Atomic Bombs

The US Army's Manhattan Project under the military leadership of General Leslie Groves and the scientific directorship of Robert Oppenheimer (the two men in the image above). The project spent two billion dollars, mostly on building factories and other atomic infrastructure, and employed more than 130,000 people at sites scattered across the US.

It is a common misconception that Albert Einstein was part of the Manhattan Project. As a pacifist he refused to perform any war related work and the US Army security would never have granted him the necessary security clearances (they refused to grant Robert Oppenheimer these clearances and it took a direct order from General Groves to override this and get Oppenheimer cleared as Groves believed he was the only scientist that Groves could communicate with about the issues needed to make the project succeed).

The only participation Einstein had was to sign a letter on August 2, 1939 previously written by Leo Szilard (who invented the atomic bomb in 1933 while in London, patent GB630726) addressed to president Franklin Roosevelt. After the letter was sent he knew nothing of whether the US was even studying it or not until he saw the August 6, 1945 newspaper headlines about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that morning.

While Allied military leaders planned for invasion, scientists offered another way to end the war. Since the early 1900s, scientists had understood that matter, made up of atoms, could be converted into pure energy. In military terms, this meant that, by splitting the atom, scientists could create an explosion far more powerful than any yet known. During the war, Allied scientists, some of them German and Italian refugees, raced to harness the atom. In July 1945, they successfully tested the first atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico. News of this test was brought to the new American President, Harry Truman. Truman realized that the atomic bomb was a terrible new force for destruction. Still, after consulting with his advisers, he decides to use the new weapon against Japan. Truman warned the Japanese that if they did not surrender, they would face "a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has nerver been seen on this Earth." When the Japanese ignored the deadline, the United States took action. On August 6, 1945 an American plane dropped an atomic bomb, "little boy", on Hiroshima and killed between 80-100 thousand people. Japan still refuses to surrender, so 3 days later, August 9, another American plane dropped "Fat Man" on Nagasaki that killed between 60-75 thousand people. Then on August 14, 1945 Japan surrenders.
yes, it was during that war that the two nuclear bombs were dropped over Japan.

1. yes!

Half (if not all) of Japan would have been part of the Soviet Union and the rest free (USA) and Japan probably wouldn't be as powerful and developed as it is now. This is one of the most complex questions of all time. There is no easy, pat answer to such a highly charged, emotional issue. This is a question that calls for an opinion: in my opinion, the simple answer is yes, The Bomb had to be used. Yet the pros and cons may be strongly argued on both sides. Even Albert Einstein, whose theoretical physics helped create The Bomb and who initially advocated building it because he feared the Nazis were building one, later changed his mind and argued strenuously against its use on humanitarian grounds.

One of the main arguments against the use of the nuclear weapon is that because of the sheer power of a single bomb, it is more cruel and unusual than conventional bombs. Also, conventional bombs do not kill their victims weeks, months or even years later due to radiation. Certainly the sheer horror of the use of The Bomb as we saw the evidence in Hiroshima and Nagasaki have helped prevent its use again - so far (that's what the "Cold War" was all about). The U.S. has the dubious distinction of being the only nation in the world ever to have dropped a nuclear weapon in anger, while Japan remains the only nation in the world ever to have undergone a nuclear attack.

On the other hand, The Bomb undoubtedly ultimately saved far more lives than it took. The question has first, I think, to be looked at in the context of the times. In 1945, the Japanese simply would not quit! (For that matter, neither would the Germans, and had The Bomb been ready by April, 1945, it probably would have been dropped on Berlin instead.) It is far too easy now, after more than 60 years of peace, friendship and economic co-prosperity with modern Japan to say that we should not have dropped The Bombs. From the perspective of the present, it seems cruel, even bestial to have used this most powerful of weapons ever devised against a nation that, by 1945, was so badly beaten as to be well nigh defenseless.

Yet it is precisely because the Japanese were so badly beaten by 1945 that President Truman unhesitatingly made the decision to drop The Bomb, because the Japanese military government, despite having been decisively defeated on every battlefield, kept right on fighting, hoping for some miracle leading to a negotiated peace, or at minimum to die to save the National Honor.

