Author(s): Paul Ham

Audio

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed more than 100,000 instantly; mostly women, children and the elderly. Many hundreds of thousands more succumbed to their horrific injuries later, or slowly perished of radiation-related sickness. Yet the bombs were 'our least abhorrent choice', American leaders claimed at the time. Here, Paul Ham challenges this view, giving powerful witness to its destruction through the eyes of eighty survivors, reminding us that these two cities were full of ordinary people who suddenly, out of a clear blue summer's sky, felt the sun fall on their heads.