What happened in atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Answer 1

The Japanese's employment of kamikazes meant that the Allies (US) would have to fight to the death for every island the Japanese controlled at an unacceptable (by most countries' standards) 15+% fatality rate of our soldiers. The idea of the bombings was to do so much damage that the Japanese knew they had no choice but to surrender.

AnswerMr know it all here; At first the US Air Corps tried high level bombing with the new B-29 Superfortress, but the discovery of the high altitude jet streams made precise bombing impossible. Resulting in a change to incendiary bombing at low level at night for most missions.

Carpet bombing by B-29s were devastating. The B-29 could carry three times the bomb load of a B-17 and fly at over 360mph. It was very fast and lethal in the incendiary bombing campaigns on metropolitian cities. American history likes to proclaim that the stick construction of Japanese cities contributed greatly to the destructive effects of the campaigns. However, German cities suffered just as badly. The Japanese cities were also ancient and had vary narrow lanes, or streets, which further contributed to both blocking escape pathways, as well as blocking firefighting equipment. The firefighting equipment was totally inadequate for the task, usually consisting of a tiny fire truck which sat two men and was outfitted with a couple of ladders, axes, and sand buckets; looking alot like an American Bantam Automobile that had been converted to the firefighting role. As far as I know, this aspect of total unpreparedness on the part of Japanese Civil Authority has never been investigated or properly addressed.

The effects of incendiary bombing was the creation of a fire storm. The lethality of which was more devastating than the atomic bombs which were used later. Far more people died in these raids than from any other single thing.There was no escape once a fire storm began and you were not on the edges where escape might have been possible. Hiding in a cellar was of no use as the oxygen had been used, and you baked inside what essentially became an oven.

All this raises the question of the effectiveness of atomic weapons in ultimate surrender of the Japanese Empire. Once Again, Americans like to think that the Atom Bomb caused the Japanese to surrender, and the Japanese like to use that notion against Americans, but ultimately the Japanese only surrendered when the Russians declared war and Japan was in danger of losing parts of the home Islands. Up till the last few weeks of the war the Japanese had been trading with Russia; Obtaining vital oil. The Japanese knew that Americans were a fair and just people, but that losing part of the nation to the Russians would likely mean losing it forever. The choice was obvious, fight on and still lose as well as lose part of the nation itself, or surrender to the Americans and endure the unendurable while America protected Japan from Russia. There were no other options. This is the only reason Japan Surrendered!

Answer 2

Japan was devastated during the war. Although the people couldn't stand the war anymore, the civilians were instructed to wait for the American service members with sharpened bamboo sticks to fight them. The fight attack was Hiroshima on august 6, 1945 when three b-29 airplanes flew in and the alarm was sounded but the alarm was taken back because the Japanese thought those were weather planes. At 8.15 a flash was seen and something was heard. The city was devastated. The same happened at Nagasaki 3 day later.

Answer 3

boom

This is true, however I don't think boom is descriptive enough. The bomb actually detonated in the air for maximum effect. Inside the bomb, an atom was launched at some plutonium, splitting atomic bonds and releasing lots of energy.

What resulted was an explosion on a scale that had never been seen before, temperatures of 1 million C at the blast zone. Anyone within two miles of ground zero were instantly turned to dust. Outside of that range tens of thousands received severe burns and died from them. Those who did not die from burns died from radiation poisioning soon after. Those further out were not killed by the blast, but died of radiation related diseases and birth defects for decades after. Meanwhile servicemen told to look for the light of the bomb exploding were not warned and hundreds were blinded permantly. The city of Nagasaki itself was gone, only skeletal buildings remaining at the edges of the blast zone. When the bomb went off, for just a fraction of a second the door to hell was opened and some very nasty stuff escaped. Both cities, Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the shadow of a men is burned into a building for all time because of the heat of the blast.

In closing, consider this. Today we have atomic weaponry that is hundreds, thousands of times more power than those two bombs. Pray no one is every stupid enough to fire or drop one.

Answer 4

Slightly different things happend in the two bombs, because they operated differently:

Little Boy, August 6, 1945, Hiroshima, Uranium gun assembly bomb

1. When the Enola Gay B-29 bomber reached stable low altitude flight several miles away from Tinian, Deke Parsons the weapons officer climbed into the unpressurized bombbay and verified that the safety plugs in the bomb were green.
2. Parsons then removed the bolts holding the breech plug and inserted the bags of cordite in the bomb's breech and bolted the breech plug back on.
3. Parsons then replaced the green safety plugs with red safety plugs, arming the bomb then left the bombbay so the B-29 could ascend to cruising altitude.
4. When the B-29 released Little Boy over Hiroshima, as it left the bombbay safety wires pulled out of the bomb starting an internal delay timer.
5. When the internal delay ran out it started the fusing system of the bomb running activating both RADAR and barometric altimeters.
6. When the bomb had fallen far enough that the altimeters indicated it was at the selected altitude for detonation, a signal was sent to the primers in the breech.
7. The primers ignited the cordite.
8. The burning cordite pushed the Uranium bullet down the gun barrel.
9. As the Uranium bullet enveloped the Uranium target forming a supercritical mass inside the tamper, it crushed 4 beryllium-polonium neutron sources.
10. As the beryllium and polonium in the neutron sources intermixed, alpha particles from the decaying polonium were captured by the beryllium causing it to emit a burst of neutrons.
11. These neutrons triggered a neutron fission chain reaction in the Uranium bullet & target, which grew at an exponential rate.
12. Roughy 5 microseconds later the Uranium bullet & target and the tamper vaporized from the heat generated.
13. The mass of the vaporized tamper contained the mass of the vaporized Uranium a couple more microseconds, then the bomb exploded.