Before 1945 the Japanese were a highly aggressive military state. Well before the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese armed forces had practically imposed a military dictatorship on Japan, with the acquiescence of Emperor Hirohito. Lacking sufficient natural resources in the Home Islands for their war machine, the Japanese, believing that their Manifest Destiny (an American term from the 19th Century) was to rule all of Asia, began attacking neighboring countries. In 1905, after a victory over the Russians, Japan gained control of Korea and Taiwan. They continued to expand while they were still part of the alliance against the Central Powers in WW1, and in 1931 they occupied Manchuria and attacked China. The Japanese resented any interference by Western powers in their aggressive campaign to create what they called the "Greater Southeast Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," which was to be dominated, of course, by Japan.

One has to look at the conduct and mindset of the Japanese soldier of the period up to 1945. Steeped from birth in the Samurai tradition of Bushido, the "Way of the Warrior," a code of conduct that emphasized Death Before Dishonor, the Japanese soldier was almost impossible to capture alive. One of the worst ways a warrior could dishonor himself was to surrender to an enemy. Throughout WW2, for a Japanese soldier to surrender was the exception rather than the rule. So ingrained was this medieval concept of honor, the Japanese even extended it to the prisoners they took. The infamous Bataan Death March after the Fall of Corregidor in 1942 has been blamed, at least in part, on the Japanese notion that the Americans and Filipinos who surrendered had dishonored themselves by not fighting to the death, so they were unworthy of decent treatment by their captors. This, then, was the soldier we were fighting up to 1945.

To see clearly the effect of the Code of Death before Dishonor, all one has to do is look at Japanese casualty figures for the island campaigns of 1942-1945, especially towards the end in the fights for Iwo Jima and Okinawa. On Iwo Jima, of 22,000 Japanese troops engaged, only 216 survived! They, however, took a terrible toll of the 70,000 U.S. Marines that came against them. Iwo was the only battle where the Marines lost more killed than the enemy, but they were not there to get themselves killed. The Japanese were.

Much the same thing happened on Okinawa, where about 66,000 Japanese defenders lost their lives while causing over 72,000 American casualties, which was more than twice the number of casualties on Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal combined. Most of the Japanese still refused to surrender, preferring to throw themselves on their swords, or grenades, or to lead suicidal charges against the Americans. Moreover, close to 150,000 Okinawan civilians died, many by throwing first their children and then themselves off the cliffs into the sea. For the Americans, it was a horrifying foretaste of what they could expect when they invaded The Home Islands of Japan, which was next up after Okinawa.

The Americans also had to contend with Kamikaze attacks - airplanes loaded with explosives and piloted by men who had no intention of coming out alive (there's a modern parallel with the radical Islamist suicide bombers). The Kamikaze had first appeared in 1944, but by Okinawa there were hundreds of attacks resulting in the sinking or heavy damaging of at least 30 U.S. warships by over 1400 suicide attackers. This was the enemy we were fighting in 1945.

Okinawa was a bitter lesson for the planners of the invasion of the Home Islands: the Japanese had shown without doubt that they would fight to the literal death. The Japanese were arming and training women and children with sharpened bamboo staves to use against the Americans on the beaches. The Japanese leaders were actually debating whether it was better for the entire population of Japan to immolate themselves rather than face the national dishonor of surrender! For American planners of the final invasion of The Home Islands, called Operation Downfall, the estimates of casualties on the Allied side ran to the millions (!) and on the Japanese side to the tens of millions (!). But the problem remained that the Japanese simply would not give up, even though it's probable that their leadership had known they were beaten as early as 1943. We had the grisly examples of Iwo and Okinawa to remind us how savagely the Japanese would fight. More than a million young American men stood to lose their lives …

Unless …

In Total War, nations strive to totally destroy one another's ability to fight. This includes destroying civilians and cities because cities are centers of the manufacture of war matériel, and civilians man the factories that produce it. Throughout WW2 all belligerents had been bombing cities flat. By 1945, the U.S. Army Air Force was nightly dropping thousands of tons of incendiaries on Japanese cities (made largely of paper and wood), incinerating tens of thousands of people, but it hadn't made a dent in the Japanese will to resist. The Japanese Navy was largely on the bottom of the Pacific, including the two largest and most powerful battleships ever launched. The Japanese Air Force was reduced to crashing itself into our ships. The Army, what was left of it, was drawing its battle lines to defend The Home Islands while the government issued sharpened bamboo staves to children. The clear fact was that what was needed was a weapon so powerful, so devastating, so unutterably shocking that the Japanese would finally realize that we would simply annihilate them without giving them the chance to take any of us with them.

