← Dan Snow's History Hit
Dan Snow's History Hit
Hiroshima: As It Happened
00:58:51
The horror of this fateful day that marked the dawn of the nuclear age.
Loading summary
Transcript61 lines
- [00:00]
Dan Snow
Hello folks. Dan Snow here. I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history. I'd love for you to be there. Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London in England on 12th September to celebrate the 10 years. You can find out more about it. Get tickets with the link in the show notes. Look forward to seeing you there.
- [00:28]
Oregon Home Care Jobs
You can make a difference in someone's life, including your own with a job in home care. These jobs offer flexible schedules, health care, retirement options and free training. They also provide paid time off and opportunities for overtime. Visit oregonhomecarejobs.com to learn more and apply. That's oregonhomecarejobs.com.
- [00:57]
Quince
Ready to elevate your everyday Quince has the luxe Staples Insider swear by minus the markup. From 100% European linen styles and 14 karat gold jewelry to gorgeous leather bags and elevated home finds, Quint's has it all. And by partnering directly with top artisans and ethical factories, Quince delivers premium quality at half the cost of similar brands. Discover everyday luxury without the markup at Quince. Go to quince.com styleupgrade for free shipping and 365 day returns.
- [01:30]
BetterHelp
Quince.com styleupgrade BetterHelp Online Therapy bought this 30 second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out. Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self care. Imagine what you could do with more. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax.
- [02:23]
Dan Snow
It was a beautiful morning. The sun was shining on the buildings. Everything down there was bright. Very, very bright. You could see the city from 50 miles away, the rivers bisecting it, the aiming point. It was clear as a bell. It was perfect. The perfect mission. Those are the words. Those are the memories of Theodore Dutch Van Kirk. He was a navigator on an American B29 bomber. It's called the Enola Gay and in that brief passage he is describing the last few seconds of the pre nuclear age. Perched in his aircraft at 30,000ft looking down at the city of Hiroshima in Japan, his crew were on the brink of deploying the most powerful weapon in history. One that destroyed that city. By the summer of 1945, 80 years ago, World War II in Europe had ended. But the war in the Pacific was raging on with devastating ferocity on the Japanese mainland. The United States had unleashed months of punishing bombings of Japanese Cities particularly incendiary air raids hoping to burn and smash the Japanese government to the point of surrender. In March 1945 for example, Tokyo was struck with a a massive firebombing that may have killed as many as 100,000 people in a single night, most of whom were civilians. Dozens of other cities, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe and more were similarly targeted. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese men, women and children were killed and its urban infrastructure lay in ruins. Further afield, Japan's once and briefly expansive overseas empire was now a disarticulated zombie. Routed in Burma, strangled in Borneo, its Navy wiped out island garrisons in the Pacific, annihilated or just left a rot on the vine by the American steamroller. A suicidal stand in Okinawa cost tens of thousands of lives and a hopeless but savage battle that brought the Americans step by bloody step closer to the Japanese home islands. And yet despite this, the Japanese leadership spat defiance. Despite overwhelming losses, they appeared publicly committed to continuing the war and resisting any eventual invasion of Japan itself. The Allies began preparing for that invasion. They began the planning process. They called it Operation Downfall. An invasion so massive that it would dwarf D day. Allied estimates predicted horrific casualties, potentially over a million Allied soldiers and Japanese military and civilian deaths, well, a multiple of that. Another crisis for Japanese planners was Stalin's veteran massive battle hardened Red army now massing on the borders of Japan's empire and mainland China. There was absolutely not one shred of hope for the Japanese. And the terrible thing is, in that summer of 1945 it was much, much worse than they knew. In the United States, a top secret scientific and military project had delivered the unimaginable. The Manhattan Project was initiated in 1942, building on foundations laid by the British after fears that Nazi Germany might exploit the the vast potential of atomic physics to develop a bomb unlike any other in history. The Manhattan Project brought together some of the world's leading physicists including Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Niels Bohr and Leo Szilard under American military oversight personified by General Leslie Groves. It was a vast collaboration between the U.S. the UK and Canada, spanning facilities in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Oak Ridge, Tennessee and many other places from Washington State to Alabama. After years of theoretical work and engineering breakthroughs, enormous expense, the Manhattan Project achieved its goal in July 1945. The first successful detonation of a nuclear device in the New Mexico desert. It was known as the Trinity Test. The final product of all that time, expense and human genius was delivered to Tinian in the North Mariana Islands. That summer, all the parts needed to assemble initially two bombs. Nicknamed Little Boy and Fat man, they were in fact, two different designs. Little Boy was a uranium gun type design with the equivalent explosive force of 15,000 tons of TNT. Fat man was the larger of the two, a plutonium implosion type design with an equivalent explosive force of 21,000 tons of TNT. Bear in mind the biggest single conventional bombs then in use had an explosive force equivalent to 6 tons of TNT. The bombs now being put together on Tinian island had very different methods of construction. As I said, they represented enormous investments. In fact, all of the purified uranium 235 available in the world at the time went in to the construction of the Little Boy bomb. Following the Trinity test, with the weapons now proven, military and political leaders prepared to use them in an effort to force Japan's unconditional surrender. To deliver the bombs, the US had formed the 509th Composite Group, a specially trained unit equipped with modified B29 Superfortress bombers. They trained in secret for 18 months in Utah and New Mexico and then deployed to Tinian Island, a major US air base, the launching point for many bombing raids over Japan. In this episode of the podcast 80 years on, we're going to take you through step by step of what happened on August 6, 1945, the day that the Little Boy atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, changing the course of human history. We'll hear about that moment from two extraordinary perspectives. From the sky aboard the Enola Gay as it carried out its grim mission, and from the city itself, through the eyes of Hiroshima's mayor, Senkichi awa. This is not just the story of a transformative military mission. It's a tale of human choices, of terrible loss, and what it meant to witness the birth of the nuclear age. For this, we're joined by Ian McGregor, historian and author of the Hiroshima Men, the quest to build the atomic bomb and the fateful decision to use it. He's a great friend. The podcast he's been on before, it's fantastic to have him back and talk about his new book. Before we get started, though, this is a friendly warning that this episode contains descriptions of a graphic nature. It might not be best for all listeners. Let's get into it. The step by step story of one of the most important days of human history. In early August 1945, on the Pacific island of Tinian, some 1500 miles south of Hiroshima, the air crews of the 509th Composite Group have been waiting in tense anticipation. Rumours are swirling among the men. Something big is coming. They've been flying long range Hiltude training missions for months in modified silver plate B29 Superfortresses, practicing for a mission that they know nothing about. The island's airfield is currently the largest in the world, sending aerial armadas of bombers to strike targets across the Pacific. And to the consternation of their comrades from other conventional bombing groups who risk life and limb on daily missions over Japan, the men of the 509th seem to be getting off easy. They seem to train endlessly rather than join the other units on the hazardous round trips to and from Japan and actually get involved in the war. Only a handful of officers know the full details of their mission. The man in charge, the 509th, Colonel Paul Tibbets, has been careful to maintain the utmost secrecy, even among the crews. Strict compartmentalization means that few understand exactly what they're preparing to deliver. Their top secret payload is the uranium atomic bomb, Little Boy. It has been delivered to the island in pieces, but by July 31st it has been assembled on site by the engineers of the Manhattan Project. Ian picks up the story from here. Ian, good to see you. Great to have you back on the podcast.
