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.

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   
Source    ww2dbaseUnited States National Archives
Link to Source    Link
Identification Code   ARC 542192
More on...   
Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki   Main article  Photos  Maps  
Fairchild K-20   Main article  Photos  
Photo Size 2,469 x 2,944 pixels
Photos on Same Day 6 Aug 1945
Photos at Same Place Hiroshima, Japan
Added By C. Peter Chen
Licensing  Public Domain. According to the US National Archives, as of 21 Jul 2010:
The vast majority of the digital images in the Archival Research Catalog (ARC) are in the public domain. Therefore, no written permission is required to use them. We would appreciate your crediting the National Archives and Records Administration as the original source. For the few images that remain copyrighted, please read the instructions noted in the "Access Restrictions" field of each ARC record.... In general, all government records are in the public domain and may be freely used.... Additionally, according to the United States copyright law (United States Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105), in part, "[c]opyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government".

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Colorized By WW2DB     Colorized with Adobe Photoshop



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Visitor Submitted Comments

1. bishop says:
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
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.
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.
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.

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WW2-Era Place Name Hiroshima, Japan
Lat/Long 34.3953, 132.4538
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