At 8.16am, the exact time the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, one minute's silence was observed.

Wollongong Hiroshima Day committee member Dr Margaret Perrott said it was important not to forget the atrocities of war.

“We join with others, all around the world at this time, to remember the people of Hiroshima, and all those who have been killed in war. Peace is possible, and war is not the answer,” Dr Perrott said.

Alexander Brown, the author of the recently published "Anti-nuclear protest in Tokyo after Fukushima” book, gave an emotional account of the birth of a child during the disaster, when he read the poem "Let us all be midwives".

University of Wollongong student Isabelle Liddy also spoke on the day about the national ‘Books Not Bombs’ campaign.

The WUSA (Wollongong Undergraduate Student Association) education officer said seventy-three years on from the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, world leaders were still armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction and beating the war drums once again.

Read more: UOW student activists call on Turnbull to fund ‘books not bombs’

“Universities are at the heart of the war production machine, and activists from the Disarm UOW campaign group are fighting to keep their university free from investments with and research ties to weapons companies,” Liddy said.