and media reports also played a role in changing public perceptions.

John Hersey’s 1946 profile of six victims, for instance, took up an entire edition of The New Yorker magazine. It chronicled, in harrowing detail, everything from the crushing power of the blast to the fever, nausea and death brought on by radiation sickness.

By 1990, a Pew poll found that a shrinking majority in the US approved of the atomic bomb’s use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Only 53 percent felt it was merited.

Rationalising US use of force

But even at the close of the 20th century, the legacy of the attacks remained contentious in the US.

For the 50th anniversary of the bombing in 1995, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, had planned a special exhibit.

But it was cancelled amid public furore over sections of the display that explored the experiences of Japanese civilians and the debate about the use of the atomic bomb. US veterans groups argued that the exhibit undermined their sacrifices, even after it underwent extensive revision.

“The exhibit still says in essence that we were the aggressors and the Japanese were the victims,” William Detweiler, a leader at the American Legion, a veterans group, told The Associated Press at the time.

Incensed members of Congress opened an investigation, and the museum’s director resigned.

The exhibit, meanwhile, never opened to the public. All that remained was a display of the Enola Gay, the aeroplane that dropped the first atomic bomb.

Erik Baker, a lecturer on the history of science at Harvard University, says that the debate over the atomic bomb often serves as a stand-in for larger questions about the way the US wields power in the world.

“What’s at stake is the role of World War II in legitimising the subsequent history of the American empire, right up to the current day,” he told Al Jazeera.

Baker explained that the US narrative about its role in the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan — the main “Axis Powers” in World War II — has been frequently referenced to assert the righteousness of US interventions around the world.

“If it was justifiable for the US to not just go to war but to do ‘whatever was necessary’ to defeat the Axis powers, by a similar token, there can’t be any objection to the US doing what is necessary to defeat the ‘bad guys’ today,” he added.

A resurgence of nuclear anxiety

But as the generations that lived through World War II grow older and pass away, cultural shifts are emerging in how different age groups approach US intervention — and use of force — abroad.

The scepticism is especially pronounced among young people, large numbers of whom have expressed dissatisfaction with policies such as US support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

In an April 2024 poll, the Pew Research Center found a dramatic generational divide among Americans over the question of global engagement.

Approximately 74 percent of older respondents, aged 65 and up, expressed a strong belief that the US should play an active role on the world stage. But only 33 percent of younger respondents, aged 18 to 35, felt the same way.

Last month’s Pew poll on the atomic bomb also found stark differences in age. People over the age of 65 were more than twice as likely to believe that the bombings were justified than people between the ages of 18 and 29.

Yam, the Pew researcher, said that age was the “most pronounced factor” in the results, beating out other characteristics, such as party affiliation and veteran status.

The 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing also coincides with a period of renewed anxiety about nuclear weapons.

US President Donald Trump, for instance, repeatedly warned during his re-election campaign in 2024 that the globe was on the precipice of “World War III”.

“The threat is nuclear weapons,” Trump told a rally in Chesapeake, Virginia. “That can happen tomorrow.”

“We’re at a place where, for the first time in more than three decades, nuclear weapons are back at the forefront of international politics,” said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow in the nuclear policy programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US-based think tank.

Panda says that such concerns are linked to geopolitical tensions between different states, pointing to the recent fighting between India and Pakistan in May as one example.

The war in Ukraine, meanwhile, has prompted Russia and the US, the world’s two biggest nuclear powers, to exchange nuclear-tinged threats.

And in June, the US and Israel carried out attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities with the stated aim of setting back the country’s ability to develop nuclear weapons.

But as the US marks the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombings, advocates hope the shift in public opinion will encourage world leaders to turn away from nuclear sabre-rattling and work towards the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Seth Shelden, the United Nations liaison for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, explained that countries with nuclear weapons argue that their arsenals discourage acts of aggression. But he said those arguments diminish the “civilisation-ending” dangers of nuclear warfare.

“As long as the nuclear-armed states prioritise nuclear weapons for their own security, they’re going to incentivise others to pursue them as well,” he said.