- [11:41]
Ian McGregor
Thank you, Dan. Thanks for the invite.
- [11:43]
Dan Snow
Right, where are we in the world? What's going on on this Pacific island?
- [11:46]
Ian McGregor
General Curtis LeMay, commander of 20th Bomber Command, landed on Tinian on August 3rd. He was carrying sealed orders to Colonel Tibbets, special bombing mission number 13. Within it, what he would discuss with the strike leader was the authorized date for the attack on Japan with the weapon. The date agreed would be August 6th. And LeMay discussed with Tibbets the targets that have been assigned by the target committee. Primary one would be Hiroshima, secondary would be Kokura, which housed a major military arsenal. And the third one would be Nagasaki, an urban area, but it did house a port and a lot of small scale, almost like a cottage industry of armaments factories. The order confirmed that luckily no friendly aircraft other than those listed would be within a 50 mile area of the targets from the strike. During the period of the hours that they would be over the target and coming away from it. 32 copies of this order were distributed to the senior commanders in Guam, Iwo Jima and Tinian. And Tibbets obviously locked his copy in his office safe and then took LeMay because he hadn't seen it, to go and see a little boy which was in the tech area, which was heavily guarded. The most important commanders on the base had been barred from entry to see this by the the armed MPs. And even when LeMay was trying to get through into it. The vigilant MP demanded that he hand over his cigars and matches. Your military men and scientists on the base, they were called the Tinian Joint Chiefs. It was a mixture of scientific, civilian and military. They were General Thomas Farrell, who was the Manhattan Project senior officer on the island, and General Groves, his eyes and ears on the base, really. Admiral R. Purnell, representing the US Navy, Commander Frederick L. Ashworth. And then from the Manhattan Project, Professors Norman F. Ramsey and Professor Robert Brode. The argument was debated about whether the device, the weapon, should be armed either on the island before takeoff or armed once they got away from the island. Captain William S. Parsons from the U.S. navy. He was an integral member of the scientific team for the Manhattan Project. He would be flying with Tibbets in the Enola Gate and he would arm the device. He made the convincing case that to have a bomb armed before the actual takeoff risked destroying the whole of Tinian island. Should the plane, as many had done already on bombing missions, suffer a malfunction and crash. The fear of this haunted all of them. Parsons suggested once they'd taken off, got to a relative stable altitude, he would crawl through the bomb bay early in the flight and insert the uranium plugs and the explosive charge into the bomb to fully arm it. That was agreed.
- [14:30]
Dan Snow
When do those crews, when do they learn about the nature of the bomb, the weapon that they will be flying with? Or do they ever learn about it before it actually gets dropped?
- [14:40]
Ian McGregor
A lot of the crew, they knew they were dropping something incredibly powerful. Tibbets had said that to them. He briefed them several times. That was the whole point of the training for the mission that they were doing. They were just dropping one bomb on a specific target from way, way up. Sometimes it was at least 30,000ft and that's the practice. They've been doing that. He drilled into them for months and months and months so they knew that something big was happening. These guys are not stupid. They think, okay, this is going to be a big one, probably the biggest of my career.
- [15:10]
Dan Snow
Now weather in the Pacific and frankly any ocean really is unpredictable. It's changeable and it can be violent. On 1 August, an attack with Little Boy has been delayed because of a typhoon tearing its way towards Japan. For several days, Tibbets and the mission planners wait for the weather to clear. On the morning of the 5th of August, weather reports and other intelligence comes in. The mission is finally green lit for the next day. Tibbets assembles the crews for a briefing.
- [15:40]
Ian McGregor
So that morning Tibbets had called the crew together to the briefing group which was now surrounded by armed MPs. As we're getting closer to the time of takeoff, this is where he announced the mission and which planes their crews would fly in. Tibbets had already ordered the naming of the plane. It would have the iconic name Enola Gay after his mother. So it's not just the Enola Gay, it's a grief of planes, some of which are the observational weather planes and some are backup as well. And some are the ones that the weather planes are going over those three targets to relay back on radio coded messages what the conditions are and they'll directly nulligate to the strike. Takeoff would be scheduled for 2:45am the following morning. The strike crew with Tibbets would be his co pilot, Captain Robert Lewis, the bombardier, Major Fereby, the navigator, Captain Van Kirk. Both these men he'd flown with numerous times in action over European skies. Radarman, Lieutenant Jacob Besser, weaponeer, Navy Captain Parsons, assisted by another weapon here, Lieutenant Morris Jepson, the radio operator, Sergeant Joseph Stillberich, tail gunner Staff Sergeant George Karen, more of him later. Radio operator Private First Class Richard Nelson and flight engineer Technical Sergeant Wayne Dusenbury. These men's names would go into history for what they were about to do. The other planes, the great artiste, would be commanded and piloted by Major Charles Sweeney and Lieutenant Charles Albury, who would carry the observation equipment. Another plane, called the 91, but was later renamed Necessary Evil, would be flown by Captain George Marquardt and was kitted out with photographic equipment and observational material to record a detonation. And then the big stink, piloted by Lt. Charles McKnight. You don't really hear much about this plane, primarily because it was acting as standby. It would follow the planes up until Iwo Jima, which is roughly 900km off the Japanese mainline, and then it would land. It was just there plainly to stand by.
