A riveting, minute-by-minute account of the momentous event that changed our world forever
On a quiet Monday morning in August 1945, a five-ton bomb—dubbed Little Boy by its creators—was dropped from an American plane onto the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On that day, a firestorm of previously unimagined power was unleashed on a vibrant metropolis of 300,000 people, leaving one third of its population dead, its buildings and landmarks incinerated. It was the terrifying dawn of the Atomic Age, spawning decades of paranoia, mistrust, and a widespread and very real fear of the potential annihilation of the human race.
Author Stephen Walker brilliantly re-creates the three terrible weeks leading up to the wartime detonation of the atomic bomb—from the first successful test in the New Mexico desert to the cataclysm and its aftermath—presenting the story through the eyes of pilots, scientists, civilian victims, and world leaders who stood at the center of earth-shattering drama. It is a startling, moving, frightening, and remarkable portrait of an extraordinary event—a shockwave whose repercussions can be felt to this very day.
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Stephen Walker directed the award-winning feature film Prisoners in Time (starring John Hurt) and wrote and directed an Emmy Award-winning BBC documentary on the bombing of Hiroshima. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.
In Hiroshima, Walker zeroes in on the experience of a soldier named Toshiaki Tanaka. Separated from his wife and child by his military duties when the bomb fell, Tanaka went searching for them the next day but knew there was no hope once he found a neighbor, recognizable only by a telltale belt buckle he had worn. Then Tanaka saw "two figures, like charcoal sticks, fused together on the ground, facing what was once the doorway [to the family-owned liquor store]. One of the figures was much smaller than the other, a tiny, shapeless bundle pressed against the other's back, as if somehow clinging to it. He knew immediately this was his wife and baby daughter.
"He stood perfectly still, staring at them. Despite the terrible burns their bones stood out. They were extraordinarily white. He could not understand how it was possible they were so white. He bent down beside them. Then he picked up the bones, placing them one by one in his handkerchief. . . . He walked out into the street that no longer existed and took the bones of his wife and child all the way back to the barracks in Ujina. There he placed them, still in their handkerchief, on a shelf above his bed in his quarters. It was the only home he had left."
Countdown to Hiroshima
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. The story of the bombing of Hiroshima presented in a new and dramatic way: a minute-by-minute account told from multiple perspectives, both in the air and on the ground British feature and documentary director Stephen Walker tells the story of the bombing of Hiroshima in a way only a filmmaker can--not as a dry history of the sad, regrettable, mission, but as an immediate and perilous drama. Walker has extensively interviewed American soldiers, Los Alamos scientists, and Japanese survivors that were involved in the bombing, and thus is able to tell the story through truly alive-on-the-page characters. The result is a narrative that--without either trivializing the tragedy of the bombing or ignoring its importance in WWII's end--tells the real story of why and how one of the most important events of the 20th century took place. Shockwave might not change anyone's opinion about the justification of the Hiroshima bombing, but it will provide readers with an unprecedented viewpoint that is sure to educate and enthrall its audience. A British filmmaker and documentary director tells the story of the bombing of Hiroshima in a new and dramatic way: a minute-by-minute account told from multiple perspectives, including American soldiers, Los Alamos scientists, and Japanese survivors. 16-page b&w photo insert. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780060742850
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