The Hiroshima Game


Can you give the order?


Click Here to start game.

On the morning of August 6, 1945, the United States Army Air Forces dropped the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima, followed three days later by the detonation of the "Fat Man" bomb over Nagasaki.

The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender in the Second World War, as well as the effects and justification of them, have been subject to much debate. The roots of the development of the atomic bomb lay in fears that Nazi Germany was investigating such weapons of its own.

The effort to develop the first nuclear weapons during World War II was started under President Roosevelt who died in April 1945. The final decision to drop the bombs was taken by President Truman.

In this game you play the President from the start of the project through to the end of the war. You will make the decisions. You will decide the morality of your actions.

Click the word "Authorized" to start the project.


"It is not so much this or the other means of making war that is immoral or inhumane. What is immoral is war itself. Once full-scale war has broken out it can never be humanized or civilized, and if one side attempted to do so it would be most likely to be defeated."
Robert Saunby, Deputy Air Marshal at Bomber Command