Atomic Bomb

A summary of the bombing of Hiroshima

Between 1941 and 1945, scientists at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, led by Robert Oppenheimer, worked on the
Manhattan Project to make an atomic bomb.

On 16 July 1945, the atomic bomb was successfully tested at Alamogordo, in New Mexico.The decision
whether to drop it – almost as difficult as making the bomb – was taken by US President Harry S
Truman.
One reason Truman is said to have dropped the atomic bomb was to bring the war against Japan to a
quick end.

He said it was dropped to save American soldiers' lives. Some historians suspect Truman did not want to
give the Soviets a chance to get involved in the Far East.

Others feel that he was forced into a show of strength because of the threat to America posed by the
USSR.

On 6 August 1945 the first atomic bomb, codenamed 'Little Boy', was dropped on the Japanese city of
Hiroshima.

Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

On 14 August 1945, the Japanese surrendered.

The creation and use of the atomic bomb was truly a turning point in warfare.

The atomic bomb changed international relations.

The superpowers of the USA and the USSR did not dare to start a war where both sides had nuclear
weapons.

The road to the bomb

The science behind the bomb

1 - The road to the bomb1939: Albert Einstein wrote to the American President Franklin D Roosevelt, warning him that Nazi
scientists were trying to make an atomic bomb

The decision behind using the atomic bomb

Between 1942 and 1945, the Americans had been involved in a strategic bombing campaign in Japan.

Precision bombing was not very successful. In the last seven months of the campaign, they switched to
'fire bombing'. 67 Japanese cities were destroyed, up to 500,000 people were killed and 5 million were
left homeless.

In July 1945, the war in the Pacific was still going slowly. Fighting between the Japanese and Allies was
fierce.
Japan prepared to fight an invasion with a build-up of millions of troops and the Americans feared that
invading Japan would cost them a million casualties and drag the war well into 1946.

The American President Truman did not want the Soviet Union to get involved in the Far East.

They had used the war to gain control of eastern Europe, and Truman did not want the same thing to
happen in the Far East.

The Decision

The key events around the bomb

21 July

• Truman received the report which confirmed that the Alamogordo test had been successful, and
America had an atomic bomb.

• Truman insisted that the Japanese should be given the opportunity to surrender before the
bomb was used.

26 July

• The British, Chinese and Americans called on Japan to surrender unconditionally.

• This is known as the Potsdam Declaration.

 • The Soviet Union did not agree – the Japanese had asked them to try to negotiate a peace
treaty.

28 July

• The Japanese refused to surrender unconditionally.

3 August

• The Japanese again asked for a negotiated peace.

Dropping the atomic bomb

6 August

• The American B29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb, codenamed 'Little Boy', on
the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

• it exploded with the force of 20,000 tons of TNT

• the temperature at the centre of the explosion reached 3000ºC - 4000ºC – three times hotter
than volcanic lava

• everything within a mile of the centre of the blast was flattened

• fires spread and around 67 per cent of Hiroshima's buildings were destroyed

9 August

• The Americans dropped a second atomic bomb, codenamed 'Fat Man', on the Japanese city of
Nagasaki.

14 August

• The Japanese surrendered unconditionally.

Why did President Truman decide to drop the bomb?

Consequences/significance of the Hiroshima bombing

 2 - The aftermath of the atom bomb attack on Hiroshima

• The Americans estimate the number killed as 117,000. The Japanese put it at quarter of a
million. Many more suffered horrific injuries. In the years that followed, many of the survivors,
known as 'hibakusha', developed ill health.

• Studies of the hibakusha have allowed doctors to understand radiation poisoning, and to set
safety levels for the nuclear power industry.

• By the 1950s, America and the Soviet Union had developed the more powerful hydrogen bomb,
and had learned how to put them on inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The world
entered an era of 'overkill' – where it had the ability to destroy every living thing on earth many
times over.

Living in the shadow of war

Between the 1960s and the 1990s, people lived under the shadow of the fear of nuclear war:

• Every year from 1958 to 1963 the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) marched to London
from the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire to demand the
abolition of nuclear weapons.

• Today politicians worry what would happen if a terrorist group got hold of an atomic weapon.

The atomic bomb changed international relations. The superpowers, that is the USA and the Soviet
Union, did not dare to start a war because both sides had nuclear weapons. There was a period of 'Cold
War' where the two sides opposed each other without actually going to war themselves.The dropping of
the atomic bomb therefore holds major historical significance. It was an event which shaped history for
many years and one which had lasting impacts. It not only sparked the advent of other weapons, it also
influenced relations between countries and instilled a sense of fear around the world. It still does so
today with the west worried about the nuclear capacity of nations like North Korea.

What do you think?

Should the atomic bomb have been dropped?
 3 - Atomic bomb explosion, Hiroshima, Japan

• At the time, many Americans were unhappy with the atomic bomb.

• American scientists asked Truman to let the Japanese see it and surrender first.

• Admiral William Leahy (1945) thought it reduced Americans to the level of 'barbarians'.

• After the war, however, the atomic bomb was portrayed as a war-winning weapon, which had
saved many American soldiers' lives. This is the traditional interpretation of Hiroshima, which
many historians still believe

Is the evidence conclusive?

• Much of the reasoning given for dropping the atomic bomb came down to Truman’s own beliefs
and claims about the threat posed.

• Is this evidence reliable?

1. Truman said:The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid
many fold.

2. Harry Truman, US President - He also said:Having found the bomb we have used it. We have
used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have
starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have
abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to
shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young
Americans.
Should the atomic bomb NOT have been dropped?

In 1965, American historian Gar Alperovitz suggested that the atomic bomb had been unnecessary.
The revisionists claimed that:

• Japan was ruined and starving – it could not have resisted much longer, and had been trying to
negotiate a surrender for at least a year.

• Truman used the atomic bomb to frighten the Soviet Union, not to win the war.

• The atomic bomb was racist – dropped as revenge on a Japanese people the Americans felt
were treacherous and sub-human.

This stimulated a furious debate that still goes on.

Was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary?

Truman’s decision was framed by his belief that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would shorten
the war and thereby save the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands of American soldiers as well as
untold numbers of Japanese soldiers and citizens.

However, in the years following the war—and to this day—the United States’ use of nuclear bombs
against the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has had both proponents and detractors.

Many questions remain about the necessity of using the bomb and its moral implications:

• Would the United States have acted so quickly to use nuclear weapons against Europeans?

• Was racism against the Japanese an element in the decision?

• Might the United States have exploded a nuclear bomb on an uninhabited island to de monstrate
the bomb’s terrible power instead of destroying two cities?

• Might the United States have been able to gain Japan’s unconditional surrender by other
means?

But there was no question that the development and use of the atomic bomb changed the natu re of
world warfare forever.
Though the bombings of Japan remain the only wartime use of nuclear weapons, since 1945 the threat
of nuclear war has loomed over international conflicts, promising a level of "prompt and utter
destruction" never before seen in the world.

What do you think?

1. What might have happened if Nazi Germany had developed a nuclear weapon before the United
States?

2. In what ways did scientists, engineers, corporate leaders, American workers, and the military
come together in shaping the successes of the Manhattan Project?

3. Was the decision to drop the atom bombs on civilians morally justifiable?