Ypres (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – On August 6, 2025, Ypres and Bruges marked 80 years since Hiroshima’s bombing. Ypres held ceremonies to remember. Wouter Sinnaeve and Alderman Stephan De Roo led the tribute.
As VRT News reported, on the morning of August 6, 2025, at 8:15 a.m., the cities of Ypres and Bruges held quiet ceremonies to remember the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which happened 80 years ago. Wouter Sinnaeve from the In Flanders Fields Museum led the event.
He said Ypres also knows what it means to lose everything in war. People in Ypres still remember that pain. He said both cities share the same kind of past. They now share stories to keep those memories alive.
How do Ypres and Bruges Honour Hiroshima 80 years later?
As part of the ceremony, Alderman Stephan De Roo raised the Mayor’s for Peace flag in Astrid Park. The song Enola Gay was played in the background. Mayor Katrien Desomer and peace officer Filip Deheegher will soon travel to Japan. They will take part in the official ceremony in Hiroshima.
Ypres is the Belgian capital of Mayors for Peace. This is a group of cities around the world that want to stop the use of nuclear weapons. Ypres asked other Flemish cities to raise the flag too. They mentioned that the goal is to remember the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
On that day in 1945, a U.S. plane called “Enola Gay” dropped an atomic bomb named “Little Boy” from high in the sky, more than 9,000 meters above the ground. The bomb exploded right above a hospital in the centre of Hiroshima and destroyed much of the city in seconds. The city had about 245,000 people living there.
Approximately 80,000 people died immediately, and many others suffered grave injuries or ultimately succumbed to burns and radiation. About 14,000 people went missing entirely. By the end of that year, over 140,000 people had died from the bombing, thus marking it as one of the most devastating attacks in history.
On August 9, 1945, 3 days after Hiroshima, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The bomb was called Fat Man. It killed more than 78,000 people right away. The 2 bombings caused great damage across Japan. After the second attack, Japan surrendered. World War II ended on August 15, 1945.
Many people who lived through the bombings became sick. Some had cancer. Others had deep mental scars. Children born later also had health problems. Ypres was almost destroyed in the First World War. The city had to be built again from nothing. Because of this, Ypres feels a strong link with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
