Time comes, and this tremendous flash out there , so bright I quickly see this purple splotch on the floor of the truck. I said, 'That ain't it. That's an afterimage.' So I turn back up and I see this white light changing into yellow and then into orange. The clouds form and then they disappear again, the compression and the expansion forms and makes clouds disappear. Then finally, a big ball of orange, the centre that was so bright, became a ball of orange that started to rise and billow a little bit and get a little black around the edges and then you see its a big ball of smoke with flashes on the inside of the fire going out, the heat. I saw all that and all this this that I just described in just a moment, took about one minute. It was a series from bright to dark and I had seen it. ... Finally, after about a minute and a half, there's suddenly a tremendous noise, BANG, and then rumble, like thunder, that thats what convinced me. Nobody had said a word during this whole minute, we were all just watching quietly, but this sound released everybody, released me particularly because the solidity of the sound at that distance meant that it had really worked. The man who was standing next to me said, when the sound went off, "What's that?" I said, 'That was the bomb.'

From "Los Alamos from Below" by Richard Feynman, published in his collection of essays, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

“After I noticed the flash, white clouds spread over the blue sky. It was amazing. It was as if blue morning-glories had suddenly bloomed up in the sky. It was funny, I thought. Then came the heat wave. It was very very hot. Even though there was a window glass in front of me, I felt really hot. It was as if I was looking directly into a kitchen oven. I couldn't bear the heat for a long time. Then I heard the cracking sound. I don't know what made that sound, but probably it came from the air which suddenly expanded in the room. [...] The atomic bomb does not discriminate. Of course, those who were fighting may have to suffer. But the atomic bomb kills everyone from little babies to old people. And it’s not an easy death. It's a very cruel and very painful way to die.”

(transcript from from the video Hiroshima Witness produced by Hiroshima Peace Cultural Center and NHK)

One of the most chilling quotes I read recently came from a crew member on one of the bombers. He was speculating on the nature of the weapon they were carrying, "...it's either a chemist's nightmare or a physicist's nightmare".
- L.M. 8-06-2005 9:42 am