80 Years On, The Photos of the Hiroshima Bombing Still Shock

Aug 06, 2025

Matt Growcoot

Eighty years ago on August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay aircraft dropped a 9,000-pound uranium-235 bomb named ‘Little Boy’ on the city of Hiroshima — devastating it and the lives of hundreds of thousands.

Also flying with the Enola Gay that day was a Boeing B-29-45-MO Superfortress named Necessary Evil, which flew for the purpose of taking photos of the historic event.

Black and white photo showing a large mushroom cloud rising high into the sky after an explosion, with dark smoke billowing above a cityscape below. — The mushroom cloud rising over Hiroshima, Japan. The city of Hiroshima was the target of the world’s first atomic bomb attack at 8:16 A.M. on August 6, 1945. The cloud rose to over 60,000 feet in about ten minutes. | National Archives

From the bowels of the Necessary Evil, Russell Gackenbach snapped photos of a mushroom cloud billowing 20,000 feet above Hiroshima. In a 2016 interview with Airman Magazine, which PetaPixel reported on, Gackenbach told what it was like to witness this event firsthand, and how it’s affected him years later.

“We did not know what type of bomb we had; did not know what type of blast to expect; did not know the effect of it,” Gackenbach said. “The only thing we were told was, ‘don’t fly through the cloud’.”

“We didn’t know what to say, or do, or anything,” Gackenbach said of the crew’s dumbstruck reaction to the bomb. “We made three turns around the cloud and headed home to Tinian. I did not hear the word atomic until the next day.”

Gackenbach captured two photos on his camera, which he claimed were the only two that show the start of the explosion. Other images of the bomb’s aftermath show the gigantic cloud still lingering three hours after detonation.

Black-and-white aerial photo showing a large mushroom cloud rising over Hiroshima, Japan, after the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945. Text at the bottom reads “HIROSHIMA STRIKE PHOTO 6 AUGUST 1945.”. — The smoke cloud above Hiroshima three hours after the bombing. | US Military

However, it is the photos taken on the ground that better capture the catastrophic impact of the A-bomb.

Black and white photo of a large, domed building with many windows, viewed from across a river. Small boats are docked along the stone embankment, and leafless trees line the front of the building. — The bomb went off almost directly above the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall. | Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

The ruins of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, now known as the Atomic Bomb Dome, stand amid debris and destruction after the atomic bombing in 1945. Two bare trees are visible in the foreground. — The atomic bombing killed everyone in the building. Because the bomb exploded overhead, it retained the distinctive feature that earned it the name “A-bomb Dome” after the war. | National Archives

A person stands amid widespread rubble and debris, facing the ruined Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, heavily damaged after the atomic bombing in 1945. The dome structure is partially intact. — An Allied correspondent stands in rubble on September 7, 1945, looking at the ruins of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. | National Archives

A man walks his bicycle down a deserted street lined with debris and ruined buildings in Hiroshima after the atomic bombing; damaged power lines lean over the road under a cloudy sky. — A man wheels his bicycle through Hiroshima, days after the city was leveled by an atomic bomb blast. The view here is looking west-northwest, about 550 feet from where the bomb landed. | National Archives

Side-by-side aerial photos of a city before (left) and after (right) destruction, with concentric targeting circles overlaid; the right image shows severe devastation and loss of buildings compared to the left. — These aerial photographs show ground zero before and after the atomic bombing. | United States Army

A wide view of a city devastated by destruction, with collapsed buildings and rubble along a river. A few structures remain partially standing, and a bridge crosses the river in the background under a hazy sky. — General view of Hiroshima, Japan, as seen from vicinity of ‘zero’, shows complete devastation as a result of atomic bombing. | National Archives

A person pulls a cart carrying another person through a street filled with debris and downed wires, with damaged buildings and rubble visible in the background. The scene looks desolate and war-torn. — A young woman who survived the explosion at Minami-Ohashi, a mile south of ground zero, being pulled on October 4 by her aunt on a cart over rubble-covered roads to Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital. | Shunkichi Kikuchi

U.S. military photographers took images during occupation and documentation missions, which were restricted for a while.

Lieutenant Dan McGovern (seen below) was a cameraman for the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey that studied the impact. The airman recorded the realities of nuclear war, which included skulls and bones, teenagers suffering from radiation sickness, and a city in ruin. When he arrived back in the United States, he made secret copies of the footage so it wouldn’t be suppressed by authorities.

Mcgovern at Nagasaka

Many years later, a 1967 U.S. Congressional committee that included Robert Kennedy asked to see the atomic bomb footage. The material had been declassified but no one could find the originals. McGovern, by now a lieutenant colonel, directed the authorities to his copies.

McGovern’s clandestine copies shocked the world. In 1970 the general public got its first viewing of the footage that had been used in a film called Hiroshima Nagasaki – August 1945. When it premiered at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, a packed auditorium was stunned into silence by what they witnessed.