Bomb Of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945, during world war ii (1939-45), an American b-29 bomber dropped the first atom bomb to be used over the city of Hiroshima, Japan. It wiped out 90 percent of the city and killed 80,000 people instantly; Tens of thousands more will then die from radiation exposure. Three days later, a second b-29 dropped another atom bomb on Nagasaki, killing about 40,000 people. Japanese emperor hirohito announced his country's unconditional surrender in world war ii in a radio speech on August 15, citing the destructive power of "a new and crueler bomb."
- The Manhattan project
Even before the outbreak of the war in 1939, a group of American scientists -- many of them from the fascist regime in Europe -- were concerned about nuclear weapons research carried out in Nazi Germany. In 1940 the U.S. government began to fund its own atomic weapons development program, which was under responsibility with the research and scientific development office and the war department after the us entered world war ii. The U.S. army corps of engineers was commissioned to spearhead the construction of the vast facilities necessary for the secret program, under the code name "Manhattan project" (for the Manhattan district technical corps).
Over the next few years, program scientists worked to produce the main ingredients for nuclear fission 235 and plutonium (pu-239). They sent them to los alamos, new Mexico, where a team led by j. Robert Oppenheimer worked to turn this material into a workable atomic bomb. Early this morning on July 16, 1945, the Manhattan project conducted its first successful test on the device of atom - plutonium bombs at the trinity test site at alamogordo, New Mexico.
- No Surrender For The Japanese
There was no surrender to the Japanese at the time of trinity test, the allied forces had defeated the germans in Europe. The Japanese, however, vowed to fight with the bitter end of the Pacific, despite clear indications (at the beginning of 1944) that they had little chance of winning. In fact, between mid-april 1945 (when President harry Truman came to office) and mid-july, Japanese forces inflicted allied casualties with a total of almost half of those who suffered in the three years of full war in the Pacific, proving that Japan had faced defeat. At the end of July, the Japanese military government rejected an allied request for a surrender in the Potsdam declaration, which threatens the Japanese with "rapid and total destruction" if they refused.
General Douglas MacArthur and other top military commanders preferred the conventional Japanese bombing already in force and followed up with a full-scale invasion, codename "operation downfall." They've suggested Truman that such an invasion would result in fatalities. To avoid high levels of casualties, Truman decided -- on the moral reserve of secretary Henry Stimson, general Dwight Eisenhower, and a number of Manhattan project scientists -- to use an atomic bomb in the hope of bringing war to the war of a-bomb supporters -- such as James byrnes, secretary of state Truman -- that his devastating power would not only end the war, But also placed the U.S. in the dominant position to determine the postwar course of the world.
- ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’
Hiroshima, the construction center of some 350,000 people located about 500 miles from Tokyo, was selected as its first target. After arriving ata U.S. base on Pacific island tinian, uranium-235 bombs weighing more than 9,000 pounds were loaded on a modified b-29 bomber baptized in the name enola gay (after his pilot's mother, colonel Paul tibbets). The plane dropped a bomb known as "little boy" - by a parachute at 8:15 a.m., and it exploded 2,000 feet over Hiroshima in an explosion equivalent to 12-15,000 tons of TNT, destroying five square miles of city.
The destruction of Hiroshima failed to bring Japan direct surrender, and on August 9 major Charles Sweeney flew another B-29 bomber, bockscar, of tinian. A thick cloud cover the primary target, the city of kokura, transported Sweeney to a secondary target, Nagasaki, where the "fat man" plutonium bomb was dropped at 11:02 that morning. More powerful than what was used on Hiroshima, the bomb weighed nearly 10,000 pounds and was built to produce a 22 kiloton explosion. The topography of Nagasaki, which is located in the narrow valleys between the mountains, reduces the bomb's effects, borders destruction to 2.6 square miles.
On midday on August 15, 1945 (Japanese time), emperor hirohito announced his surrender of country on a radio broadcast. The news spread quickly, and celebrations of "victory in Japan" or "v-j day" broke out throughout the United States and other allied states. The official surrender treaty was signed on September 2nd, on a Missouri warship, anchored in Tokyo bay.