- [17:40]
Dan Snow
Even at this stage, with takeoff times set, crews picked and planes prepped, Tibbets to still not reveal the exact nature of the bomb to his men, secrecy was paramount, as was the safety of his crews. They were not only entering contested enemy airspace, but they were delivering the first nuclear payload in history. As Ian has mentioned already, B29s were not immune to malfunction. Just a couple of days before, four B29s loaded with ammunition and bombs had crashed on takeoff and exploded. The incident worried everyone for obvious reasons. This was an exceptionally dangerous mission that could go wrong in a Hundred different ways and Tibbets had tried to plan for every one of them.
- [18:21]
Ian McGregor
Tibbets then went on to assure the crews that all precautions for their safety had been made by the US Navy. There was a thorough area stretching for hundreds of nautical miles of safety safety net of vessels, submarines and they were situated at points along the route below to retrieve them if they had to ditch in the water. But also what he decided to do was take the unit's insignia off the plane too. So the distinctive 509th arrow inside a circle was removed and he just asked for it to be replaced with a simple bold black R. He just didn't want Japanese interceptors to. Maybe, maybe it was paranoia. He didn't want the Japanese to know that a special unit was on his way. The plane was towed to loading bay. But Little Boy to be loaded it was anything but little. It was plum shaped gunmetal gray, 900 pounds in weight, 12ft long and a diameter of 28 inches with sharp tail fins protruding. Within that there would be the parachute that would come out, it'd be radar active and that would slow the descent which would allow Timmits time to get away once he dropped it. What had been scrawled on it by some of the technicians was to Emperor Hirohito from the boys of the Indianapolis. That was the the warship, the USS Indianapolis, which had delivered the final parts of the bomb to Tinian for its assembly. And infamously that would be the ship that's captured in the film Jaws, where on his return home it would be torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine in shark infested waters. And barely any of the crew escaped alive. But Tibbets himself said in his memoirs later as he's studying the bomb, it was not little by any standard. It was a monster compared with any bomb that I had ever dropped in action.
- [20:02]
Dan Snow
By nightfall on the evening of the fifth, things are well underway. Little Boy has been loaded into the bomb bay of Tibbets Superfortress and placed under tight security. Just past midnight on the 6th of August, Tinian time, the crews are making final preparations for the mission ahead. Tibbets briefs them one final time. He gathers them at one end of the crew lounge. They will take off in the early hours of August 6th. Their target is Hiroshima unless weather intervenes.
- [20:34]
Ian McGregor
The crews were brought together one final time for Tibbets to address them. This is where they were getting serious. He stood in front of all the crews and said tonight is the night we have all been waiting for. Our long months of training are to be put to the test. We will soon know if we have been successful or failed. Upon our efforts tonight it is possible that history will be made. Everyone went silent as he's saying this. We are going on a mission to drop a bomb different from any you have ever seen or heard about. I would imagine when he's saying this you can hear a pin drop. He then went on to confirm the scientific nature of the mission. The crews were going to go on. What resembled welders goggles but they were fitted with Polaroid lenses were then distributed to all of them. Professor Ramsey then went and stood on the stage and reassured them that these goggles that they were looking at now wondering what to do with they were to prevent blindness from the bomb flash that was going to be brighter than the sun. He warned. They left and I would imagine whispering wow. I mean the enormity of what they're about to do must have been almost suffocating. Then at midnight they were called together again. They all made their way to the mess hall to eat a breakfast of eggs, sausage, rolled oats, pineapple fritters, apple butter and plenty of coffee. While his men ate. Tibbets quietly without them noticing. Tucked away a packet of cyanide pills into his breast pocket. He'd been told by the senior surgeon on the island that they weren't allowed to be taken prisoner. So if they were shot down over enemy territory or perhaps they crash landed just off the coast and it looked likely that the survivors were going to be picked up by Japanese fishermen or military vessels. They were to kill themselves as they ate, as the crew were sitting around having this delicious breakfast. Kind of like the last supper I suppose. The three weather planes, Straight Flush, Jabot 3 and Full House, they all took off. They were flying an hour ahead of Tibbett strike force to report back the weather conditions for the visual drop that he would make.
- [22:36]
Dan Snow
At 0115 Tinian time, the crew of the Enola Gay are picked up by a truck. Tibbets and Parsons sit in the front. They all wear pale green combat overalls and the only identification they carry are the dog tags around their necks.
- [22:52]
Ian McGregor
Tibbets crew finally drove to the Enola Gay. They were surprised to be met by media teams as well as Aurtinian chiefs. They're taking photos of the crew but it's not like there's a mass press audience there because obviously they're about to go on the mission. And then when you compare it to how it looked once they come back from a successful mission, the world's waiting for them. Seemingly every single general in the Pacific's there wanted to shake their hand. It's very different when they take off because obviously everyone's on tenderhooks. This is the big deal. They want to make sure it works. It's a top secret mission. So, yeah, you got the photograph and you got the photograph of Tibbets looking out of his cockpit window as well. But everyone's on edge. The Enola Gay was heavily laden, not just with the bomb itself, because also they put gasoline stowed away in the rear of the plane to balance it out. So it was a lot heavier than they'd had before. Coming up to take off, Timmits behind the controls, focused on the eight and a half thousand feet of coral Runway ahead, checked in with his crew to confirm all was ready. He announced to the radio station. Dimples 82 to North Tinian Tower, ready for takeoff on Runway able. Less than a second later came the reply. Dimples 8 2. Dimples 82 cleared for takeoff. Special bombing mission 13 was now a go. Above Iwo Jima, several hundred kilometers from the Japanese mainland. The B29s met each other, formed up in the V formation and flew up to the IP at the IP in Olagay, and the great artiste flew in towards the city of Hiroshima.
- [24:24]
Dan Snow
At 0200 Hiroshima time on 6 August, the die is cast. The crews are packed into their super fortresses and are slicing through the sky towards their target. Gunners nervously swivel in their cramped turrets, scanning the skies for enemy fighters. The last thing they need is to be intercepted with their precious cargo. Pilots try to focus on the task at hand. They grip the steering columns of their planes. They monitor the various dials in front of them. Navigators are kept busy plotting courses. The weaponeers, Parsons and Jepson have the important job of crawling into the bomb bay to insert the charge into Little Boy. In the bellies of these hulking bombers, all of the men are afforded a moment to think about the task that lies ahead. Meanwhile, in Hiroshima, another side of this story is playing out on the ground. Mayor Senkichi Owaya is at the family home, unaware that the story of his city is about to change forever.
