For most of us, though, the atomic age begins with a single cataclysmic event: the detonation of the first atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, at 8:16 a.m., August 6, 1945. The Manhattan Project was initiated in response to that letter, and its massive, secret research and production efforts culminated in the fall of 1945 in the operational deployment of "Little Boy," the world's first atomic weapon. Roosevelt that "extremely powerful bombs of a new type" might be created from the physicists' new understanding of atomic theory and the application of his own famous equation of equivalence E=mc 2. The atomic age, some would say, began with crucial early experiments by scientists including Niels Bohr, Lise Meitner, Enrico Fermi and Robert Teller in the late 1930s, or with Albert Einstein's and Leo Szilard's famous letter of Aug(see lot 161) warning President Franklin D. "MY GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE.THE GREATEST EXPLOSION MAN HAS EVER WITNESSED": THE VIOLENT BIRTH OF THE ATOMIC AGE: THE "ENOLA GAY" CO-PILOT'S IN-FLIGHT LOGBOOK OF THE MOMENTOUS MISSION WHICH DELIVERED "LITTLE BOY," THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB, TO HIROSHIMA, AUGUST 6, 1945 11 pages (comprising front and back covers, inside front cover and 8 text pages), small folio (9¼ x 6 in.), in ink and pencil in a War Department "Line of Position" notebook, bound in cloth-backed paper wrappers, 14 additional text pages with Lewis's "History of the 509th Bomb Group" (10 August 1945), upper cover with Lewis's hand-lettered title, a list of the crew, etc., REAR COVER WITH LEWIS'S SIGNED PENCIL SKETCH OF THE MUSHROOM CLOUD OVER HIROSHIMA (labeled with time: 0930 hours), minor wear to wrappers, corners bumped, otherwise in excellent condition.
6, 1945," containing a minute-by-minute account of the historic "Little Boy" mission which dropped the world's first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, WRITTEN IN FLIGHT OVER THE PACIFIC AND OVER THE TARGET, 6 August 1945. Autograph logbook signed, entitled "Bombing of Hiroshima Aug. Army Air Corps, Co-pilot of the B-29 bomber the Enola Gay. In a 2005 column for Time Magazine, Van Kirk stood behind the use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
Many atomic bomb survivors, known as "hibakusha", oppose both military and civilian use of nuclear power, pointing to the tens of thousands who were killed instantly in the Hiroshima blast and the many more who later died from radiation sickness and cancer. Historians have long been at odds over whether the twin attacks brought a speedier end to the war by forcing Japan's surrender and preventing many more casualties in a planned land invasion. Van Kirk recalled “a sense of relief,” because he said he sensed the devastating bombing would be a turning point to finally bring the war to a close. You could see some fires burning on the edge of the city,” he added at the time. I describe it looking like a pot of black, boiling tar. “The entire city was covered with smoke and dust and dirt. “Shortly after the second wave, we turned to where we could look out and see the cloud, where the city of Hiroshima had been. "The plane jumped and made a sound like sheet metal snapping" after the explosion, Van Kirk told The New York Times on the 50th anniversary of the raid.