Bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima

On Monday, August 6th 1945, the United States of America destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima with the atomic bomb named Little Boy, killing an estimated 150,000 people. Three days later on August 9th, the second bomb, "Fat Man," was dropped on Nagasaki, killing another 80,000 civilians.

Americas involvement in World War II consisted of two main conflicts. They and the Allied Powers fought Nazi Germany all over Europe. These battles involved mostly ground infantry, involving solders and tanks. These conflicts are much more publicized than the Pacific War. The Pacific War was the war between the US and Japan, the result of the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. The war was named after the battlefield they fought on, the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. and the Japanese, referred to as the Japs by Americans, fought over the vast ocean with mostly battleships, submarines, and planes. The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force were the most significant branches of the U.S. military. From 1941 until the day the Atomic bomb was dropped, the strategy was very simple. The U.S. landed on the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, and then attacked one island at a time, moving north to the heart of Japan,

destroying cities with a variety of bombs. In 1941 the earliest raid, the Doolittle raid, bombers took the Japanese by surprise when they dropped bombs on five different cities, the most important being Tokyo. This raid did not do very much damage, killing only fifty and wounding four hundred. Most of the bombing done by the U.S. Air Force occurred in the last year before the atomic bombings. During this time, B-29 Superfortresses bombarded Japanese cities with incendiary bombs filled with thermite, a mixture of metals that burns at 4,000 F. When thermite burns, it creates its own oxygen, so it cannot be smothered. In one of the most devastating raids, Operation Meetinghouse, thousands of thermite bombs were dropped on Tokyo, a city build of wood. The result was 100,000 civilians killed in one night. By the end of 1944, U.S. bombs were responsible for the deaths of 500,000 men, women, and children. But even though the U.S. promised to continue the raids, the Japanese still refused to surrender.

The Manhattan Project had been researching and refining atomic weapons technology sense 1939. Directed by Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Manhattan Project was originally incepted out of fear of a Nazi atomic bomb. Only now do we know that the Nazis' atomic bomb development was a low priority to Hitler. Ignorant of this information, the US invested heavily in the Manhattan Project, resulting in the designing and development of the

first atomic weapons in the world. As the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May of 1945, the intent of the Manhattan Project shifted towards using atomic force on the Japanese.

The two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were selected to be the targets of the atomic bombs for various reasons. They were built in a place were the explosions could do the most damage. The ground was relatively flat, and there were no structures like mountains or hills that would protect anyone from the force of the detonation. In terms of location, the cities were in places unlikely to be defended by the Japanese. If they shot down the plane and recovered the bomb, the atomic bomb could be used against us. Both cities were big enough to be worth bombing. The U.S. had been offering surrender treaties to Japan throughout the duration of the war. On July 26th, the U.S. presented the Potsdam Declaration. As one writer states, [The Potsdam Declaration] was presented as an ultimatum and stated that without a surrender, the Allies would attack Japan, resulting in the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland They rejected. The purpose of the bombs was to bring Japan to its knees, and leave it no other option than to surrender.

On the morning of Monday August 6th, the B-29 Enola Grey piloted by Paul Tibbets dropped Little Boy above Hiroshima. The atomic explosion shattered the quiet

morning. It sent a heat wave through the city, incinerating everything and everyone within miles, killing 180,000 innocent people. Three day later, the U.S. dropped another, this one named Fat Man. It killed another 80,000 people.

On the 15th, the Japanese surrendered, later making it official by signing the Instrument of Surrender on September 2nd, ending World War II.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Ch oice_of_targets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan - Doolittle_Raid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incendiary_device