- [25:25]
Ian McGregor
On the ground in Hiroshima, there's the mayor, Senkichi awa. He'd been in charge of the city in terms of the civilian administration since the spring of 1943. So this is a man who was born in 1893. He belonged to a family that had benefited greatly by the western expansion of industry Commerce, education, since about the 1850s in Japan. So he belonged to a very prosperous middle class family that were based just northeast of Tokyo. First generation to go to university, star student, he'd been chosen to have a job in the civil service. He worked for the Ministry of Home Affairs. And even though he started with the Ministry of Agriculture, it was plain that he was a gifted man, manager. And also he was adept at reading the law, reading the law, knowing the law, and implementing civilian law in the home islands. So from a very young age, literally within a year and a half of coming out of university, he was in the Office of Home affairs. Age of 26, he's given his first major senior role, which is to run the police force in, of all places, Hiroshima. And that's where he would meet his wife. They would go on to have several children, two of which died from disease in the late 20s and early 1930s. So by the time of the war, 1941, Pearl harbor, he has five children between the ages of roughly around 7 to 17. And he had had a mixed career in terms of he would go from job to job. That's what civilian administrations did. They would be in charge of various cities. But he had major roles. For instance, he was the head of police in Osaka as well in the 1930s. And the key thing, and there's one thing I have to stipulate, that one of the reasons why I really respected him was even though you've got this time of economic hardship in the 1930s, Japan's descent into militarism, authoritarianism, government, he still believed in the rule of law. I can't argue the point that he was 100% Democrat, but he believed in the law of the land as was practiced at the time, he should implement. So he had many run ins with senior leaders in the armed forces who believed that the armed forces could just do what they wanted on the home islands, as they were doing in other places such as China, Manchuria, et cetera. And he went head to head with them to the point which he took early retirement through illness, which must have come on from the stress of the job. So they actually brought him out of retirement in the spring of 1943 because the war's going badly. They know the Americans are getting closer to the home islands. They can probably figure out an invasion would happen eventually. The major city in the south of Japan where the attack will probably come is Hiroshima. It's a military home. The Japanese fleet that attacked the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl harbor in 1941 had set sail From Hiroshima. Most soldiers fighting in mainland China had set sail from Hiroshima. Major works there, military works, major arsenals. So it's a target. But equally, they want a gifted administrator there. So they bring him out of retirement. I mean, he's not asked, he's ordered, so he has to go down there. So he'd been there for at least 20 months by the time we're getting close to this atomic attack. Where kinian's occupied, Tibbets, 509th is their training. A wire is there. He's already brought down some of his family. His eldest children are now either mature students or working in munitions factories in and around northern Tokyo. They're a little bit safer, I suppose, from the bombings that are going on on the capital. But he brought down two of his youngest children with his wife to say it's safe in Hiroshima. We haven't been bombed much anyway, you'll be safer here. So he brings them down, ironically, tragically so on that morning, his wife's in the kitchen. August 6th. Beautiful blue sky. The weather plane that the 509th have already sent over to gauge conditions over the city to report back to Tibbets to say this potentially could be the strike. That's exactly what they do. While they're doing that, the air raid sirens are going off, people are scurrying. But the weather plane goes, so it's not bombing anyone. So the air raid sirens go off and people are going about their day of work. So it's 8 o' clock in the morning because Tibet hadn't arrived yet. They're just going about their day, either stopping in cafes to get some cheap tea, scouring the markets to see if they can buy any food, which is heavily rationed. In a wire's case, he's in his residence on the river, literally 2, 300 meters away from what we now know today and see as the atomic dome. That's how close he was to ground zero. He's playing with his granddaughter and his youngest son. His wife is in the back of the house preparing breakfast. And that's where they are when Tibbets and his crew in the Enola gray are flying over, ready to drop the bomb.
- [30:07]
Dan Snow
You listen to Dan Snow's history. It there's more coming up.
- [30:19]
Oregon Home Care Jobs
You can make a difference in someone's life, including your own, with a job in home care. These jobs offer flexible schedules, health care, retirement options and free training. They also provide paid time off and opportunities for overtime. Visit oregonhomecarejobs.com to learn more and apply. That's oregonhomecarejobs.com.
- [30:48]
Quince
Ready to level up your everyday? Quince makes premium essentials without the premium price tag. From quality clothing and stylish accessories to travel staples and high end home goods, Quince has it all. And by partnering directly with top artisans and ethical factories, Quince delivers high quality at half the cost of similar brands. Shop elevated essentials without the markup at Quince. Go to quince.com LevelUp for free shipping and 365 day returns.
- [31:15]
BetterHelp
Quince.com LevelUp BetterHelp Online Therapy bought this 30 second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out. Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self care. Imagine what you could do with more visit betterhelp.com randompodcast.com. for 10% off your first month of therapy, no pressure, just help. But for now, just relax.
- [31:59]
Jerry
You know what's wild? Most people are still overpaying for car insurance just because it's a pain to switch. That's why there's Jerry. Jerry's the only app that compares rates from over 50 insurance in minutes and helps you switch fast. With no spam calls or hidden fees, drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Before you renew your car insurance policy, do yourself a favor, download the Jerry app or head to Jerry AI Acast.
- [32:34]
Dan Snow
At the same time in the skies above, the Enola Gay is preparing for its final run. Jepsen had removed Little Boy's safety devices and inserted the arming devices. At 0630 time, Tibetz had announced the crew, we are carrying the world's first atomic bomb. At 0805, the navigator, Dutch von Kirk calls out, 10 minutes to the IP. The Enola Gay is flying at over 30,000ft when the city of Hiroshima comes into view for the first time. The seven channels of the ocean Ota river are full and motionless, reflecting the morning sun. On the ground. Students are making their way to the munitions factory while groups of school children are already hard at work demolishing buildings to clear firebreaks in case of air raids. They were soon to learn of the abject futility of their efforts.
