Nagasaki morning August 1945

The B-29’s take off at night. And reach the outlying islands of “the Empire” soon after dawn. The US Air Force bomb is released through a hole in the clouds at 11.01, and explodes at 1650 feet, 40 seconds later.

Among the 30,000 people who are closest to the epicentre and who die within seconds are 1310 teachers and children at Shiroyama Primary School, 1300 at Yamazato Primary School and 582 pupils and staff at other nearby schools.

The dead total 70,000 by the end of the year. 3% are military personnel, 13% percent worked in war industries and 84% are civilians, mostly elderly people, students or children.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed in fractions of a second.

But the bombs of 1945 have been greatly improved.

As the fears of the Cold War grew, the weapons became more powerful. And more frightening. Leading to still more powerful weapons.

Fear and power spiralled upwards, hand in hand, promising wider and wider zones of destruction.

The mission of the empire that had been founded on a weapon, became the creation and destruction of its enemies. Its economy became a system dedicated to warfare, threats and the invention of weapons.

It became a machine for the creation of fear.