THE WORLD'S FIRST ATOMIC BOMB FELL ON HIROSHIMA 80 YEARS AGO. MARION McMULLEN LOOKS AT A NEW BOOK ON THE FATEFUL EVENT

ONE blast and thousands of people were instantly vaporised and nearly every building in the Japanese city of Hiroshima was destroyed.

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The bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, was the most powerful weapon the world had ever known and was dropped 80 years ago to bring an end to the war with Japan.

New book The Hiroshima Men by historian and writer Iain MacGregor (Constable, £25) tells the story of the race for the atomic bomb through the eyes of four main American and Japanese figures and covers the approval, construction and the fateful decision to use the weapon of mass destruction.

The vivid account covers the corridors of the White House in America to the laboratories and test sites of New Mexico as well as the air war above Nazi Germany and the savage reconquest of the Pacific.

At 8.15am on a clear day on August 6, 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese port city of Hiroshima.

Built in the US by the top-secret Manhattan Project it was delivered by a B-29 Superfortress nicknamed Enola Gay.

The weapon destroyed large swathes of the city, instantly killing tens of thousands and the world would never be the same again.