- [33:29]
Ian McGregor
Ten miles out from the target at 30,000ft, Bombardier Major Ferriby was in the nose of the Enola Gade. Their approaching speed was roughly 330 miles per hour. The autopilot as they practiced, was engaged as the Norden gun site took control and was guiding the plane towards the T shaped target that had been agreed. They practiced on called the I.O. bridge. As soon as Ferebee announced he could clearly see it, Tibbets took his hands off the controls, giving Ferebee command of the plane. Radio silence was a signal to the accompanying B29s that the Enola Gay's bomb doors were now open. A little boy had been dispatched. The bomb hurtled towards earth, heading for the I.O. bridge five miles down. As had been designed, the bomb's fin radar system activated. The detonator parachute had already opened, slowing the bomb down, which was allowing Tibbets the time to really do almost like a handbrake turn going left and get back away from the bomb as quickly as possible. The explosion, I should say at 8:15, some 43 seconds after it had dropped from the Enola Gaze bomb bay, the weapon exploded at 1890ft above the ground. Tibbets and his crew were by then approximately six miles away, having turned away as instructed by Oppenheimer. Ferebee's aim, however, had been off. Missing the bridge by roughly 800ft. The atomic bomb detonated instead above the Shima Surgical Hospital. It didn't matter. For the men, women and children of Hiroshima within the blast radius that affects obviously what's going to be the same.
- [35:01]
Dan Snow
Witnesses remember the blinding flash that seared across the sky. Almost immediately came the deafening roar trailed by an overwhelming blast wave that shattered windows, flattens walls and hurls people and debris through the air. In less than a second, the fireball swells nearly 900ft across, radiating heat upwards of 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That's nearly 4,000 degrees centigrade. The inferno vaporizes wooden buildings and instantly turns many victims to ash. With temperatures that fuse steel and concrete detonating at that altitude, the blast tears through two thirds of Hiroshima's structures, igniting fires that merge rapidly into a massive firestorm, engulfing entire neighborhoods and layering the sky in thick black smoke. Survivors emerging from collapsed buildings describe the surreal aftermath. A dusty gray darkness cloaking ruins. Soon the skies unleash black rain, a toxic downpour of ash, soot and radioactive fallout that tars streets, sears the skin and will bring suffering long after the fires died out. Down on the ground, one survivor later recounted, everywhere there was dust, it made a grayish darkness over everything. It was a really terrible scene. It was just like something out of hell.
- [36:30]
Ian McGregor
Eight out of 10 people within a half mile radius of the bombast instantly killed, evaporated, gone. Birds in the sky, evaporated, gone. Anything living within that half mile radius is pretty Much gone. Housing completely flattened. You've got to remember traditional Japanese housing was made of wood and paper. Hadn't changed for centuries. There are various modern buildings that are made of reinforced concrete. So as we know, what's called the now famous Atomic dome, that's shattered, but it's still kind of in one piece. There's very few modern buildings in that center of the city that are still standing. Roughly between 66 and 75,000 people die within a matter of seconds. And that's a city of over 300,000.
- [37:18]
Dan Snow
A third of a second after detonation, the blast wave is moving at 2 miles per second. That's over 7,000 miles per hour at its maximum size, about a second after detonation. The fireball is what, approximately 100ft in diameter at least.
- [37:36]
Ian McGregor
Yeah. And all consuming. And miraculously, a few people witnessed it and survived. But it's biblical. It's the only way to describe it. It's literally incinerates the city. Incinerates is the right word. There's nothing left. It's just gone. And people that would go and research this afterwards, once they've listened to this podcast, you go and look at the pictures. All that's left is the imprint of where the. The roads crisscross. There is nothing left.
- [38:06]
Dan Snow
The temperature is something like 7,000 degrees.
- [38:09]
Ian McGregor
Several thousand degrees.
- [38:11]
Dan Snow
Several thousand degrees Fahrenheit at this point at the hypocentre just beneath the blast. I mean, stone, stone melts at that temperature.
- [38:20]
Ian McGregor
Stone melts, roof tiles melt, disintegrates. If you go to the Hiroshima Memorial Museum, they've got some very emotive but amazing artefacts that are now stored there that you can see, as in, you know, semi melted roof tiles. People that have literally just been disintegrated. All that's left is a shadow of where they were sitting or standing on a doorstep. And it happens in a click of a finger. It's just the power is incredible.
- [38:48]
Dan Snow
So, yes, you get these shadows. There's a shadow of a young woman on the bank of the river. There's a shadow of a man pulling a cart across the street. So that the only remnants of these people is the shadow that they cast at them nanosecond of their death.
- [39:03]
Ian McGregor
Yeah. And for the survivors, then it becomes a case of what were you wearing when you were exposed to the bomb blast and the gamma radiation. So again, people that I interviewed, some of them would later, they had cancer, developed cancer, radiation poisoning, but they survived. But some of them were lucky. They were just wearing long sleeve Clothes, full trousers, long sleeve shirts and dresses or smocks, and that's what saved them. Whereas others were in short sleeves or skirts and died of their wounds, died of the burns that they would receive that would develop from the radiation poisoning and the bomb blast. For those that have been to Hiroshima, it's a beautiful city. The setting's amazing. It's surrounded almost in a kind of horseshoe shape by mountains at least 3, 4, 5,000 foot high. They did rebound the bomb blast that swept across the city, which caused even more destruction. It's something like 4.7 square miles of the city would be destroyed at 69% of housing and everything else, utilities. But on top of that, the mushroom cloud is raging above them. A boiling kessel of dark purple, yellow, white clouds that's rising 40, 50,000ft into the air. That's what shocked and surprise and awed the crew of the Enola Gay and the other two B29s following them. They just couldn't get over. Just the size of this thing shrouds the city and it's scooping up all the debris and dust and everything else, and human body parts, I would imagine, from the city and then raining down on them. That's famously where you get the black rain, the radioactive rain that would then shower the city immediately afterwards, which caused even more devastation. A mini tsunami is happening because of the force of the shock wave which then engulfs the lower end of the city by the port. People are trying to escape that and they're trying to escape the flames. It's kind of a mirror of what happened in Tokyo a few months before in March. To get away from the heat, you obviously look for water. You jump in the rivers. The rivers are just as hot as anything you're stepping on outside. You're boiling to death, basically. And there were hundreds if not thousands of bodies floating in the rivers that's separated the city to days on end until recovery teams could fish them out and burn them.
- [41:20]
Dan Snow
As Hiroshima is still experiencing this catastrophe, we get the first Japanese official reaction.
