A banner waves in the breeze as a reminder of the anniversary of the first nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima Japan on Aug. 6, 1045. In Japanese it states: "I will never get angry again."
The fireball from the Trinity test explosion, 25 milliseconds after detonation, July 16, 1945 near White Sands.
A banner in front of the Taos County Administrative and Judicial Complex associates hostilities in Gaza with the 80th anniversary of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan Aug. 6, 1945.
Questa resident David Dobry wanted to remind people of one of the darkest days in world history.
Eighty years ago, on Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. military caused the destruction of the Japanese city of Hiroshima by dropping an atomic bomb — killing as many as 165,000 — people in order to bring a swift end to World War II in the Pacific. The end of the war in Europe had arrived with Germany’s surrender in May, 1945.
Three days later, on Aug. 9, 1945, Nagasaki was destroyed by a second nuclear bomb. The bombings marked the first two times nuclear weapons were ever used in the theater of war. The Japanese surrendered Aug. 15.
In recognition of the grim anniversary, Dobry and a number of acquaintances placed banners in front of the Taos County Administrative and Judicial Complex at Paseo del Pueblo Sur and Albright Street Wednesday (Aug. 6). One that stated “Nevermore” and included the phrase, “‘I will never get angry again,” in Japanese.
Another banner was designed to reflect imagery associated with artist Pablo Picasso’s massive 1937 mural painting titled “Guernica,” that was done in response to Nazi German bombing of that Basque city during the Spanish Civil War. Dobry said his purpose was to focus on LANL’s continued — and recently expanded — nuclear weapons research and plutonium pit production.
“We have enough nuclear bombs,” Dobry said.
The weapons were famously developed in secret at Los Alamos, N.M. (LANL) and a test weapon was detonated July 16, 1945 at Trinity Site near White Sands in southern New Mexico. It was the first-ever atomic explosion and created a massive, radioactive debris cloud.
Health effects from the nuclear fallout are still felt by those downwind of the Trinity Site. Reparations for the downwinders and their descendants were addressed in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act, which may make compensation available to these victims.
“It’s historic, and after 80 years, it’s long overdue,” Tina Cordova, co-founder and executive director of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, told the Santa Fe New Mexican in an article published last month.
As for the moral implications, Dobry said, “We need never to forget that.”
“We don’t need any more bombs,” Dobry said. “We’re got enough to blow up the world five times over. It’s a crime. It’s a crime against humanity.”
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