Atomic Bombs

An atomic bomb called Fat Man, developed in the Manhattan Project, WAS dropped onto the city of Hiroshima on 8/9/1945.

he world's first nuclear detonation was the Trinity test, conducted on July 16, 1945, next plutonium core implosion device was detonated from a one-hundred foot tower that rose from the desert floor. So, before the attacks the nuclear were tested two times.

Yes and it read thus:

TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE:

America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet.

We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate.

We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city.

Before using this bomb to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, we ask that you now petition the Emperor to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better and peace-loving Japan.

You should take steps now to cease military resistance. Otherwise, we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war.

EVACUATE YOUR CITIES.

ATTENTION JAPANESE PEOPLE. EVACUATE YOUR CITIES.

Because your military leaders have rejected the thirteen part surrender declaration, two momentous events have occurred in the last few days.

The Soviet Union, because of this rejection on the part of the military has notified your Ambassador Sato that it has declared war on your nation. Thus, all powerful countries of the world are now at war with you.

Also, because of your leaders' refusal to accept the surrender declaration that would enable Japan to honorably end this useless war, we have employed our atomic bomb.

A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s could have carried on a single mission. Radio Tokyo has told you that with the first use of this weapon of total destruction, Hiroshima was virtually destroyed.

Before we use this bomb again and again to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, petition the emperor now to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better, and peace-loving Japan.

Act at once or we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war.

EVACUATE YOUR CITIES.

The situation was bad. The United States was involved in fighting in the European scenario and in the Pacific scenario fighting the Japanese also. This had been going for 4 years. The casualty rate was high. President Truman stated that he used the bomb to end the war sooner.

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forever changed the world in which we now live. Two cities were virtually wiped off the face of earth, hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, and countless others bear the scars of August 1945. It is possible that the show of force by the United States was the only way to ensure a quick resolution to the fighting in the Pacific or it could be argued that Japan was inhumanely and unjustifiably used as an experiment on the world stage.The atomic bomb was the reason Americans had won the war with Japan and also the reason their boys were finally coming home. At the same time reports of radiation sickness and immense suffering seeped into the news, coupled with the fact that the victims of the bomb were not soldiers or military personnel but women, children, and the elderly.

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 1945. These two events represent the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.

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The United States, with assistance from the United Kingdom and Canada, designed and built the bombs under the codename Manhattan Project; initially for use against Nazi Germany and inspired by the correct assumption that Germany would also conduct an atomic bomb project, and incorrect assumption that the Nazis held a lead in atomic weapons research. The first nuclear device, called "Gadget," was tested near Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were the second and third to be detonated and the only ones ever employed as weapons.

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Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't the first times that the Allies had bombed Axis cities without specifically targeting military installations, nor the first time that such bombings had caused huge numbers of civilian casualties, nor the first time that such bombings were (or came to be) controversial. In Germany, the Allied firebombing of Dresden resulted in roughly 30,000 deaths. The March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo may have killed as many as 100,000 people. By August, about 60 Japanese cities had been destroyed through a massive aerial campaign, including large firebombing raids on the cities of Tokyo and Kobe.

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Over 3½ years of direct U.S. involvement in World War II, approximately 400,000 American lives had been lost, roughly half of them incurred in the war against Japan. In the months prior to the bombings, the Battle of Okinawa resulted in an estimated 50-150,000 civilian deaths, 100-125,000 Japanese or Okinawan military or conscript deaths and over 72,000 American casualties. An invasion of Japan was expected to result in casualties many times greater than in Okinawa.

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U.S. President Harry S.Truman, who was unaware of the Manhattan Project until Franklin Roosevelt's death made the decision to drop the bombs on Japan. His stated intention in ordering the bombings was to bring about a quick resolution of the war by inflicting destruction, and instilling fear of further destruction, that was sufficient to cause Japan to surrender. On July 26 Truman and other allied leaders issued The Potsdam Declaration outlining terms of surrender for Japan:

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"...The might that now converges on Japan is immeasurably greater than that which, when applied to the resisting Nazis, necessarily laid waste to the lands, the industry and the method of life of the whole German people. The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland..."