- [41:26]
Ian McGregor
The first report out of it that Hiroshima had been destroyed was actually sent by a 14 year old communications officer, Yoshioka. She was one of thousands of students that had joined early in the military that were working almost like a militia administration force and worked in the headquarters of major army groups across Japan. Really. So she's working in the one that's in Hiroshima and so she was part of this and she worked in the communication division. She was monitoring air defenses, enemy radio traffic and such. And what saved her Life is she's sitting in a concrete bunker. So the initial explosion rocked the bunker and despite the protection it offers, she was knocked off her feet, as most of the people in the office were. And for a moment she lost consciousness, but she was alive. And when she recovered, after a few seconds, she calls frantically, Fukuyama headquarters on a special hotline that was still intact. And obviously they're not believing her. She's telling them that the city, the whole city has been hit in one fell swoop. Surprise attack almost, because obviously it's just one bomber coming out of nowhere. So at first the officer at Fukuyama didn't believe her. He tells her, you need to go up out of the bunker onto the ground and see what's going on. See for yourself and then come and ring me back. She does this. She witness, I suppose, a dystopian nightmare. The fireballs there off in the distance. The mushroom cloud is literally towering above her, higher than Everest, boiling and mad hot. The air must have been suffocating. But crucially, she comes across a survivor, an officer in the Japanese Imperial army, badly burned, half his clothes missing. And he says what she's kind of thinking and what she's wanting to say up the chain of command. We've been hit by some new weapon. It came out of nowhere. It's destroyed the city. She scrambles back downstairs, gets back on the line to Fukuyama, and that's what she says. Hiroshima has been attacked by a new type of bomb and the city is in a state of near total destruction. And it was the core of the city's municipal government office had been destroyed and had 90% of the buildings within the city center, a mile radius. Of the thousand employees fit for work that day who normally worked for mayor or wire after the dropping of the bomb, just 80 reported for duty the next day. The rest of them were either dead or die. The few civilian servants alive were able to walk into the inferno, I suppose, and try and deal as best they could with trying to get emergency medical treatment for the tens of thousands of people that were still alive that managed to survive. Obviously 80 odd thousand had literally just disappeared, had been evaporating. So throughout the next 48 hours, huge columns of survivors now and those badly injured are making their slow procession out of the city to what they think is the safety of the mountains. City's emergency medical services been decimated. 14 of the 16 major hospitals in and around Hiroshima were destroyed. Of medical personnel, 270 of 298 hospital doctors were dead, along with 1,654 of a total of 1,780 registered nurses. I mean, that's the city's medical blanket just disappeared. The central telephone exchange was in ruins and all its employees dead. The tram car system was no longer tenable as the tracks running through the center of town melted and disappeared. Street cars that had been caught in the blast were just charred husks. And again, some of your listeners, if they go online, they can see those photographs. And the main train station was a wreck. And Hiroshima harbor, you would hope you try and get supplies in that way. That was a wreck too. That was destroyed to tackle the thousands of fires now controlling around the city. Only 16 firefighting equipment, pieces of the hundreds that had been available seconds before were now destroyed. It was reminiscent of the catastrophic fire rates on Tokyo because most firemen had been killed in the blast. And the military complex based within Hiroshima Castle had literally disappeared. It had been destroyed, several thousand people had died. And ironically, there'd been two dozen American POWs that had been gardening in front of the castle. Again, they died instantly. Their shadows were burned into the ground where they stood. So the estimated 320,000 human beings present within the city barranges that morning, approximately 80,000 were dead, which would rise to well over a hundred thousand within a couple of weeks.
- [46:00]
Dan Snow
Mayor Awaya, his son Shinobu and his granddaughter Ayako are in the dining room of their house as the Enola Gay pass above the them. His wife Sachio has walked across the courtyard of their home to fetch some fresh fruit. They're practically at ground zero when the bomb explodes. Ian explains what happened to them.
- [46:22]
Ian McGregor
So as the Enola Gay is Approaching Hiroshima towards 8:15 Mar A W he been in the dining room of his house preparing for breakfast with his youngest son Shinobu, and his granddaughter Ayako. She'd come across from where her parents were in Osaka because that had been heavily bombed over the last few weeks by the B29s. So her parents, his daughter had said, can she come and stay with you for a while? Because Hiroshima is obviously untouched at the moment. So that's why she was there. Awaya's wife had walked across the courtyard to the rear of the residence to retrieve some fruit from the store next to the shrine they played at daily. So his residence is right on the river. It's a beautiful. Must have been a beautiful place to live, very quiet, surrounded by trees and bushes. I suppose it's the kind of place a very senior official would have. If they're running a city. And then as a wire's having breakfast and I suppose he's urging his son and his granddaughter to eat the food. That's when the blinding flash of light fills a room and the fireball strikes the city. And his residence is less than half a mile from ground zero, so it was swept away in this cauldron of heat, dust and explosion. Crucially, his wife survives, miraculously because she was at the back of the residence. And a lot of the research and interviews I've done with survivors, they do talk about they themselves either survive because they were at the back of the building which took the brunt of the explosion at the front, or one of their relatives was there and they miraculously survived. And that's how Mrs. Awaiya survived. She was in the kitchen. It practically collapsed on her, but it created a slight air pocket cushion so it didn't completely collapse and crush her. But she had severe injuries. The next few days for her would be clearly a nightmare. She managed to stagger out. She would eventually be rescued by fire teams that got into the city, but eventually she would pass away a few weeks later from radiation poisoning.
- [48:19]
Dan Snow
This is Dan Snow's history here. More after this.
- [48:30]
Oregon Home Care Jobs
You can make a difference in someone's life, including your own, with a job in home care. These jobs offer flexible schedules, health care, retirement options and free training. They also provide paid time off and opportunity opportunities for overtime. Visit oregonhomecarejobs.com to learn more and apply. That's oregonhomecarejobs.com.
- [48:59]
Quince
Ready to elevate your everyday Quince has the lux staples insiders swear by minus the markup. From 100% European linen styles and 14 karat gold jewelry to gorgeous leather bags and elevated home finds, Quint's has it all. And by partnering directly with top artisans and ethical factories, Quint delivers premium quality at half the cost of similar brands. Discover everyday luxury without the markup at Quince. Go to quince.comstyleupgrade for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com styleupgrade.