And we had that weapon in the atomic bomb.

On July 16, 1945, a secret program know as The Manhattan Project successfully detonated a plutonium cored implosion-type weapon in New Mexico. It yielded an explosion roughly equivalent to 20,000 tons of T.N.T. A B29 Superfortress of the day could normally carry 20,000 pounds of bombs (not all of which was active explosive), but a little way oversimplified arithmetic shows that a single B29 carrying a single bomb similar to that exploded in New Mexico was the equivalent of about 2000 B29s each carrying a standard bomb load.

President Truman was immediately informed of the success of the test and that we had two more combat ready bombs, one a uranium device, and the other another plutonium bomb. Truman unhesitatingly gave the order to use one of the weapons on a target city in Japan. (If Germany hadn't surrendered in May, Berlin might have been the target.)

Truman always said he never lost any sleep over the decision to use The Bomb. There was a suggestion that we might do a demonstration by dropping a Bomb over an unpopulated area, but that idea was rejected primarily because, [1] if the Japanese were forewarned they might successfully shoot the plane down, but more to the point, [2] if the bomb failed to detonate we would have accomplished nothing. No, the only way was to essentially drop The Bomb with no warning on a military/industrial city and then if it didn't go off there'd be no harm done. If it did go off, we'd have made the shocking point we intended.

On August 6, 1945 a uranium bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. About a minute later it exploded about 2000 feet above the city with a blast equivalent to about 13,000 tons of T.N.T. The radius of total destruction was about a mile, with 90% of Hiroshima's buildings being pretty much flattened. Possibly 90,000 people were killed outright, and more died later as the result of burns and/or radiation. We had delivered the shock we intended.

Yet, amazingly, the Japanese government still waffled, some even believing that we didn't really have any more of the super weapons, so three days later we dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, not doing quite as much damage, even though this plutonium weapon was more powerful, because the bombardier missed his aiming point due to clouds. It still killed about 70,000 people outright. We finally had the Japanese government's attention. The Emperor personally stepped in, declared the war lost and broadcast a surrender message. The lives of tens of millions had been saved by the sacrifice of tens of thousands.

The political and military implications have, of course, lasted to this day, not to mention the ongoing threat of one of these things somehow getting loose, especially in the current crisis of terrorism. But long ago I personally concluded that, so long as we had built it, the use of the Atomic Bomb, while no less morally reprehensible than anything else done in Total War, was justified in that it finally jolted the Japanese into giving up without our having to invade the Home Islands. You can argue the morality of it forever, but to the American boys who came home alive to have their families and live out their lives, there was little doubt in their minds that the decision to drop it had been the right one.

Something peaceful would never have worked. The Japanese people thought their Emperor to be almost god-like and it took an atomic bomb to wake them up. We also rebuilt their cities after we destroyed it. I have been to Japan and have heard the older people come and tell me they are not upset with America over the atomic bomb. They were sad to lose all of those people, but it sent a powerful message that their countries leader was wrong.

Japan declared war on us when they attacked Pearl Harbor. If we didn't do anything drastic afterward, our country would appear weak and it would open us up to more terror. Just my thoughts.

It may be that Japan were wrong about their beliefs but still, people should not be punished and discriminated by what they think and believe. The atomic bomb destroyed homes and families. why should anyone go through such pain? you would not like it if you got discriminated because of your beliefs and faith. so why do it?

I agree there was some reason to the dropping but there was no reason to drop an untested bomb on a country that is about to surrender.