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"...We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction."

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The next day, Japanese papers reported that the declaration, the text of which had been broadcast and dropped on leaflets into Japan, had been rejected. The atomic bomb was still a highly guarded secret and not mentioned in the declaration.

Lasting Results are not pretty if the atom bomb is detonated at ground level or used as a bunker buster. Such ground level burst interfere with the chain reaction. The plutonium/uranium chain reaction occurs within 55 nano seconds of detonation so most of the material ignites and releases most of the energy if detonated at 2500 AGL, but if the bomb detonates at ground level than a significant mount of radio active material remains unburned (dirty bomb). This is bad, very bad. The 1/2 life can be from 700,000 years to 1,000,000 years for the "unburned material! Ugh!!!! I.E. if some of the plutonium rods that are stored at our nuclear power plants somehow got scattered into the atmosphere America would be a very quiet neighborhood for a very long time. A small piece of this material (3mm) can emit 200,000 rads! Any living thing coming in contact with this stuff would be dead in a matter of days if not hours. There you have. Nuclear War anybody?! In my humble opinion, mankind is doomed and their demise is going to destroy life as we know it on planet earth! Sad very sad indeed....

the us used atomic bombs against japan to end world war 2. the effects were the annihilation of hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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Most people agree that the bombs (two) were used to quickly end the war with Japan and save American lives.

The effects were they ended the war and saved American lives. Exactly what their purpose was.

But, they had side-effects, or effects that were known, and predicted, but not necessarily wanted. In some cases, the side effects of the radiation were so bad that it, in itself, added to the purpose of the bombings coming about. Ending the war and saving many many lives that would have been lost in a long drawn out conventional war of guns and planes and ships etc.

If you are asking about what happened in the next 3 days?Then the United States decided to drop the next atomic bomb on the city of kobe.When the aircraft arrived over the city the visibility was not good enough to bomb this city and it was decided to bomb the secondary target,which turned out to be Nagasaki.This was done on the date of August 9th,1945.

That was President Truman's call.

Although there was no doubt that the Hiroshima gun barrel uranium design would work, there were some doubts and unanswered questions re the spherical plutonium implosion design that were resolved by the Trinity test.

Three atomic bombs were constructed by USA towards the end of WW2. They were tested in an operation called Trinity - the test detonation of the bomb called Gadget (in New Mexico). This was followed by the dropping of Little Boy (Hiroshima) the second and Fat Man (Nagasaki) the third.

A fourth was finished just before the surrender on the 14th and shipped to San Francisco, arriving on the 18th for shipment by air to tinnian island, but was returned to Los Alamos. Production plans and facilities were ready to deliver 20 more to Japan by the end of 1945 if needed.

if the Americans didn't drop the atom bomb it would have needed 1000 American lives so they dropped the atom bomb (fat man and little boy)

Military forces targeting civilians as well as soldiers .

A uranium-235 bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, 8:16 AM local time, and it exploded at an altitude of 1900 feet with an estimated yield of 12 kilotons.

Another nuclear bomb, a plutonium device, was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, at 11:06 AM local time, and exploded at an altitude of 1650 feet with an estimated yield of 22 kilotons.

