Hiroshima, Chūgoku Region, Japan, 6 August 1945, 8:15 a.m.

Abstract

Chapter Four opens with the moment when Paul Tibbets dropped the atomic bomb codenamed Little Boy on city of Hiroshima on the morning of 6 August 1945 and focuses on the site of a domed building which was located below the hypocentre of the detonation of the bomb. The Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall was largely destroyed by the atomic blast, its ruins eventually preserved and used to memorialise the bombing under the name of Atomic Bomb Dome. The role of this building in the urban fabric of Hiroshima is explored through film in relation to its significance and its altered role from a symbol of Hiroshima’s civic pride and Japan’s imperialism to a monumentalised site of memory of the atomic bombing and an emblem of pacifism. This chapter investigates the image of the building in amateur films made in the 1930s, in newsreels made after the bombing, and in live-action and animated dramas set in Hiroshima in the aftermath of the attack.