August 6, 1945
Tokyo, Japan

The control operator suddenly leaned forward in his chair, adjusting switches and controls. His headphones were giving off…nothing. Only on one station, though.

He thought it curious and switched to another telephone line to re-establish the connection, but it didn’t come. He fiddled with the controls for several more minutes, and finally decided that nothing was working from this station.

Suddenly, a telegraph came through. “MAIN RAILROAD LINE TELEGRAPH N OF HIRO DOWN STOP .” The operator gave a frown and read it again.

He decided to send these reports off to Japanese General Staff.

~

One three hours later, a JGS plane was flying over the area of the rumored communications failure. The two pilots inside were silent.

“Wait…what is that?” one said suddenly. “About 160 km out…there.”

“Smoke?”

The plane dropped lower, closer to the city of Hiroshima. The General Staff came in on the radio.

“What do you see?”

The first pilot muttered a prayer to himself.