“The question shouldn’t be whether nuclear deterrence can work or whether it ever has worked,” he added. “It should be whether it will work in perpetuity.”

Hiroshima’s mayor, Kazumi Matsui, warns of the dangers of rising global militarism.

Thousands of people have gathered in Hiroshima to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the world’s first wartime use of a nuclear bomb – as survivors, officials and representatives from 120 countries and territories marked the milestone with renewed calls for disarmament.

The western Japanese city was flattened on August 6, 1945, when the United States dropped a uranium bomb, codenamed Little Boy. Roughly 78,000 people were killed instantly. Tens of thousands more would die by the end of the year due to burns and radiation exposure.

The attack on Hiroshima, followed three days later by a plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, led to Japan’s surrender on August 15 and the end of the second world war. Hiroshima had been chosen as a target partly because its surrounding mountains were believed by US planners to amplify the bomb’s force.

At Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park on Wednesday, where the bomb detonated almost directly overhead eight decades ago, delegates from a record number of international countries and regions attended the annual memorial.

Reporting from the park, Al Jazeera’s Fadi Salameh said the ceremony unfolded in a similar sequence to those of previous years.

“The ceremony procedure is almost the same throughout the years I’ve been covering it,” Salameh said. “It starts at eight o’clock with the children and people offering flowers and then water to represent helping the victims who survived the atomic bombing at that time.

“Then at exactly 8:15… a moment of silence. After that, the mayor of Hiroshima reads out the declaration of peace in which they call for the abolition of nuclear weapons around the world,” he added.

Schoolchildren from across Japan participated in the “Promise of Peace” – reading statements of hope and remembrance. This year’s ceremony also included a message from the representative of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, urging global peace.

Hiroshima’s mayor, Kazumi Matsui, warned of the dangers of rising global militarism, criticising world leaders who argue that nuclear weapons are necessary for national security.

“Among the world’s political leaders, there is a growing belief that possessing nuclear weapons is unavoidable in order to protect their own countries,” he said, noting that the United States and Russia still hold 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads.

“This situation not only nullifies the lessons the international community has learned from the tragic history of the past, but also seriously undermines the frameworks that have been built for peace-building,” he said.

“To all the leaders around the world: please visit Hiroshima and witness for yourselves the reality of the atomic bombing.”

Many attendees echoed that call. “It feels more and more like history is repeating itself,” 71-year-old Yoshikazu Horie told the Reuters news agency. “Terrible things are happening in Europe … Even in Japan, in Asia, it’s going the same way – it’s very scary. I’ve got grandchildren and I want peace so they can live their lives happily.”

Survivors of the bombings – known as hibakusha – once faced discrimination over unfounded fears of disease and genetic effects. Their numbers have fallen below 100,000 for the first time this year.

Japan maintains a stated commitment to nuclear disarmament, but remains outside the UN treaty banning nuclear weapons.

A 12-year-old volunteer is making sure visitors to Hiroshima’s Peace Park get a personal look at the tragedy of the world’s first nuclear bombing, recounting his own family’s experiences as passed down generation to generation.

Aug. 3 (UPI) — Groups around the world will gather this week to commemorate the Aug. 6th bombing of Hiroshima, a nuclear attack that killed 200,000 Japanese people 80 years ago.

Events, prayer gatherings and services memorializing the bombings of Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki, range from an event at a small library in Kansas and a gathering at a church in Spokane, Wash. to a series of reflection ceremonies in the Northeast and a ceremony in a park in a North Carolina park.

Japan exited World War II within days of the Hiroshima bombing, an event that changed the rules of war and elicited shock and disbelief on the global stage. The Hiroshima bombing marked the first occasion that a nuclear weapon had been used on a large scale, and raised questions about human rights and what constituted fair rules of engagement.

The bombongs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki started a nuclear arms race that accelerated over the decades and remains a constant today.

Recent data from the Pew Research Center shows a third of Americans feel that dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified while nearly the same number said it was not. Another third said they are unsure if the drastic measures were warranted.

Many of the deaths were instantaneous. Other people died years later as a result of exposure to nuclear radiation, researchers have said.