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| The first deployment of atomic weaponry in war: Hiroshima destroyed on 6 August 1945 |
The atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan were conducted by the United States during the final stages of World War II in 1945. The two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.
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| The aftermath of "Little Boy" (code name for the atomic device that leveled Hiroshima) |
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"Little Boy" - innocuous name for
a diabolical device that claimed nearly
170,000 lives |
Following a firebombing campaign that destroyed many Japanese cities, the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of Japan. The war in Europe ended when Nazi Germany signed its instrument of surrender on 8 May, but the Pacific War continued.
Together with the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, the United States called for a surrender of Japan in the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945, threatening Japan with "prompt and utter destruction." The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum. American airmen dropped Little Boy on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, followed by Fat Man over Nagasaki on 9 August.*
Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day.
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Mushroom cloud over Nagasaki
as "Fat Man" is detonated
on 9 August 1945, killing at least
80,000 civilians |
The Hiroshima prefecture health department estimated that, of the people who died on the day of the explosion, 60% died from flash or flame burns, 30% from falling debris and 10% from other causes. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness. In a US estimate of the total immediate and short term cause of death, 15–20% died from radiation sickness, 20–30% from burns, and 50–60% from other injuries, compounded by illness. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizeable garrison.
On 15 August, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan announced its surrender to the Allies, signing the Instrument of Surrender on 2 September, officially ending World War II. The bombings led, in part, to post-war Japan's adopting Three Non-Nuclear Principles, forbidding the nation from nuclear armament. The bombings' role in Japan's surrender and their ethical justification are still debated.
[Source:
Wikipedia]
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| Hell on Earth: a scene from Dante's Inferno following the blast |
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| Victim of radiation burns in Nagasaki |
Isn't it ironic that Japan was forced to agree never to arm itself with nuclear weapons - even though it was clearly not the aggressor in this instance? Today the two most warlike nations with nuclear capability are the United States and Israel (an undeclared nuclear power).
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| The tragic aftermath |
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Nameless, blameless victim of human insanity
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Children who miraculously survived the bombing of Hiroshima
Hiroshima & Nagasaki: A Zionist Experiment?
*It was only after the war that the American public learned about Japan's efforts to bring the conflict to an end. Chicago Tribune reporter Walter Trohan, for example, was obliged by wartime censorship to withhold for seven months one of the most important stories of the war. In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald, Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a 40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. (The complete text of Trohan's article is in the Winter 1985-86 Journal, pp. 508-512.)
This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 - that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor. [Read the full report here.]
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THE ATOM BOMB AND HOW IT AFFECTED PEOPLE
[First posted 6 August 2013]
