Beneath that was hidden the ruins of the city of Hiroshima. The site that greeted our eyes was quite beyond what we had expected, because we saw this cloud of boiling dust and debris below us with this tremendous mushroom on top. So we turned around to take a look at it. After we felt the explosion hit the airplane, that is the concussion waves, we knew that the bomb had exploded, and everything was a success. Paul Tibbets: Well, as the bomb left the airplane, we took over manual control, made an extremely steep turn to try and put as much distance between ourselves and the explosion as possible. In an instant, over four square miles of the city and an estimated 90,000 of its inhabitants ceased to exist. A single atomic bomb dropped from the Enola Gay exploded over Hiroshima, Japan. Six hours later, they changed the course of history.

Tom Ryan: In the early morning of August 6, 1945, three B-29 bombers departed from Tinian Island in the Pacific Ocean.