The archival record makes clear that killing large numbers of civilians was the primary purpose of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima; destruction of military targets and war industry was a secondary goal and one that “legitimized” the intentional destruction of a city in the minds of some participants. The atomic bomb was detonated over the center of Hiroshima.
More than 70,000 men, women, and children were killed immediately; the munitions factories on the periphery of the city were left largely unscathed. Such a nuclear attack would be illegal today. It would violate three major requirements of the law of armed conflict codified in Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions: the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution.
There could be great pressure to use nuclear weapons in future scenarios in which many American soldiers’ lives are at risk and there is no guarantee that a future US president would follow the law of armed conflict. That is why the United States needs senior military officers who fully understand the law and demand compliance and presidents who care about law and justice in war.
Wilfred Burchett and Hiroshima
In 1940 Burchett began his career in journalism. His freelance reports of the revolt against the Vichy French in the South Pacific colony of New Caledonia helped him gain accreditation with the Daily Express newspaper. He spent the remainder of the war in China and Burma and also covered General Douglas MacArthur's island-hopping campaign.
He was the first Western journalist to visit Hiroshima after the atom bomb was dropped, arriving alone by train from Tokyo on 2 September, the day of the formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri. His Morse code dispatch was printed on the front page of the Daily Express newspaper in London on 5 September 1945, entitled "The Atomic Plague", the first public report in the Western media to mention the effects of radiation and nuclear fallout. On this "scoop of the century"
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