History and Culture A

Brief summary of the Atomic Bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 1945)

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks at the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States (at the order of the President Harry S. Truman) on August 6 and 9 of 1945.

After six months of intense firebombing over 67 other Japanese cities, the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6 of 1945, and was followed on August 9 by the detonation of the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb over Nagasaki.

These are to date the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of humanity. The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945. Since then, thousands more have also died from injuries or illness attributed to the exposure of the radiation released by the bombs (among 1950s and 1990s there were more than 250,000 people affected with cancer in the area of the bombs).

Image of the bomb “Little Boy” (Hiroshima)

Explosion over Nagasaki

In both cities, the overwhelming majority of the dead were civilians. Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki, on August 15, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, and finally signed it on September 2, officially ending the Pacific War and consequently the World War II. (Germany had signed its surrender on May 7 when the war in Europe finished.) As a consequence of the bombings, Japan adopted the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, forbidding the nation from any nuclear armament.

Nagasaki after the bomb

HARRY S. TRUMAN'S: “Address to the Nation, August 6, 1945” (ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DROPPING OF AN ATOMIC BOMB ON HIROSHIMA).

(Selected fragments)

“The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. And the end is not yet. With this bomb we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces. In their present form these bombs are now in production and even more powerful forms are in development […]

We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war […]

The leaders of Japan promptly rejected the ultimatum that we give them on the 26^th of July. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth”.

(See full discourse in: http://everything2.com/node/748837)