A nuclear weapon is a weapon which derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions of either nuclear fission or the more powerful fusion. As a result, even a nuclear weapon with a relatively small yield is significantly more powerful than the largest conventional explosives, and a single weapon can be capable of destroying or seriously disabling an entire city.

In the history of warfare, nuclear weapons have been used only twice, both during the closing days of World War II. The first event occurred on the morning of 6 August 1945, when the United States dropped a uranium gun-type device code-named "Little Boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The second event occurred three days later when a plutonium implosion-type device code-named "Fat Man" was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. The use of the weapons, which resulted in the immediate deaths of at least 120,000 individuals (mostly civilians) and about two times that number over time, was and remains controversial � critics charged that they were unnecessary acts of mass killing, while others claimed that they ultimately reduced casualties on both sides by hastening the end of the war. (See Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a full discussion.)

Since that time, nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions, mostly for testing purposes, chiefly by the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France, People's Republic of China, India and Pakistan. These countries are the declared nuclear powers (with Russia inheriting the weapons of the Soviet Union after its collapse).

Various other countries may hold nuclear weapons, but they have never publicly admitted possession, or their claims to possession have not been verified. For example, Israel has modern airborne delivery systems and appears to have an extensive nuclear program (see Israel and weapons of mass destruction); North Korea has recently stated that it has nuclear capabilities (although it has made several changing statements about the abandonment of its nuclear weapons programs, often dependent on the political climate at the time) and Iran was accused by a number of governments of attempting to develop nuclear capabilities, and now acknowledges that it is trying to obtain nuclear power, supposedly for peaceful purposes. South Africa is the only country to have developed an atomic bomb and then renounced possession of them (though several former Soviet Republics gave up their "inherited" nuclear arms after the breakup of the U.S.S.R.) For more information see List of countries with nuclear weapons.

Apart from their use as weapons, nuclear explosives have been proposed for various non-military uses.

There are strong arguments on both yes and no. Both arguments are introduced, and the historical facts are listed below.

The supporting arguments state that the President Truman needed to decide whether he should send in the military and live with the estimated 750,000 or more deaths (there are various numbers from Maximum of 46,000 of official estimate by the Supreme Council to 4,000,000 in common belief; refer to historical facts) that would result, or drop the bomb and force the Emperor to surrender. In this argument, the question lies whether the President could face the nation if he refused to use The Bomb and U.S. troops were killed, when the nation was told that those deaths were unnecessary. In addition, recently, there occurred arguments about the number of Japanese citizens who would have died in the conventional war. Wartime poverty and lack of resource was to the limit. Conventional incendiary bombing (firebombing) were taking lives of people. Traditional Japanese housings were susceptible to fire due to their wood and paper structures. This bombing of the cities actually killed additional 200,000 people by the end of the war. There would have been more deaths if the landing operation was actually carried out (no official estimates).

The opposing arguments state that the atomic bombs were not necessary to end the war. The swift ending of the war after the atomic bombing made a strong impression of American military success and much obscured other critical factors. The atomic bombing was carried out despite the fact that President Truman was aware that Japan would fold up no time soon. The question here is, why was the order approved before the Potsdam declaration was issued, while other nations at Potsdam Conference pointed out that the surrender would be easily attained if the Emperor and the polity would be maintained, and when even President Truman himself was convinced that Japan would fold up before August? (refer to historical facts) First, the power balance with the Soviet Union was the key. There is a view that President Truman intentionally extended the war by withdrawing the clause, to balance the power with the Soviet Union. President Truman was so wary of Stalin that he felt the need to display the power to inhibit its progression. Japan making peace early through the Soviet Union meant to lose the chance and to let the Soviet Union to gain Japanese land. Also, although the United States needed the Soviet Union to join the war to control the Guangdong Army in Manchuria, the landing of the Soviet Union on mainland Japan had to be avoided for the same purpose. The fact that the United States occupied Japan in the post-war order was critical and turned beneficial to the national security of the "West" during the cold war. Second, the weapon developed with over $2 billion USD ($23 billion in 2007 dollars based on CPI) of budget and with more than 130,000 people had to be experimented, and the uproar of the war did not allow the involved to reconsider. Third, it is suspected that President Truman did not pay as much attention to Asian civilians due to the sense of racial superiority based on remarkable colonialism among the Allied Nations. In these arguments, the atomic bombs were used for the interest of the government of the United States, not to end the war, and did actually add to the numbers of war victims and casualties. The arguments supporting atomic bombing are led by an exaggerated post-war governmental proclamation that had no relation to official estimates, to make citizens to believe to shake off the guilt and to doge the international accusations that were rising.

