Was Hiroshima the biggest event of World War 2?

Film clip from a documentary called Date with History about the dropping of the Atom Bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945

Catalogue ref: BP190242131817
Courtesy of ITN/Source


[Sound of a huge explosion]

In a fraction of a second the explosion of the bomb became a ball of fire 1800 feet across with a temperature at its centre of 100 million degrees.

This was the bomb that killed outright some 72,000 people, many of them innocent inhabitants far remote from the decisions which led to the holocaust in which they were suddenly burned alive.

This was the bomb that many had said should never have been dropped and many have said so since.

This was the bomb nevertheless that foreshortened the war and prevented the further killing of hundreds of thousands.

This was the bomb that showed mankind the awful truth of a weapon to end all weapons. A weapon that could perhaps end mankind itself.

The flash of the bomb was followed by an immense heat. It lasted only an instant but it was so intense it melted roof tiles and charred the exposed side of telegraph poles for two miles and cremated human beings so thoroughly that the only remaining trace of them was their shadows.

[Word indistinct] and families were vaporised. Acres on acres were completely raised.