President Barack Obama’s arrival in Hiroshima on Friday marks the first visit by a sitting American leader to the site where the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, in the final days of World War II.
Video of Obama’s visit is available here. The American leader is to be accompanied by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Abe said Wednesday he has no immediate plans to reciprocate Obama’s visit with a trip to Pearl Harbor where the Japanese conducted a surprise military attack on Dec. 7, 1941, pushing the U.S. into World War II.
“Seventy-one years ago, back in 1945, two atomic bombs were dropped. And in Hiroshima, numerous citizens sacrificed their lives and even now there are those of us suffering because of the atomic bombing,” Abe said.

Japanese demonstrators protest against U.S. President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visiting Hiroshima, in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan, May 26, 2016, a day before the leaders arrive in the city.
Photo: Reuters/Toru Hanai
Obama said he would use his visit to “honor all those who were lost in World War II and reaffirm our shared vision of a world without nuclear weapons.” The White House has stressed Obama will not apologize for the decision made by President Harry Truman to drop the atomic bombs.
“Of course everyone wants to hear an apology. Our families were killed,” Hiroshi Shimizu, the general secretary of the Hiroshima Confederation of A-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, told the Associated Press.
Approximately 140,000 people died in Hiroshima and thousands more were affected by the aftermath of the bombing. Three days after the atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
“It’s important to recognize that in the midst of war, leaders make all kinds of decisions,” Obama told Japanese broadcaster NHK, NPR reported. “It’s a job of historians to ask questions and examine them. But I know as somebody who has now sat in this position for the last 7 1/2 years that every leader makes very difficult decisions, particularly during wartime.”
Obama will tour Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial and is expected to lay a wreath with Abe.