Some believe that "the atomic bombs" saved lives, some do not. 418,500 Americans and 3100,000 Japanese (including some who were brought into from the surrounding Asian countries), 72,000,000 people in the world died during the WW2. Every life that was lost was precious and irreplaceable. Those who lost lives through the battle must have fought believing and proud of the country as well as being a member of a family. The history always has multiple sides of the stories. "What if" in history is rarely meaningful. Every nation has the mission to promote the best interest of the nation and its constituents. 20th century was where that became prominent in the deadliest form of armed might. We can only try to track down the facts by documents, memos, and a lot of the time, by vague memories of the involved, keeping in mind that those can never be neutral. Nobody involved would be free from strong emotions or guilt. Yes or No should be left to the judgment of each person. And let us keep in mind that the monopoly of this power did not end up in monopoly or did not lead to an end of conflict.

Supreme Council held at the White House on Jun 18, 1945 discussed the landing operation in mainland Japan. The president was already Harry Truman. There were three plans and the estimated numbers of casualties of American soldiers are as follows; Plan1: 127,500 (including 25,000 deaths), plan2: 193,000 (including 40,000 deaths), plan3: 230,000, (including 46,000 deaths). Marshall and MacArthur estimated the total number of casualties as much less, 31,000 to 65,000. The maximum estimated number of deaths at this point was 46,000. This is ten-folds less than the common belief. It is noticeable that the number kept growing in President Truman's memory after the war. It turned from 46,000, to 250,000 in 1948 in a letter to his sister, to 500,000 in 1955 in his memoir, to 1000,000 in 1953 in a letter to Professor Kate at Chicago University.

Japan had fought the war in Okinawa Island until Jun 22, 1945 where 190,000 people including 120,000 civilians died. At this point, Japan secretly started to work towards peace through the Soviet Union while Japan-Soviet Neutrality Pact was active. The aim was to end the process by early Jul 1945 when Potsdam Conference was said to be held. Japanese leaders insisted that the protection of the Emperor and the retention of the national polity after the war. At the same time, Japanese leaders had convinced the citizens that they should fight to the death to defend the Emperor, who they considered to be a God. What Japan did not know was that the Soviet Union already agreed to join the war against Japan at Yalta Conference (Feb 4-11, 1945). The Soviet Union was to join the war three months after Germany should surrender. (Germany surrendered May 8, 1945.)

Also, it is worth noting that the target of the atomic bombs was Japan from the very beginning, on the contrary to the belief that they were originally developed to counteract the Nazism and was used against Japan after its surrender. May 5, 1943 at the first meet of Military Policy Committee of the Manhattan Project, Germany was declined as the first target of the bomb, and Japanese fleet station in Truk was decided instead. April 23, 1945, before the German surrender, Colonel L. Groves wrote to Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson that the target was consistently Japan.

President Truman came to know via decoding that Japan had been working towards peace with the Soviet Union. The diary of Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson on Jul 16, 1945 shows "I also received important paper in re Japanese maneuverings for peace. It seems to me that we are at the psychological moment to commence our warnings (to surrender) to Japan. …the recent news of attempted approaches on the part of Japan to Russia impels to urge prompt delivery of our warning." President Truman was also told directly by Stalin about the peace making process with Japan at Potsdam Conference (Jul 17- Aug 2, 1945). The diary of President Truman of Jul 17, 1945 shows "He'll be in the Jap War on August 15th. Fini Japs when that comes about. ----I can deal with Stalin. He is honest-but smart as hell." Meanwhile, President Truman was told of the successful test of the Manhattan Project (atomic bomb) in Alamogordo, New Mexico on Jul 16, 1945. Diary of President Truman of Jul 18, 1945 shows "Discussed Manhattan (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. of telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace. Stalin also read his answer to me. It was satisfactory. Believe Japs will fold up before Russia comes in." Jul 24, 1945, President Truman told Stalin about the planning of atomic bomb, although Stalin had already known through the spying activities. The memories of Churchill and other attendee about this conversation are not coherent.