The plan had always been to use the atomic bombs against Germany as soon as they were ready, but Germany was defeated before the bombs were finished. Within four days after the surrender of Germany the Targeting Committee met at Los Alamos, to recommend cities in Japan as targets for the atomic bombs. The criteria used were that the city had to be large enough that the blast effect of the atomic detonation would be measurable, preferably the target city should be more than three miles in diameter. And so an accurate assessment of the blast effect could be obtained, the Targeting Committee preferred Japanese cities which had not yet been heavily bombed. The US Air Force was conducting a heavy conventional bombing campaign against Japan, and already large portions, several square miles, of many of Japan's sixty-seven largest cities were nothing but heaps of ash. The US had switched to using incendiary (fire) bombs against Japanese cities, which were largely paper and wood, and thus extremely flammable. The Targeting Committee recommended four cities as potential nuclear targets: Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and the arsenal city of Kokura. Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War, had honeymooned in Kyoto, which was the ancient capital of Japan, and had it taken off the target list for sentimental reasons. The other three cities were taken off the conventional bombing list of acceptable targets, to preserve them as pristine nuclear targets. The first bomb, "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima August 6, 1945. Three days later the second bomb, "Fat Man' was to be dropped on Kokura. Nagasaki was a secondary target for the mission, in case weather obscured visibility over Kokura. Nagasaki, a large seaport, had not been bombed except for one raid a little over a week before the nuclear attack. Weather scouting planes flying ahead of the nuclear bomber reported heavy cloud cover over Kokura, so the mission was switched to the alternate target, Nagasaki. Clouds thus saved Kokura and doomed Nagasaki.

due to the high civilian population

ICBMs with nuclear weapons create such eminence holocaust the major powers are afraid to use them thus afraid to have a war with the other. It called mutual assured destruction. It's been analogized to each party having thousands of matches in a room filled with natural gas. If either lights a match both die. This does, however, seem to promote the proliferation of smaller scale more traditional was, like Korea, Vietnam, etc. where each party can avoid direct confrontation with the other.

May I respectfully suggest: Codename DOWNFALL by Thomas B. Allen & Norman Polmar New York Simon & Shuster 1995 ISBN: 0-684-80406-9 Richard V. Horrell WW 2 Connections.com I was stationed on Ulithi Atoll in the South Pacific during World war 2.I was the coxwain on an LCVP Landing craft,My outfit was SLCU # 34.Before the Atom Bomb was dropped on Japan,Our Skipper told all of us to bring our boats out of the water to be overhauled.He stated that we had been given the honor of taking the 2nd Marine Division in the initial landing on the mainland of Japan.It was during this time we heard about the Bombing of Japan. Yes. Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. The first was to be a landing on the southern coast of Honshu (southern most island of Japan). It would have been a "blood bath." The Japanese correctly guessed that is where we were going to land, and were ready and waiting for us. The second was to be an attack on Japan's main island Hokaido (spelling?). This was to take place near Tokyo bay when most of the Japanese army was in the south. Generally most experts of the time felt we would lose 1,000,000 soldiers in the invasion. I disagree. Based on our losses at Iwo Jima and Okinawa I think we would have lost many more. One thing that is not discussed is: How many Japanese would have died if we had invaded. My guess is in excess of 25,000,000. The Atomic Bomb saved many American and Japanese lives, and perhaps the "civilization" of Japan. Sad but true. Hope this helps, John CORRECTIONS!!!!! I stated tha the name of the southern island of Japan was Honshu (Dumb, dumb, dumb) I know better I was just tired. The southern island of Japan is Kyushu, and then I said the central island (Operation Coronet) was Hokkido (again stupid). The correct name is Honshu. I hope this did not cause you any trouble. Sorry, John

Not letting the soldier and sailor go in Japans mainland since it would be more war casualties for the US than the one they had already.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

First an Uranium Atomic Bomb over Hiroshima.

Thre days later a Plutoneum Atomic Bomb were dropped over Nagasaki.

President Roosevelt knew it would take at least a million marines to take the main island of Japan, we could have won without the bomb, but we would have taken thousands of unnecessary casualties.

At the end of World War II, few questioned Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most Americans accepted the obvious reasoning: the atomic bombings brought the war to a more timely end. They did not have a problem with over one hundred thousand of the enemy being killed. After all, the Japanese attacked America, and not the other way around. In later years, however, many have begun to question the conventional wisdom of "Truman was saving lives," putting forth theories of their own. However, when one examines the issue with great attention to the results of the atomic bombings and compares these results with possible alternatives to using said bombs, the line between truth and fiction begins to clear. Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb on Japan was for the purpose of saving lives and ending the war quickly in order to prevent a disastrous land invasion.