Do you know the real reason behind Hiroshima and why it happened? A lot of things have lead up to Hiroshima and why the decision to drop the atomic bomb was finally made. When America decided to actually drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, of course, a lot of thought went into it. After Japan didn’t surrender when the first atomic bomb was dropped. They decided to drop another atomic bomb on a different location, Nagasaki. After Japan had finally surrendered, the war had ended but the bombings didn’t leave Japan without a traumatizing after sight and numerous casualties. Throughout this essay, you will learn about what caused Hiroshima, what Hiroshima is, what Nagasaki is,and what life was like afterwards. Many people today are still concerned about was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?
After America was drug into World War 2 by the bombing on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. President Roosevelt got America ready for the war that they were about to face, when they declared war against Japan. After the war had gone on for quite some time, President Truman wanted to set the atomic bomb off on Japan to, hopefully, end the war. But Truman’s secretary believed that the bomb would only make the United States have to make decisions on what life would be like post-war. But his secretaries thoughts didn’t change his mind set. As many Americans also thought it was the only way that the war could come to a possible end. The bombing was widely believed to have played a decisive vote in convincing Japan to surrender and bring about an end to the war. Also, ‘We would have kept on fighting until all Japanese were killed, but we would not have been defeated.”This quote shows how if the United States decided to attack Japan rather than bomb them, we would not have won the war to their surrender and we would have to face many casualties. So many believe that dropping the bomb was a better solution than invading Japan.
On August 6, the United States made the final decision to bomb Hiroshima. Which was the first deployed atomic bomb. They did this after receiving consent from the United Kingdom which is required by the Quebec agreement. They decided to pick this location because it was known to be an important military base. “ Hiroshima, a manufacturing center of some 350,000 people located 500 miles from Tokyo.” This also shows that the destination was chosen to create a big enough catastrophe to try to get Japan to surrender to the United states to end the war. Before the bomb was dropped, “President Truman warned that if Japan failed to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration it could ‘expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth’.” This quote shows how President Truman did in fact warn Japan of the possible outcome of them not surrendering. Therefore, Japan knew there was going to be a cost for not accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. The Manhattan Project which was the research and development of the first nuclear weapons, “employed more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion.” This shows how much money was actually put into the making of the nuclear weapons. Some are saying that it would have been easier to just invade the Japan city, but others say that there would have been too many American casualties if they made this decision rather than the Atomic Bomb.
After Hiroshima, when Japan refused to surrender, America decided to drop another bomb on another town in Japan. They first planned to drop the second bomb on August 11th. But bad weather was expected for that day so they decided to bump up the date to August 9th. “The topography of Nagasaki, which was nestled in narrow valleys between mountains, reduced the bombs effect, Limiting the destruction to 2.6 square miles.” It’s unsure if this was planned by the United States or not. But most likely they saw the damage that Hiroshima had done and wanted to target a more mountainous area to reduce the destruction from the bomb. This could also be supported by, “Had the bomb exploded farther south the residential and commercial heart of the city would have suffered much greater damage.” United States top reason for bombing was to get Japan to surrender so that the war could come to an end. By the timing of the bombings, it had been 6 years since the war had officially started. There were still almost 200,000 people in the city below the bomb when it exploded. The total number of civilians that were killed was 80,000. This quote shows that one fourth of the 80,000 came from the second bomb on Nagasaki.
On September 2, 1945, Japan had finally surrendered which brought World War 2 to an end. About a decade later survivors began suffering from thyroid, breast, lung and other common cancers at much higher than normal rates. This quote goes to show that after the bombs were dropped on the two Japanese cities, many long term effects took place on the people of Japan. Many came across illnesses that were not present before the bombs. And many couldn’t just act like nothing had happened when the radiation affected the survivors. Also, children exposed to radiation in their mother’s womb were more likely to have intellectual disabilities and impaired growth, as well as increased risk of developing cancer, which came to be a big concern.
In other words, this quote shows the causes that the radiation gave to those survivors that were expecting. The radiation left major possible deficiencies that could affect the babies of the pregnant woman. In addition, “At the Red Cross Hospital, only one doctor survived unscathed”. The bombing severely injured or killed all of the doctors except for one. Which left the town very vulnerable to infections and increased the number of casualties. With more doctors they could have lowered the number of casualties tremendously. But luckily, “In the days that followed, doctors from other cities arrived in Hiroshima to offer help, including doctors and a group of nurses from nearby Yamtheaguchi, carrying with them bandages and antiseptics.” Many civilians nearby came to help their nearby city to help out, which the city of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were very thankful for. This helped them out tremendously with the extra help and extra supplies that were needed.
As shown in my essay, Hiroshima was a huge part in our countries war history. It was intended to end World War 2. Which was accomplished after both atomic bombs were dropped. But the bomb left Hiroshima and Nagasaki with 80,000 casualties. And the after life for the Japanese cities was traumatizing. Leaving them with little to no resources to regroup from the bombings with. But luckily, Japan decided to surrender to end the war which lasted 6 long, painful years.
