Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
An American aircraft dropped a uranium bomb on Hiroshima at 8.15 on the morning of 6 August 1945. The city had been chosen partly because it had been left largely unbombed, which would show the weapon's effect clearly, and it held the headquarters of the army defending southern Japan and a population of some 350,000. The device, an untested gun-type design of about fifteen kilotons, detonated some 580 metres above the city. Between 60,000 and 80,000 people were killed instantly, and the total by the end of the year is generally put at around 140,000 — from the blast, from a firestorm that consumed several square kilometres, and from radiation sickness among those who survived the first day. Almost all the medical staff in the city were dead or injured within minutes. Truman's public statement announced a harnessing of the basic power of the universe and promised a rain of ruin if Japan did not surrender. Nagasaki was bombed three days later. The decision has been argued about ever since on three grounds: whether Japan was already seeking terms through Moscow, whether the Soviet declaration of war on 8 August was the decisive factor, and whether a demonstration or a modification of the unconditional surrender formula would have worked. What is not in dispute is the alternative that was being planned, an invasion of the home islands from November with casualty estimates in the hundreds of thousands. Survivors are called hibakusha and were long discriminated against in Japan.
- Year: 1945 CE
- Category: Military
