Hiroshima
Day, Nagasaki Day /Importance of August 6th and 9th /Online
quiz on Hiroshima, Nagasaki days/Second World War/ഹിരോഷിമ, നാഗസാക്കി ദിനാചരണം ,ക്വിസ്
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 August 1945. The two bombings were the first and remain the only use of
nuclear weapons in warfare.
Following a firebombing campaign that destroyed many Japanese
cities, the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of Japan. Thewar in Europe
ended when Nazi Germany signed its instrument of surrender on May 8, 1945, but
the Pacific War continued. Together with the United Kingdom and China, the
United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed
forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945, threatening "prompt
and utter destruction".
By August 1945, the Allied Manhattan Project had successfully
tested an atomic device and had produced weapons based on two alternate
designs. The 509th Composite Group of the U.S. Army Air Forces was equipped
with a Silverplate Boeing B-29 Superfortress that could deliver them from
Tinian in the Mariana Islands. A uranium gun-type atomic bomb (Little Boy) was
dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, followed by a plutonium implosion-type
bomb (Fat Man) on the city of Nagasaki on August 9. 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; roughly half of the deaths in each
city occurred on the first day. During the following months, large numbers died
from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by
illness. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima
had a sizeable garrison.
On this day in 1945, at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American
B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world's first atom bomb, over the city of
Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the
blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by
the end of the year from the effects of the fallout.
U.S. President Harry S. Truman, discouraged by the Japanese
response to the Potsdam Conference's demand for unconditional surrender, made
the decision to use the atom bomb to end the war in order to prevent what he
predicted would be a much greater loss of life were the United States to invade
the Japanese mainland. And so on August 5, while a "conventional"
bombing of Japan was underway, "Little Boy," (the nickname for one of
two atom bombs available for use against Japan), was loaded onto Lt. Col. Paul
W. Tibbets' plane on Tinian Island in the Marianas. Tibbets' B-29, named the
Enola Gay after his mother, left the island at 2:45 a.m. on August 6. Five and
a half hours later, "Little Boy" was dropped, exploding 1,900 feet
over a hospital and unleashing the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT. The bomb had
several inscriptions scribbled on its shell, one of which read "Greetings
to the Emperor from the men of theIndianapolis" (the ship that transported
the bomb to the Marianas).
There were 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima before the bomb was
dropped; only 28,000 remained after the bombing. Of the city's 200 doctors
before the explosion; only 20 were left alive or capable of working. There were
1,780 nurses before—only 150 remained who were able to tend to the sick and
dying.
On this day in 1945, a second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by
the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan's unconditional
surrender.
The devastation wrought at Hiroshima was not sufficient to
convince the Japanese War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference's demand for
unconditional surrender. The United States had already planned to drop their
second atom bomb, nicknamed "Fat Man," on August 11 in the event of
such recalcitrance, but bad weather expected for that day pushed the date up to
August 9th. So at 1:56 a.m., a specially adapted B-29 bomber, called
"Bock's Car," after its usual commander, Frederick Bock, took off
from Tinian Island under the command of Maj. Charles W. Sweeney. Nagasaki was a
shipbuilding center, the very industry intended for destruction. The bomb was
dropped at 11:02 a.m., 1,650 feet above the city. The explosion unleashed the
equivalent force of 22,000 tons of TNT. The hills that surrounded the city did
a better job of containing the destructive force, but the number killed is
estimated at anywhere between 60,000 and 80,000 (exact figures are impossible,
the blast having obliterated bodies and disintegrated records).
General Leslie R. Groves, the man responsible for organizing the
Manhattan Project, which solved the problem of producing and delivering the
nuclear explosion, estimated that another atom bomb would be ready to use
against Japan by August 17 or 18—but it was not necessary. Even though the War
Council still remained divided ("It is far too early to say that the war
is lost," opined the Minister of War), Emperor Hirohito, by request of two
War Council members eager to end the war, met with the Council and declared
that "continuing the war can only result in the annihilation of the
Japanese people..." The Emperor of Japan gave his permission for
unconditional surrender.
