What was the name of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki?
End of World War II in Asia
Second, and more powerful plutonium implosion atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped on Nagasaki from a different "Silverplate" B-29 named "Bockscar", flown by Maj. Charles Sweeney (Atomic bombing of Nagasaki)
Hiroshima Peace Memorial
Earlier, on 25 July, General Carl Spaatz, commander of the United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, received orders to deliver a "special bomb" attack on selected cities in Japan. The first target city chosen was Hiroshima, which had an important port on southern Honshu and was headquarters of the Japanese Second General Army with 40,000 military personnel in the city. The bomb was assembled in secret and loaded on the "Enola Gay". It consisted of a uranium isotope 235 core shielded by hundreds of kilograms of lead. The bomb, code named "Little Boy", possessed a force equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT. The plane dropped Little Boy over the city at 8:15:17 a.m. local time on 6 August 1945. Within 43 seconds of being dropped, it detonated over the city, missing its target by . Intended for the Aioi Bridge, the bomb instead exploded directly over the Shima Hospital, which was very near to the Genbaku Dome. Because the explosion was almost directly overhead, the building was able to retain its shape. The building's vertical columns were able to resist the nearly vertical downward force of the blast, and parts of the concrete and brick outer walls remained intact. The center of the blast occurred horizontally and vertically from the Dome. Everyone inside the building was killed instantly.
Nagasaki
Less than a second after the detonation, the north of the city was destroyed and 35,000 people were killed. Among the deaths were 6,200 out of the 7,500 employees of the Mitsubishi Munitions plant, and 24,000 others (including 2,000 Koreans) who worked in other war plants and factories in the city, as well as 150 Japanese soldiers. The industrial damage in Nagasaki was high, leaving 68–80% of the non-dock industrial production destroyed. It was the second and, to date, the last use of a nuclear weapon in combat, and also the second detonation of a plutonium bomb. The first combat use of a nuclear weapon was the "Little Boy" bomb, which was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The first plutonium bomb was tested in central New Mexico, United States, on July 16, 1945. The Fat Man bomb was somewhat more powerful than the one dropped over Hiroshima, but because of Nagasaki's more uneven terrain, there was less damage.
Fat Man (disambiguation)
Fat Man is the codename for the atomic bomb that was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki by the United States on August 9, 1945
Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
In 1959, Mitsuo Fuchida, the pilot who led the first wave in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, met with General Paul Tibbets, who piloted the "Enola Gay" that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and told him that:
Some historians see ancient Japanese warrior traditions as a major factor in the resistance in the Japanese military to the idea of surrender. According to one Air Force account,
Japanese militarism was aggravated by the Great Depression, and had resulted in countless assassinations of reformers attempting to check military power, among them Takahashi Korekiyo, Saitō Makoto, and Inukai Tsuyoshi. This created an environment in which opposition to war was a much riskier endeavor.
Hispanics in the United States Air Force
The atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945, but while the Allies awaited Japan's response to the demand to surrender, the war continued. On August 13, 1945, 1st Lt. Perdomo shot down four Nakajima Ki-43 "Oscar" fighters and one Yokosuka K5Y "Willow" Type 93 biplane trainer. This action took place near Keijo/Seoul, Korea when 38 Thunderbolts of the 507th Fighter Group encountered approximately 50 enemy aircraft. This action was Lt. Perdomo's tenth and final combat mission, and the five confirmed victories made him an "Ace in a Day" and earned him the distinction of being the last "Ace" of World War II. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in action and the Air Medal with one oak leaf cluster.
Fat Man
"Fat Man" was the codename for the nuclear bomb that was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki by the United States on 9 August 1945. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, the first being Little Boy, and its detonation marked the third nuclear explosion in history. It was built by scientists and engineers at Los Alamos Laboratory using plutonium from the Hanford Site, and it was dropped from the Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Bockscar" piloted by Major Charles Sweeney.
The name Fat Man refers to the early design of the bomb because it had a wide, round shape; it was also known as the Mark III. Fat Man was an implosion-type nuclear weapon with a solid plutonium core. The first of that type to be detonated was the Gadget in the Trinity nuclear test less than a month earlier on 16 July at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico. Two more were detonated during the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946, and some 120 were produced between 1947 and 1949, when it was superseded by the Mark 4 nuclear bomb. The Fat Man was retired in 1950.
Jacob Beser
Jacob Beser (May 15, 1921 – June 16, 1992) was a lieutenant in the United States Army Air Forces who served during World War II. Beser was the radar specialist aboard the "Enola Gay" on August 6, 1945, when it dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later, Beser was a crewmember aboard "Bockscar" when the Fat Man bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. He was the only person to have served as a strike crew member of both of the 1945 atomic bomb missions.
