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Three days after an atomic bomb nicknamed Little Boy
obliterated Hiroshima, Japan, U.S. forces dropped an even
more powerful weapon dubbed Fat Man on Nagasaki. The
explosion shot up a 45,000-foot-high column of radioac-
tive dust and debris. “We saw this big plume climbing up,
up into the sky,” recalled Lieutenant Charles Levy, the
bombardier, who was knocked over by the blow from the
20-kiloton weapon. “It was purple, red, white, all colors—
something like boiling coffee. It looked alive.” The officer
then shot 16 photographs of the new weapon’s awful power
as it yanked the life out of some 80,000 people in the city
on the Urakami River. Six days later, the two bombs forced
Emperor Hirohito to announce Japan’s unconditional sur-
render in World War II. Officials censored photos of the
bomb’s devastation, but Levy’s image—the only one to
show the full scale of the mushroom cloud from the air—
was circulated widely. The effect shaped American opinion
in favor of the nuclear bomb, leading the nation to cele-
brate the atomic age and proving, yet again, that history is
written by the victors.