Hiroshima and Nagasaki Essay

It was the morning of Aug 6 1945. It was a very beautiful rosy sky. You heard the birds chirping and yet it was so peaceful and calm. All of a sudden there was a thud. Then suddenly everything went quite and nothing was left of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then three days later the same incident was repeated again where 70,000 and 40,000 people instantly lost their lives. This was the United States first step towards technology when the first atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The impact of this bomb had killed about 70,000 innocent civilians instantly. Even though the US knew the devastating effects of their weapons, they chose to drop it anyway. Three days later another bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. This had demolished about two square miles of the city and had taken about forty-thousand innocent lives. This was the end of the World War II. This all had started when President Harry Truman wanted to test out the Manhattan project. The Manhattan Project was a codename for a project that that was being done in the World War II to create the first atomic bomb. The â€Å"little boy† the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima was made with uranium-235. The bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki was made with plutonium-239 and called the â€Å"fat man†. The choice of target was recommended by the Target Committee at Los Amos and was led by J. Robert Oppenheimer. He has recommended the Kyoto, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Kokura as the targets. There were several requirements in choosing the location to drop the fat man and little boy. The blast had to create an effective damage. The target was larger than three miles and was close to the urban area. And it was untouched from any attacks. â€Å"Hiroshima was described as â€Å"an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area. It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focusing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. Due to rivers it is not a good incendiary target† (Wikipedia). Hiroshima also had a major army base that had headquarters to the 5th and the 2nd army headquarters. Also, Hiroshima had mountains that surrounded it so the damage could be more effective. When the planes that carried the bombs to Hiroshima they were picked up by the Japanese air raid and had send out an alarm. But when the Japanese saw that it was only three planes they had lifted the alarm thinking that they might be just the regular visitors the US was sending over. When the bomb was thrown the â€Å"Tibbets recalled: A bright light filled the plane. The first shockwave hit us. We were eleven and a half miles slant range from the atomic explosion but the whole airplane cracked and crinkled from the blast†¦. We turned back to look at Hiroshima. The city was hidden by that awful cloud†¦ mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall† (WWII database). Many of those who had survived had it far worse than the ones that died instantly. They had been badly and severely burned that they looked like living charcoal pieces. Many of the ones that survived all of this died of radiation poisoning and some even had started to vomit their insides out and had died. Majority of the areas hospitals were in a part of Hiroshima that was destroyed and over 90 percent of the doctors were killed. People that escaped unbruised or hurt would suffered balding and nosebleeds, because days after the explosion the radiation levels were dangerously high. And by the end of 1945 the Hiroshima victims had increased from 90,000 to 150,000. Majority of the people that were killed were Koreans. Because the communication process was delayed due to the devastation president Truman said â€Å"If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth†, he said, He later gave the go-ahead to drop the second atomic weapon on Japan† (WWII database). The Second bomb was intended for the city of Kokura. But due to the bad weather that was moving in the schedule had moved up two days. The city of Nagasaki was a very important sea port in Southern Japan. The results of the Fat man was much greater than the one produced by little boy. Around 75,000 people were immediately killed. The day after the attack Japan’s emperor had over ruled the military leaders of Japan and had forced them to give into the surrender unconditionally (doe. gov). This had ended the World War II. Soon after the city was starting to be built again but the devastation area was preserved. Today both Hiroshima and Nagasaki are doing really well. They have a large automobile industry that includes brands like mazda, and Mitsubishi. There still are people who suffer the effects of the radition but very few of them are left. The population went from null to almost 1 million people in each city. In Nagasaki there are hotels on the mountainside with houses, and shops around the neighborhood. Some people had thought that because of the high radiation levels nothing would grow here for decades. But people were shocked when the plants started to grow from under the debris. People had built themselves temporary huts to avoid bad weather. But three months later aide had come from the American-Directed occupation government and the construction had began. Today the city of Nagasaki has a population of about 440,000 people. And Hiroshima today has a population of about 1. 12 million people. In todays world there major industry there is machinery, automotive which produced the Mazda car, and food processing. They have malls, and major department stores. Even though there were two big bombs dropped on the Japans two of the industrial cities, Japan had gone into a total economic and traditional decline. The Japan’s economy was devastated. America had to step in and to help the Japanese economy to get back up, so therefore most of the American values and traditions were incorporated into the Japanese culture. I think it was morally wrong for the Americans to use the atomic bombs and take so many of the innocent lives. After all as always America is the only one that wants to be in power and that was the result of that.