- [49:42]
Dan Snow
Back in the skies, the wall of this massive shock wave reaches the Enola Gay. As her engines strain to carry her as far away as possible, the plane is buffeted and the crew immediately enter survival mode.
- [49:56]
Ian McGregor
By the time the shock waves hit the plane, they're roughly around about 18 and a half kilometers away. They assume they're being hit by enemy anti aircraft fire. It's that strong. It really shocks shapes the plane mercilessly. And it's only the tail gunners telling Them? No, no, we're not being hit by anything. It's a blast wave, and I can see the next one coming in a minute. Hold yourselves.
- [50:16]
Dan Snow
So he could see Bob, Karen in the tailgunner. He could see these blast waves approaching.
- [50:20]
Ian McGregor
Yeah, these concentric circles just emanating from the mushroom cloud.
- [50:24]
Dan Snow
Did the crew experience, apart from the physical shot, could they sense somehow, in any other way, the explosive yield that they just delivered?
- [50:32]
Ian McGregor
I would say yes, judging by the interviews that I researched in American archives, quite a few memoirs as well. They're all experienced bomber crews. They know the power of the ordinance that they've been dropping over the last few years, especially in Europe. To see that kind of explosion must have been an incredible sight for them, I suppose for Tibbets, he's banking the plane around. He's not literally just taking off. And Bob Carron in the tail is getting the only look at what they'd done to the city. They're departing to the southwest. And so he can see out of the cockpit the atomic cloud that's rising. And I'll just quote this from him from his memoir. The giant purple mushroom which Karen had described had already risen to a height of 45,000ft, three miles above our own altitude, and was still boiling upward like something terribly alive. It was a frightening sight. And even though we were several miles away by now, it gave the appearance of something that was about to engulf us. If Dante had been with us in the plane, he himself would have been.
- [51:37]
Dan Snow
Terrified, even looking back on the fiery inferno in their wake. None of the crew of the Enola Gay are aware at this point of the scale of the damage the bomb has inflicted. But from the size and appearance of the mushroom clouds soaring through the atmosphere behind them, they know for certain they have ushered in a new epoch in history. Its mission a success. Enola Gay sets a course to return to Tinian.
- [52:03]
Ian McGregor
So 258 Genoligay returns to Tinian. Their mission had covered 2,960 miles, taken 12 hours and 13 minutes, and used approximately 6,000 gallons of fuel. Timit's always said it was the easiest mission he ever flew. They clearly weren't interrupted by any enemy activity towards and over the target. And on the way back, it was the same. It was literally cruise control. But this time an even bigger crowd awaited them than they'd seen the night before when they were sent off. 200 officers and men crowded onto the apron where the Nola Gay would park and several thousand more of the air base crew, MPs, supply units, etc were lining the tarmac, waving at them, greeting at them as they landed. And as soon as Tibbets managed to park the Enola Gay and the crew disembarked onto the tarmac, General Carl Spaats, who was the head of the Air Force, quickly marched up to shake his hand for the cameras. Clearly it's a big PR opportunity. And he pinned a Distinguished Service Cross on his chest. And then the media take over and start interviewing the crew. So as this is going on right on the other side of the world at 11:45am, crossing the Atlantic in the USS Augusta, President Truman sitting down for breakfast in the aft mess hall of the ship with his Secretary of State, James Byrne, his Chief of Staff, Admiral William Leigh, and the ship's Captain, James K. Foskett. Gentlemen, are sitting down to have breakfast. It was now 16 hours since Ferebee had released Little Boy over Hiroshima. And this is when the news arrives from General Groves. Hiroshima bombed visually with only 1/10 cover. There was no fighter opposition in flak. Parsons. Captain Parsons reports 15 minutes after drop as follows. Results clear cut and successful in all respects. Visible effects greater than in any other test. Conditions normal in airplane following delivery. You can imagine Truman's reaction. He launched himself from his seat, startling everyone because you've got to remember it's not just the senior men and politicians sitting around him. It's ship's crew are having their breakfast. They know the President's sitting there. I would imagine it's quite hushed and quiet and they're just getting on with things. Maybe there's a slight hubbub, but the President of the United States is jumping out of his seat like it's his Christmas. He did startle everyone close to him and pumped the young messenger's hand, had given him the. The cable from General Groves, and he shouted to the ship's Captain Foskett, captain, this is the greatest thing in history. So while the buzz among the ship's crews drowned out any private conversation, another cable arrives, and this time it's from Henry Stimson. It says, to the President from the Secretary of War, big bomb dropped on Hiroshima 5th at 7:15pm Washington time. First reports indicate complete success, which was even more conspicuous than the earlier test. So now he's got everything confirmed. So Groves has confirmed the military aspect and Stimson's given the official political green light from Washington D.C. so he's clutching both of these communiques in his hands. Quite biblical, I'd imagine, this visualization. And he exultantly turns to Secretary of State burns and shouted over this, you know, the increased noise in the canteen from the other crew, it's time for us to get on home. That's when he thinks the politician in him, he wants to address the crew, the crowd. So he turns to the men now looking at him, and he picks up his fork and strikes it against the glass. They can hear it like a wedding. So he can get silence all around. And he tells the excited room of men, I suppose he reads the cables out, he reads both cables out to them and then the room explodes in cheering and clapping, which then spreads through the ship in the next few minutes and I would imagine argue that that was a very pleasant voyage home.
- [55:48]
Dan Snow
Little Boy was not the only atomic bomb dropped in August 1945. The Hiroshima bombing failed to eliminate, elicit an immediate Japanese surrender. And so three days later, on the 9th of August, a plutonium based bomb codenamed Fat man was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. Although estimates vary, we think up to 40,000 people were killed in the initial Hiroshima detonation. By the beginning of 1946, some 30,000 more people were dead. And overall we think some hundred thousand deaths were directly attributable to the bombing of the Nagasaki.