Nagasaki
For 12 months prior to the nuclear attack, Nagasaki had experienced five small-scale air attacks by an aggregate of 136 U.S. planes which dropped a total of 270 tons of high explosive, 53 tons of incendiary, and 20 tons of fragmentation bombs. Of these, a raid of August 1, 1945, was most effective, with a few of the bombs hitting the shipyards and dock areas in the southwest portion of the city, several hitting the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, and six bombs landing at the Nagasaki Medical School and Hospital, with three direct hits on buildings there. While the damage from these few bombs was relatively small, it created considerable concern in Nagasaki and a number of people, principally school children, were evacuated to rural areas for safety, thus reducing the population in the city at the time of the atomic attack.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Japan announced its surrender to the Allies on August 15, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war. On September 2, the Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender, effectively ending World War II. The effects of the bombings on the social and political character of subsequent world history and popular culture has been studied extensively, and the ethical and legal justification for the bombings is still debated to this day.
Kokura
Kokura was the backup target for the "Little Boy" bomb on August 6, 1945, so if Hiroshima had been clouded over, the first atomic bomb would have been dropped on Kokura. Kokura was the primary target for the "Fat Man" bomb on August 9, 1945, but on the morning of the raid, the city was obscured by clouds and smoke from the firebombing of the neighboring city of Yahata the day before. Since the mission commander Major Charles Sweeney had orders to drop the bomb visually and not by radar, he diverted to the secondary target, Nagasaki.
Morris R. Jeppson
Morris Richard Jeppson (June 23, 1922 – March 30, 2010) was a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He served as assistant weaponeer on the "Enola Gay", which dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945.
Bockscar
The failure to drop the Fat Man at the precise bomb aim point caused the atomic blast to be confined to the Urakami Valley. As a consequence, a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills, but even so, the bomb was dropped over the city's industrial valley midway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works in the north. An estimated 35,000 people were killed and 60,000 injured during the bombing at Nagasaki. Of those killed, 23,200–28,200 were Japanese munitions workers, 2,000 were Korean slave laborers, and 150 were Japanese soldiers.
Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
One day before the bombing of Nagasaki, the Emperor notified Foreign Minister Shigenori Tōgō of his desire to "insure a prompt ending of hostilities". Tōgō wrote in his memoir that the Emperor "warned [him] that since we could no longer continue the struggle, now that a weapon of this devastating power was used against us, we should not let slip the opportunity [to end the war] by engaging in attempts to gain more favorable conditions". The Emperor then requested Tōgō to communicate his wishes to the Prime Minister.
Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The "one condition" faction, led by Togo, seized on the bombing as decisive justification of surrender. Kōichi Kido, one of Emperor Hirohito's closest advisers, stated, "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war." Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945, called the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war".
Jacob Beser
On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb to be used in combat was dropped by a B-29 Superfortress bomber, the "Enola Gay", over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing 70,000 people, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000 Korean slave laborers. The thirteen-hour mission to Hiroshima under the command of famous pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets, began at 0245 Tinian time. By the time the "Enola Gay" rendezvoused with its two accompanying B-29 Superfortresses at 0607 over Iwo Jima, the group was three hours from the target area. "Little Boy's" detonation was triggered by radar sensors on the bomb that measured its altitude as it fell. Beser's job was to monitor those sensors and ensure that there was no interference that could have detonated it prematurely. The bomb fell away from the aircraft at 09:15:17 Tinian time. Beser did not watch the bomb detonate but he heard the bomb's radar signals switch on and then cut off at the moment the intense light generated by its detonation filled the plane.
Niigata (city)
In 1945, near the end of the war, Niigata was one of four cities, together with Hiroshima, Kokura, and Nagasaki, picked as targets for the atomic bomb if Japan did not surrender. The governor of Niigata Prefecture ordered the people to evacuate as rumors of an impending bombing spread, and the city was completely deserted for days. Poor weather conditions and its distance from B-29 bases in the Mariana Islands meant that it was removed from the list of targets during deliberations; Nagasaki was bombed instead.
Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki concerns the ethical, legal, and military controversies surrounding the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August 1945 at the close of World War II (1939–45). The Soviet Union declared war on Japan an hour before 9 August and invaded Manchuria at one minute past midnight; Japan surrendered on 15 August.
Ronald Shaw
Shaw was from Edmonton, London, and served as a corporal in the Royal Air Force. He initially served in Egypt before being transferred to the Far East. His plane was shot down by Japanese forces near the island of Java, and he was captured and taken to Japan as a prisoner of war. On 9 August 1945, the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki took place, and the bomb is believed to have exploded close to the area where Shaw was being held prisoner. He was killed when a wall fell on him.
First Into Nagasaki
On August 3, 1945 "New York Times" had carried the front page headline "BOMBERS FIRE GREAT NAGASAKI SHIPYARDS" and a page one story beginning "Nagasaki, one of the three major shipbuilding centers of Japan and ninth port of the empire, was left aflame yesterday, its dockyards smashed and its harbor littered with sunken ships by over 250 planes of General George C. Kenney's Far East Air Force." The article continues with a full description of the air battle over Nagasaki, and the destruction of oil tanks, ships, warehouses and railyard. The raid of August 2, 1945 included Mitchell and Liberator bombers as well as Thunderbolt and Mustang fighter planes. Weller's assertion published in 1967 is not consistent with this prominent, lengthy and detailed "New York Times" coverage, nor with his own assertion published in 2006 at the end of the very first dispatch datelined Nagasaki (September 6, 1945 2300 hours) that the city had had "one earlier serious raid."