Previous to the actual decision, Jun 27, 1945, Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard wrote the Bard memorandum; " I have had a feeling that before the bomb is actually used against Japan that Japan should have some preliminary warning for say two or three days in advance of use. The position of the United States as a great humanitarian nation and the fair play attitude of our people generally is responsible in the main for this feeling." Bard resigned Jul 1, 1945.

Jul 20, 1945, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, General Eisenhower advised President Truman that the atomic bombs were not necessary to the end the war against Japan.

Jul 25, 1945, the atomic bomb plan was officially approved by President Truman while he was still in Potsdam. "20th Air Force will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945 on one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. To carry military and civilian scientific personnel from the War Department to observe and record the effects of the explosion of the bomb, additional aircraft will accompany the airplane carrying the bomb. The observing planes will stay several miles distant from the point of impact of the bomb. 2. Additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready by the project staff. Further instructions will be issued concerning targets other than those listed above. 3. Discussion of any and all information concerning the use of the weapon against Japan is reserved to the Secretary of War and the President of the United States."

Jul 26, 1945, a day after the atomic bombing was approved, Potsdam Declaration was issued. The Allied Nations were aware that Japan was close to surrender, and that it would easily do so if the clause to protect the Emperor and the national polity should be left untouched. But President Truman insisted that this clause to be effaced.

Japanese Emperor showed affirmative reply to the cabinet on Jul 27, 1945. Still, said to be awaiting peace through the Soviet Union, Jul 28, 1945, Japan officially announced "no comment". Yet, this was translated as rejection by the journalism in the Allied Nations.

Aug 6, 1945 0815, the atomic bomb "little boy" exploded in Hiroshima. Although exact statistics not known, 90,000 to 140,000 people died, 87,000 injured. Aug 7, 1945, The United States declares the usage of Atomic bomb and that there would be an unseen destruction if Japan would not accept the conditions for surrender. Japan objected through Switzerland to the usage of this indiscriminate weapon over civilians. Aug 8, 1945, Japanese Emperor and the cabinet decided to end the war without waiting for the reply from the Soviet Union. The official announcement to the Japanese military was postponed till Aug 9, 1945. Aug 9, 1945 1102, the atomic bomb "fat man" exploded in Nagasaki. 73,884 died, 74,909 injured. This bombing took place in the middle of Japanese cabinet meeting in the presence of the Emperor while discussing the conditions to accept Potsdam declaration. Two bombs erased about half of the population, mainly civilians, of each area.

Aug 8, 1945, while the world was in a turmoil with the first use of the atomic bomb, the Soviet Union crossed the Manchurian border, against the Japan-Soviet Neutrality Pact. Manchuria was still dominated by Japan since Sino-Japanese War in 1894-5, and this act was a violation of the International Law.

Aug 10, 1945, Japan replied to Allied Nations to surrender on condition that the polity was to be maintained. Aug 12, 1945, the Allied Nations replied that the Japanese polity should be determined by free will of Japanese citizens. Aug 13, 1945, Japanese army planned on a coup d'état to continue the war to maintain the polity and the protection of the Emperor. Aug 14, 1945, Japanese Emperor summoned the cabinet against the customary to stop the coup d'état, and announced the acceptance of Potsdam declaration. This was officially announced to the Allied Nations. Aug 17, 1945, Disarmament of Japan. The attack of the Soviet Union lasted until 2 Sep 1945 when Japan signed the surrender, detaining 600,000 Japanese men to force labor in Siberia. Japan-Soviet Neutrality Pact was never officially annulled.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in Japan, were bombed at the end of World War 2.

World War I ended with the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.