- [56:21]
Ian McGregor
Whereas the first mission to deliver Little Boy over Hiroshima went like clockwork. And everyone involved said the same thing. And as I said already, Tibit said it was the easiest mission. He flew the second mission to deliver the plutonium bomb, Fat man delivered by the B29 called Boxcar. Same setup where the planes going ahead and then the communications and observation planes behind. It was a bit of a mess, truth be told, in terms of their first target, which was Kukura, they couldn't get to, they couldn't do. They were missing the rendezvous points as a unit together, they then were told, we can't do this one, we need to go further on. And Nagasaki is now the target. They managed to deliver the bomb, but the conditions over the target were nothing like it had been over Hiroshima. It was difficult to observe where ground zero was going to be to deliver the bomb. They managed to deliver it by the skin of their teeth with just enough fuel to get home. At one point they thought they may have to land. Emergency landing at Okinawa, which was part of the plan anyway. But they did manage to get home, but it was fraught with difficulty, with anxiety, and there was a lot of name calling and a blame game afterwards.
- [57:36]
Dan Snow
Ian, as someone who's been immersed in this material now for years, how have you come away thinking about this new chapter in our Story as a species, the importance of it, the necessary, the cruelty. What are you thinking now about those atomic strikes?
- [57:51]
Ian McGregor
I sympathise, empathize, I should say, with Truman, who would give the order in terms of. He wants to finish the war. Ultimately, as a politician, he's looking to. This will save lives. And it did. It ended the war quickly. The fighting finished in the Pacific, the daily casualty rates. He's looking out for his own troops as well as civilian deaths and the incredible losses in China that was going to stop. So I can see that pragmatically, he's thinking, that's a situation. But if you, as I've done with my research, you're charting the progress of the war in the Pacific, it's as vicious compared to the Eastern front, which we all look at as a really racially driven, vicious war. No weapon off the table. I would argue the Pacific war was just like that. Absolutely. There is no weapon off the table. If you're prepared to incinerate a whole country with napalm over six, seven months of operations, why would you not then think the logical next choice is to use something like an atomic bomb? You look at the great Tokyo raid, which has been covered to a degree by some excellent historians that killed well over 100,000 people in a night with napalm. And I would say that's a far harder way to die than if you're right under an atomic bomb and you die in the bombplast, you're dead instantly. Whereas, as I've done with the research and interviewing people, with the Tokyo firing, the deaths there were appalling, and it went on for hours. It must have been absolutely terrifying from a moralistic point of view. I admire Tibbets in terms of his message discipline. You've got to remember this guy, once he finished the war, how many interviews must have he gone through? Hundreds upon hundreds of interviews in the press, on tv, on radio, that he was asked to justify. Is it morally correct to drop an atomic bomb? And he says, and it's on. If you go onto the Atomic Heritage foundation website and front and center is his quote. And the more often I read it, I should say, I thought, actually, he's got a point. He said, there is no morality in warfare. There just isn't. And if you think that you're a fool, what is the difference between dropping a conventional bomb, using napalm, using a flamethrower, poison gas, the dropping an atomic bomb? At the end of the day, they're killing people. He said, that's what I did, and I just. There is no morality, there is no moral argument in what I did. We are fortunate we're looking at it from 80 years down the track. We've lived with the atomic bomb, you and I, all our lives. We're children of the Cold War, so we know the horrors. Back then, he would not have known the horror because someone like John Hersey hadn't gone yet to interview the survivors. The hydrogen bomb hadn't been developed, which is a genocidal bomb that finishes off humanity, just doesn't finish off a city. They hadn't gone there yet for someone like Tibbett. So that's why I think someone in his position, he would think it completely normal to do this kind of bombing mission. It would have been nothing strange for him to drop something like this. So you've got to judge him at that point in time to say this is what he was thinking, this is what he'd experienced. You can't judge him on anything else.
- [61:00]
Dan Snow
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the end point of a story that began with our first hominid ancestor picking up a rock or a stick to strike their enemy. Over hundreds of thousands of years, the lethality of our weapons has increased until one man was able to release a single weapon that could destroy a city. What happened in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, in August 1945 was unlike anything the world has ever seen. In just a few seconds, these cities were leveled. Tens of thousands of lives were lost in an instant. In the weeks and months that followed, countless more suffered the slow agonizing effect effects of radiation, injury and trauma, not to mention alienation from their fellow citizens. According to the crew, the mission of the Enola Gay was carried out with an unwavering belief that the bomb would help to end the war. And they did help to end that war. Just nine days after the Hiroshima bombing, Japan surrendered. World War II was over. For some, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a necessary evil, a horrifying but decisive act that saved millions of lives by avoiding a bloody land invasion. For others, they remain one of history's darkest chapters. A massive use of force against a civilian population. One that unleashed a new era of warfare that humanity has struggled to reckon with ever since. Earlier, I said that the bombings were an end of the story of human weapon development. But of course, they weren't. In the decades that followed, bombs were developed that dwarfed even those devices. Later generations of nuclear weapons have given individuals the power to effectively destroy human civilization on our planet. As these bombs have strengthened and multiplied, so too have the questions about their use? Was it justified in 1945? Could there have been another way? Was it a genuine attempt to get Japan to surrender? Or a signal to the Soviet Union? And really, most haunting, perhaps most importantly of all, could it happen again? Today, Hiroshima stands as a city of peace and remembrance, a symbol of resilience, a dark reminder of what nuclear weapons are are capable of, and a desperate warning to all future generations. Well, a huge thank you to Ian McGregor for guiding us through this. His book is the Hiroshima Men the Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb and the Fateful Decision to Use It. It really is a masterful account of the development of the bomb and the experiences of four particular men at the heart of the story. I thoroughly recommend it. If you've enjoyed this episode of the podcast, please leave us a review. Wherever you get your podcasts, they really do help us. And if there's any topics you'd like to hear more about, please send me an email@dshhistoryhit.com thanks so much for listening.
- [64:33]
Quince
Ready to level up your everyday Quince makes premium essentials without the premium price tag. From quality clothing and stylish accessories to travel staples and high end home goods, Quince has it all. And by partnering directly with top artisans and ethical factories, Quince delivers high quality at half the cost of similar brands. Shop elevated essentials without the markup at Quince. Go to quints.com LevelUp for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com LevelUp hey there, you hear that, right?
- [65:06]
EasyCater
You don't? That's what it's like to order food for your workplace with EasyCater. No hold music while you wait to place your order. No tap tapping as you type in special dietary instructions or long, complicated searches for options in your budget. No crinkling of paper receipts.
- [65:23]
Ian McGregor
Just dang, these are some tasty sandwiches.
- [65:28]
EasyCater
Ezcator the better Way to Order food for work order now@easycator.com.