"They had names, faces": Remembering the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Moving ceremonies took place across Britain and the world yesterday, to mark 80 years since the first atomic bomb was used and to remember the victims of that devastating war crime. At 8.15am on 6 August 1945, the US bomber Enola Gay dropped ‘Little Boy’ through a clear sky over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. With a destructive yield of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT, the bomb destroyed the city and tens of thousands of lives were taken in an instant. Two other aircraft with cameras and scientific equipment followed the Enola Gay to document the destruction.

Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. By the end of 1945, over 340,000 people had died from either the initial blasts or from radiation sickness. The survivors and their descendants, known as Hibakusha, have gone on to be important ambassadors for peace and nuclear disarmament, with one organisation, Nihon Hidankyo, winning last year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Our powerful film marking the 80th anniversary calls for No More Hiroshimas. In it, second-generation Hibakusha, Kyoko Gibson speaks powerfully about the physical and emotional horror of the bombings and why political leaders must step back from the nuclear brink. 

You can also read her full testimony here which she shared as guest speaker at our Parliamentary event in July.  

CND is currently being represented in Japan by our vice-presidents, Caroline Lucas and Jeremy Corbyn. You can read articles written by them in the Independent and Tribune where they reflect on the bombings and the implications for nuclear disarmament today.  

CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt was on Sky News Breakfast yesterday, where she spoke about the need for political leaders to stop this disastrous war drive that risks nuclear war. You can watch Sophie’s full interview here.

Join a Nagasaki Day commemoration this Saturday! CND groups will be marking Nagasaki Day this Saturday, 9 August. Use our interactive map to CND’s No More Hiroshimas campaign here.

Upcoming actions for Palestine

This Nagasaki Day coincides with the next national march for Palestine. While Israel’s destruction of Gaza has been slow and methodical over the course of almost two years, it’s hard not to compare the sheer scale of the devastation with that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – not only in the buildings that no longer stand but the humanitarian disaster that continues to unfold. This was not lost on the Hibakusha of Nihon Hidankyo, whose leaders drew parallels between the suffering of children in Gaza today and those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 when accepting last year’s Nobel Peace Prize. In the months since those words were spoken, conditions in Gaza have only got worse. 

While the British government pays lip service to the cause of nuclear disarmament, it continues to modernise and expand its nuclear arsenal. It also continues to support Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Join CND and the Palestine Coalition on the streets this Saturday as we march to Downing Street to demand an end to Britain’s complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.

• Saturday, 9 August
• Assemble 12 noon, Russell Square, details here

Demonstration at RAF High Wycombe – 16 August

RAF High Wycombe is the HQ of the RAF, where the orders are given for Britain’s shameful military collaboration with Israel. 

Since October 2023, RAF planes have undertaken hundreds of spy flights from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, feeding intelligence to the Israeli military to aid its genocide.

Join us in protesting this disgraceful partnership outside RAF High Wycombe on Saturday 16, August. Coaches are arranged from Birmingham and London or there are shuttle buses going from High Wycombe train station.