Beyond the Flash of War

For a population at war, it was, in Andrew Rotter’s particularly apt phrase, a “disturbingly ordinary” morning.1 Throughout the previous night people had been twice awakened by airraid sirens; a third alert was announced around 7:10 am when a single plane was spotted flying overhead. And so, when a trio of American planes appeared approximately one hour later, the inhabitants of Hiroshima, Japan, while wary, continued their morning activities.