Hiroshima: As It Happened

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode contains descriptions of graphic violence and may not be suitable for all listeners.

On the morning of August 6th, 1945, a single American bomber unleashed a weapon unlike anything the world had ever seen - Little Boy, the first atomic bomb used in war. In a blinding flash, the city of Hiroshima was levelled. In this episode, we chart that fateful day moment by moment, from the daily routines of the city's mayor and the preparations of the American air crews to the instant of unimaginable destruction.

Joining us is Ian MacGregor, author of ‘The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It’. He takes us through the horror of this fateful day and the dawn of the nuclear age.

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

Join Dan and the team for a special LIVE recording of Dan Snow's History Hit on Friday, 12th September 2025!

To celebrate 10 years of the podcast, Dan is putting on a special show of signature storytelling, never-before-heard anecdotes from his often stranger-than-fiction career, as well as answering the burning questions you've always wanted to ask!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello,
0:00.6	folks, Dan Snow here.
0:01.6	I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history hit.
0:06.1	I'd love for you to be there.
0:07.5	Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London,
0:10.4	in England on the 12th of September to celebrate the 10 years.
0:14.1	You can find out more about it and get tickets with the link in the show notes.
0:17.6	Look forward to seeing you there.
0:36.9	It was a beautiful morning. The sun was shining on the buildings. Everything down there was bright. Very, very bright.
0:40.4	You could see the city from 50 miles away, the rivers bisecting it, the aiming point.
0:46.5	It was clear as a bell. It was perfect. The perfect mission.
0:53.2	Those are the words, those are the memories of Theodore Dutch Van Kirk.
0:58.6	He was a navigator on an American B-29 bomber.
1:02.1	It's called the Enola Gay.
1:04.9	And in that brief passage, he is describing the last few seconds of the pre-nuclear age, perched in his aircraft at 30,000 feet,
1:15.6	looking down at the city of Hiroshima in Japan. His crew were on the brink of deploying
1:22.6	the most powerful weapon in history, one that destroyed that city.
1:32.1	By the summer of 1945, 80 years ago, World War II in Europe had ended, but the war in the
1:39.7	Pacific was raging on with devastating ferocity.
1:45.0	On the Japanese mainland, the United States had unleashed months of punishing bombings of Japanese cities,
1:53.0	particularly incendiary air raids, hoping to burn and smash the Japanese government to the point of surrender.
2:02.1	In March 1945, for example, Tokyo was struck with a massive firebombing that may have killed
	...

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