Fatman, August 9, 1945, Nagasaki, Plutonium implosion assembly bomb

1. When the Bockscar B-29 bomber reached stable low altitude flight several miles away from Tinian, Fred Ashworth the weapons officer climbed into the unpressurized bombbay and verified that the safety plugs in the bomb were green, then replaced the green safety plugs with red safety plugs, arming the bomb then left the bombbay so the B-29 could ascend to cruising altitude.
2. When the B-29 released Little Boy over Nagasaki, as it left the bombbay safety wires pulled out of the bomb starting an internal delay timer and activate circuits to charge the X-Unit firing capacitors.
3. When the internal delay ran out it started the fusing system of the bomb running activating both RADAR and barometric altimeters.
4. When the bomb had fallen far enough that the altimeters indicated it was at the selected altitude for detonation, a signal was sent to the X-Unit.
5. The X-Unit simultaneously fired 32 exploding wire detonators using the charge stored in its firing capacitors.
6. The 32 detonators caused the Composition-B part of the 32 explosive lenses to detonate.
7. The 32 expanding detonation waves encountered the Baratol part of the 32 explosive lenses, which slowed the center of the detonation wave causing thee 32 detonation waves to focus into contracting detonation waves surrounding the core.
8. Once focused the 32 contracting detonation waves were merged into a single spherical implosion detonation wave in a layer of Composition-B.
9. The spherical implosion wave then passed from the Composition-B to a layer of aluminum called the pusher that provided both impedance matching between the low density explosive and the high density Depleted Uranium tamper and smoothing of any remaining irregularities in the shockwave.
10. The spherical implosion wave then passed from the pusher to the Depleted Uranium tamper compressing it.
11. The spherical implosion wave then passed from the tamper to the Plutonium core compressing it to a supercritical mass.
12. The spherical implosion wave then passed from the Plutonium core to a beryllium-polonium neutron source called the Urchin.
13. As the beryllium and polonium in the neutron source intermixed, alpha particles from the decaying polonium were captured by the beryllium causing it to emit a burst of neutrons.
14. These neutrons triggered a neutron fission chain reaction in the Plutonium core, which grew at an exponential rate.
15. Roughy 5 microseconds later the Plutonium core and the Depleted Uranium tamper vaporized from the heat generated.
16. The mass of the vaporized Uranium tamper contained the mass of the vaporized Plutonium a couple more microseconds, then the bomb exploded.

The end results were about the same.

Answer 5

From the heat, nuclear radiation, and blast, at Hiroshima that day some 70,000 people died, mostly citizens. By the end of 1945 the death toll was 140,000. By the end of the year in Nagasaki there were some 78,000 dead. The dying continued and by 1950 the total for both cities may have exceeded 250,000, from these two small and primitive nuclear bombs. That's what happened. And additionally on August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered.

Answer 6

On August 6, 1945, at 9:15 AM Tokyo time, a B-29 plane, the "Enola Gay" piloted by Paul W. Tibbets, dropped a uranium atomic bomb, code named "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan's seventh largest city. In minutes, half of the city vanished. According to U.S. estimates, 60,000 to 70,000 people were killed or missing, 140,000 were injuried many more were made homeless as a result of the bomb. Deadly radiation reached over 100,000. In the blast, thousands died instantly.

The city was unbelievably devastated. Of its 90,000 buildings, over 60,000 were demolished. Another bomb was assembled at Tinian Island on August 6. On August 8, Field Order No.17 issued from the 20th Air Force Headquarters on Guam called for its use the following day on either Kokura, the primary target, or Nagasaki, the secondary target. Three days after Hiroshima, the B-29 bomber, "Bockscar" piloted by Sweeney, reached the sky over Kokura on the morning of August 9 but abandoned the primary target because of smoke cover and changed course for Nagasaki.

Nagasaki was an industrialized city with a natural harbor in Western Kuushu, Japan. At 11:02 a.m., this bomb, known as the "Fat Man" bomb, exploded over the north factory district at 1,800 feet above the city to achieve maximum blast effect. Buildings collapsed. Electrical systems were shorted. A wave of secondary fires resulted, adding to their Holocaust.

Flash burns from primary heat waves caused most of the casualties to inhabitants. Others were burned when their homes burst into flame. Flying debris caused many injuries. A fire storm of winds followed the blast at Hiroshima as air was drawn back to the center of the burning area. Trees were uprooted. The bomb took the lives of 42,000 persons and injured 40,000 more. It destroyed 39 percent of all the buildings standing in Nagasaki. According to U.S. estimates, 40,000 people were killed or never found as a result of the second bomb.

Answer 7

The city was devastated. A lot died in an instant many were carried illnes for a number of years.

Leukemia, Lymphoma and Multiple Myeloma, Nervous system tumors and their response relation were observed for all solid nodules, adenoma, and nodules without histological diagnosis, autoimmune hypothyroidism, stomach tumors and breast diseases. The population has a long follow-up (50 years) and includes both sexes and all ages of exposure, allowing a direct compilation of risks by these factors. the population has a long follow-up (50 years) and includes both sexes and all ages of exposure, allowing a direct compilation of risks by these factors. Because of the use of Japanese family registration system, mortality data are virtually complete for survivors who remained in Japan.

The result in the coral reefs in the Bimini Island who were demolished by nuclear blast came alive again after 50 years.

Answer 8

The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were decimated by the atomic bomb in August 1945. The attacks resulted in the surrender of Japan in World War II.

Answer 9

They were both atomic bombed in 1945.