Caption | Mushroom cloud rising over Hiroshima, Japan, 6 Aug 1945. Taken by SSgt George R. 'Bob' Caron, the tail gunner on the B-29 'Enola Gay' using a Fairchild K-20 aerial camera. ww2dbase | ||||||||
Photographer | George Caron | ||||||||
Source | ww2dbaseUnited States National Archives | ||||||||
Link to Source | Link | ||||||||
Identification Code | ARC 542192 | ||||||||
More on... |
| ||||||||
Photos on Same Day | 6 Aug 1945 | ||||||||
Photos at Same Place | Hiroshima, Japan | ||||||||
Added By | C. Peter Chen | ||||||||
This photograph has been scaled down; full resolution photograph is available here (2,469 by 2,944 pixels). | |||||||||
Licensing | Public Domain. According to the US National Archives, as of 21 Jul 2010: Please contact us regarding any inaccuracies with the above information. Thank you. |
||||||||
Colorized By WW2DB |
Colorized with Adobe Photoshop |
Did you enjoy this photograph or find this photograph helpful? If so, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Even $1 per month will go a long way! Thank you. Share this photograph with your friends: Stay updated with WW2DB: |
Visitor Submitted Comments
2. Sunny Meadow says:
8 Feb 2011 07:54:40 AM
So Necessary Evil went along just for the express purpose of taking pictures, and all it got was this one picture? And it looks like smoke from a forest fire in California. Very grainy also. I know they could take much better pictures than this in 1945.
Why no motion pictures? Why no color? Why no infared or ultraviolet? Why no before and after?
I don't believe that this is a picture of Hiroshima.
8 Feb 2011 07:54:40 AM
So Necessary Evil went along just for the express purpose of taking pictures, and all it got was this one picture? And it looks like smoke from a forest fire in California. Very grainy also. I know they could take much better pictures than this in 1945.
Why no motion pictures? Why no color? Why no infared or ultraviolet? Why no before and after?
I don't believe that this is a picture of Hiroshima.
3. don says:
19 Aug 2011 07:47:28 PM
With all due respect, Sunny Meadow, you probably don't believe the US landed astronauts on the Moon, either.
19 Aug 2011 07:47:28 PM
With all due respect, Sunny Meadow, you probably don't believe the US landed astronauts on the Moon, either.
4. Randall says:
22 Aug 2014 05:20:25 PM
This photo was not obtained from Necessary Evil. Robert "Bob" Caron took this photo from the tailgunner's position in the Enola Gay. This has long been acknowleged as his photo- including his own autobiography. The grainy nature of the photo is partially attributed to the fact that the original negative was heavily cropped as to zoom in on the city and the cloud but in doing so, the resolution is diminished. I have a print of the original. There is footage, taken by Harold Agnew but only about 30 seconds.
22 Aug 2014 05:20:25 PM
This photo was not obtained from Necessary Evil. Robert "Bob" Caron took this photo from the tailgunner's position in the Enola Gay. This has long been acknowleged as his photo- including his own autobiography. The grainy nature of the photo is partially attributed to the fact that the original negative was heavily cropped as to zoom in on the city and the cloud but in doing so, the resolution is diminished. I have a print of the original. There is footage, taken by Harold Agnew but only about 30 seconds.
All visitor submitted comments are opinions of those making the submissions and do not reflect views of WW2DB.
Change View
Desktop ViewSearch WW2DB
Modern Day Location
WW2-Era Place Name | Hiroshima, Japan |
Lat/Long | 34.3953, 132.4538 |
Current Site Statistics
- » 1,145 biographies
- » 336 events
- » 43,415 timeline entries
- » 1,237 ships
- » 349 aircraft models
- » 207 vehicle models
- » 372 weapon models
- » 123 historical documents
- » 259 facilities
- » 468 book reviews
- » 28,365 photos
- » 432 maps
Famous WW2 Quote
"Since peace is now beyond hope, we can but fight to the end."Chiang Kaishek, 31 Jul 1937
18 Feb 2010 02:33:18 PM
Funny, you can tell this was a "small" bomb because the cloud is so small compared to what's been set off since. We are mad aren't we, fancy unleashing that first before harnessing its useful side. Its a scary shot because you know there are people under that. It did stop the Japanese in their tracks though