This website was created and maintained from May 2020 to May 2021 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Stars and Stripes operations in the Pacific.
It will no longer be updated, but we encourage you to explore the site and view content we felt best illustrated Stars and Stripes' continued support of the Pacific theater since 1945.
Hiroshima mayor urges action on nuclear disarmament as city marks atomic bombing’s 75th anniversary
A woman prays at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, Thursday, Aug. 6, 2020, during a ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing.
By Stars and Stripes | August 5, 2020
HIROSHIMA, Japan — The mayor of the first city to be devastated by an atomic bomb urged the world’s nations, including Japan, to take nuclear disarmament more seriously as Hiroshima marked the attack’s 75th anniversary Thursday.
"I ask the Japanese government to heed the appeal of the hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) to sign, ratify and become a party to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons," Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui told an audience that included Prime Minster Shinzo Abe. "As the only nation to suffer a nuclear attack, Japan must persuade the global public to unite with the spirit of Hiroshima."
Thursday’s ceremony at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park — scaled back significantly because of the coronavirus — was highlighted by a moment of silence at 8:15 am., the exact moment a U.S. B-29 Superfortress dropped the bomb, dubbed Little Boy, over the city center on Aug. 6, 1945.
Hiroshima was effectively leveled in the attack, with hundreds of thousands of people killed or injured.
Days later, a second bomb, nicknamed Fat Man, was dropped on Nagasaki, leading to Japan’s surrender and the end of World War II.
Hours before Thursday’s ceremony, people were seen praying at a cenotaph holding the names of those who died. An inscription on the cenotaph says: “Let all the souls here rest in peace for we shall not repeat the mistake.”
