In early October 1945, surviving residents of Hiroshima City wandered the cleared streets, bisecting the ruins. The city was reduced to a pile of rubble by the atomic bomb that had been dropped and exploded on Hiroshima City approximately two months earlier.

　　In early October 1945, surviving residents of Hiroshima City wandered the cleared streets, bisecting the ruins. The city was reduced to a pile of rubble by the atomic bomb that had been dropped and exploded on the city about two months earlier.On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 90,000 to 120,000 people by December of the same year. In 1945, Tokyo and other cities had already been thoroughly bombed by the U.S. military.

　Homer Bigart, a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, was allowed to enter the city of Hiroshima on August 6, after the U.S. military had dropped and exploded the atomic bomb, with a delay of September 3. Accompanied by Bernard Hoffman, a Life Magazine photographer who had photographed the bombed area, we walked through Hiroshima on September 3. Hibakusha from the first atomic explosion about four weeks earlier died at a rate of about 100 per day around September 3 from burns and infections that were difficult to treat. The toll from the atomic bomb, the deadliest nuclear weapon in history, was approximately 53,000 dead, 30,000 missing, 13,960 seriously injured, and 43,000 wounded. Homer Biggard considered it a logical act of war to annihilate the enemy Japanese forces, even as he witnessed the destruction of the city of Hiroshima one month after the atomic bomb exploded over the city on August 6, 1945. Bigard won Pulitzer Prizes for his coverage of the Pacific War in 1945 and the Korean War in 1951.

　The city of Hiroshima was just a flat, horrifyingly desolate landscape. The desolation was accentuated by bare, blackened tree trunks and the occasional shell of a reinforced concrete building. Debris was everywhere, but its size was much smaller than usual. The atomic bomb demolished everything. Only a few shells remained of buildings made of iron and steel. Most of Hiroshima's wooden structures were burned to the ground. Japan was in an all-out war. The war had to be won, and they felt they had to virtually exterminate the enemy.