On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”
The Manhattan Project
Even before the outbreak of war in 1939, a group of American scientists—many of them refugees from fascist regimes in Europe—became concerned with nuclear weapons research being conducted in Nazi Germany. In 1940, the U.S. government began funding its own atomic weapons development program, which came under the joint responsibility of the Office of Scientific Research and Development and the War Department after the U.S. entry into World War II. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was tasked with spearheading the construction of the vast facilities necessary for the top-secret program, codenamed “The Manhattan Project” (for the engineering corps’ Manhattan district).
Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Over the next several years, the program’s scientists worked on producing the key materials for nuclear fission—uranium-235 and plutonium (Pu-239). They sent them to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where a team led by J. Robert Oppenheimer worked to turn these materials into a workable atomic bomb. Early on the morning of July 16, 1945, the Manhattan Project held its first successful test of an atomic device—a plutonium bomb—at the Trinity test site at Alamogordo, New Mexico.
No Surrender for the Japanese
By the time of the Trinity test, the Allied powers had already defeated Germany in Europe. Japan, however, vowed to fight to the bitter end in the Pacific, despite clear indications (as early as 1944) that they had little chance of winning. In fact, between mid-April 1945 (when President Harry Truman took office) and mid-July, Japanese forces inflicted Allied casualties totaling nearly half those suffered in three full years of war in the Pacific, proving that Japan had become even more deadly when faced with defeat. In late July, Japan’s militarist government rejected the Allied demand for surrender put forth in the Potsdam Declaration, which threatened the Japanese with “prompt and utter destruction” if they refused.
General Douglas MacArthur and other top military commanders favored continuing the conventional bombing of Japan already in effect and following up with a massive invasion, codenamed “Operation Downfall.” They advised Truman that such an invasion would result in U.S. casualties of up to 1 million. In order to avoid such a high casualty rate, Truman decided–over the moral reservations of Secretary of War Henry Stimson, General Dwight Eisenhower and a number of the Manhattan Project scientists–to use the atomic bomb in the hopes of bringing the war to a quick end. Proponents of the A-bomb—such as James Byrnes, Truman’s secretary of state—believed that its devastating power would not only end the war, but also put the U.S. in a dominant position to determine the course of the postwar world.
Why Did the U.S. Bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Hiroshima, a manufacturing center of some 350,000 people located about 500 miles from Tokyo, was selected as the first target. After arriving at the U.S. base on the Pacific island of Tinian, the more than 9,000-pound uranium-235 bomb was loaded aboard a modified B-29 bomber christened Enola Gay (after the mother of its pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets). The plane dropped the bomb—known as “Little Boy”—by parachute at 8:15 in the morning, and it exploded 2,000 feet above Hiroshima in a blast equal to 12-15,000 tons of TNT, destroying five square miles of the city.
Hiroshima’s devastation failed to elicit immediate Japanese surrender, however, and on August 9 Major Charles Sweeney flew another B-29 bomber, Bockscar, from Tinian. Thick clouds over the primary target, the city of Kokura, drove Sweeney to a secondary target, Nagasaki, where the plutonium bomb “Fat Man” was dropped at 11:02 that morning. More powerful than the one used at Hiroshima, the bomb weighed nearly 10,000 pounds and was built to produce a 22-kiloton blast. The topography of Nagasaki, which was nestled in narrow valleys between mountains, reduced the bomb’s effect, limiting the destruction to 2.6 square miles.
Marking the anniversary of the 1945 Hiroshima bombing, this special—told entirely from the first-person perspective of leaders, physicists, soldiers and survivors—provides a unique understanding of the most devastating experiment in human history.
At noon on August 15, 1945 (Japanese time), Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s surrender in a radio broadcast. The news spread quickly, and “Victory in Japan” or “V-J Day” celebrations broke out across the United States and other Allied nations. The formal surrender agreement was signed on September 2, aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay.
Because of the extent of the devastation and chaos—including the fact that much of the two cities' infrastructure was wiped out—exact death tolls from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain unknown. However, it's estimated roughly 70,000 to 135,000 people died in Hiroshima and 60,000 to 80,000 people died in Nagasaki, both from acute exposure to the blasts and from long-term side effects of radiation.
Tens of thousands of people were killed in the initial explosions (an estimated 70,000 in Hiroshima and 40,000 in Nagasaki), and many more later succumbed to burns, injuries, and radiation poisoning.
Like Hiroshima, the immediate aftermath in Nagasaki was a nightmare. More than forty percent of the city was destroyed. Major hospitals had been utterly flattened and care for the injured was impossible. Schools, churches, and homes had simply disappeared.
On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict.
It has been estimated that industrial losses amounted to between 10 and 20 percent for metallurgical, chemical, engineering, and textile firms. Japan's losses were more telling. Its index of industrial production dropped from a prewar high 149 (in 1940) to 31 in 1946 (Allen, 1963, pp. 200-209).
By the end of 1945, the bombing had killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima, and a further 74,000 in Nagasaki. In the years that followed, many of the survivors would face leukemia, cancer, or other terrible side effects from the radiation.
The United States bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 1945, were the first instances of atomic bombs used against humans, killing tens of thousands of people, obliterating the cities, and contributing to the end of World War II.
Nearly all were civilians—only 150 Japanese military were killed. But the statistic that Americans might be most surprised to learn is that 226,598 officially certified survivors of the atomic bombings are still alive in Japan today.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi (山口 彊, Yamaguchi Tsutomu) (16 March 1916 – 4 January 2010) was a Japanese marine engineer who survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings during World War II.
They were not the only survivors close to ground zero; an estimated 14% of people within 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) of ground zero survived the explosion. Other survivors included ten people in a streetcar 750 metres (820 yd) from ground zero, and a woman in a bank 260 metres (280 yd) away from the blast.
Today, the city of Hiroshima explains on its website, the city's level of radiation is “on a par with the extremely low levels of background radiation (natural radioactivity) present anywhere on Earth” and has no effect on humans (here).
The Court held that the dropping of atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were violations of the laws and customs of war, because the attacks did not distinguish between military and civilian targets and inflicted unnecessary suffering.
Little Boy was a uranium, gun-type weapon, whereas Fat Man was a plutonium, implosion-style weapon. Two types were needed because there was only enough uranium for one gun-type weapon, and the U.S. government knew it would need to make more than one weapon.
After the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the mood in America was a complex blend of pride, relief, and fear. Americans were jubilant that the war was over, and proud that the technology created to win the war had been developed in their country.
Researchers found Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu most capable of continuing to produce food despite the reduced sunlight and fall in temperatures - and help reboot a collapsed human civilisation.
After the first minute of dropping “Fat Man,” 39,000 men, women and children were killed. 25,000 more were injured. Both cities were leveled from the bombs and this, in turn, forced Japan to surrender to the United States. The war was finally over.
Initial critics of the bombings were largely pacifists, a number of nuclear scientists, and some religious leaders and political commentators. This initial support decreased as reports came in about the magnitude of destruction on Japan.
In August 1945 the USA detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The intention was to force Japan to surrender, thus avoiding a long war in the Pacific. This action had the added potential of pressurizing the USSR into negotiating over Eastern Europe and Germany.
About two-thirds of Hiroshima was destroyed immediately; about 66,000 people were killed and 69,000 injured. About half of Nagasaki was destroyed immediately; about 39,000 people were killed and 25,000 injured. By the end of 1945 about 100,000 more had died from injuries and radiation poisoning.
Introduction: My name is Stevie Stamm, I am a colorful, sparkling, splendid, vast, open, hilarious, tender person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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