Nagasaki Peace Park
Nagasaki Peace Park is a park located in Nagasaki, Japan, commemorating the atomic bombing of the city on August 9, 1945 during World War II. It is next to the Atomic Bomb Museum and near the Peace Memorial Hall.
Twentieth Air Force
Bockscar took off on 9 August, with Fat Man on board. This time, the primary target of Kokura was obscured by dense smoke left over from the earlier B-29 raid on nearby Yawata, and the bombardier could not pinpoint the specified aiming point despite three separate runs. So Sweeney turned to the secondary target, Nagasaki. There were clouds over Nagasaki as well, and a couple of runs over the target had to be made before the bombardier could find an opening in the clouds. At 11:00 am, Fat Man was released from the aircraft and after a long descent, the bomb exploded. The yield was estimated at 22 kilotons of TNT. Approximately 35,000 people died at Nagasaki from the immediate blast and fire.
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
The museum at the Nagasaki Peace Park replaced the Nagasaki International Culture Hall, where artifacts related to the bombing of Nagasaki were originally exhibited. These artifacts are now supplemented with photographs depicting daily life in Nagasaki before the atomic bomb was dropped, the devastation produced by the bomb, and the history of nuclear arms development.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
At 11:01, a last-minute break in the clouds over Nagasaki allowed "Bockscar"s bombardier, Captain Kermit Beahan, to visually sight the target as ordered. The Fat Man weapon, containing a core of about of plutonium, was dropped over the city's industrial valley. It exploded 47 seconds later at , above a tennis court, halfway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south and the Nagasaki Arsenal in the north. This was nearly northwest of the planned hypocenter; the blast was confined to the Urakami Valley and a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills. The resulting explosion released the equivalent energy of . "Big Stink" spotted the explosion from a hundred miles away, and flew over to observe.
"Bockscar" flew on to Okinawa, arriving with only sufficient fuel for a single approach. Sweeney tried repeatedly to contact the control tower for landing clearance, but received no answer. He could see heavy air traffic landing and taking off from Yontan Airfield. Firing off every flare on board to alert the field to his emergency landing, the "Bockscar" came in fast, landing at instead of the normal . The number two engine died from fuel starvation as he began the final approach. Touching down on only three engines midway down the landing strip, "Bockscar" bounced up into the air again for about before slamming back down hard. The heavy B-29 slewed left and towards a row of parked B-24 bombers before the pilots managed to regain control. Its reversible propellers were insufficient to slow the aircraft adequately, and with both pilots standing on the brakes, "Bockscar" made a swerving 90-degree turn at the end of the runway to avoid running off it. A second engine died from fuel exhaustion before the plane came to a stop.
Hispanic Americans in World War II
The atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945, but while the Allies awaited Japan's response to the demand to surrender, the war continued. On August 13, 1945, 1st Lt. Perdomo shot down four Nakajima Ki-43 "Oscar" fighters and one Yokosuka K5Y "Willow" Type 93 biplane trainer. This action took place near Keijo/Seoul, Korea when 38 Thunderbolts of the 507th Fighter Wing encountered approximately 50 enemy aircraft. This action was Lt. Perdomo's tenth and final combat mission, and the five confirmed victories made him an "Ace in a Day" and earned him the distinction of being the last "Ace" of World War II. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in action and the Air Medal with one oak leaf cluster.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
"Enola Gay" stayed over the target area for two minutes and was ten miles away when the bomb detonated. Only Tibbets, Parsons, and Ferebee knew of the nature of the weapon; the others on the bomber were only told to expect a blinding flash and given black goggles. "It was hard to believe what we saw", Tibbets told reporters, while Parsons said "the whole thing was tremendous and awe-inspiring ... the men aboard with me gasped 'My God'". He and Tibbets compared the shockwave to "a close burst of ack-ack fire".
Nuclear weapon yield
Where these data are not available, as in a number of cases, precise yields have been in dispute, especially when they are tied to questions of politics. The weapons used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for example, were highly individual and very idiosyncratic designs, and gauging their yield retrospectively has been quite difficult. The Hiroshima bomb, "Little Boy", is estimated to have been between (a 20% margin of error), while the Nagasaki bomb, "Fat Man", is estimated to be between (a 10% margin of error). Such apparently small changes in values can be important when trying to use the data from these bombings as reflective of how other bombs would behave in combat, and also result in differing assessments of how many "Hiroshima bombs" other weapons are equivalent to (for example, the Ivy Mike hydrogen bomb was equivalent to either 867 or 578 Hiroshima weapons — a rhetorically quite substantial difference — depending on whether one uses the high or low figure for the calculation). Other disputed yields have included the massive Tsar Bomba, whose yield was claimed between being "only" or at a maximum of by differing political figures, either as a way for hyping the power of the bomb or as an attempt to undercut it.
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
The is in the city of Nagasaki, Japan. The museum is a remembrance to the atomic bombing of Nagasaki by the United States of America 9 August 1945 at 11:02:35 am. Next to the museum is the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, built in 2003. The bombing marked a new era in war, making Nagasaki a symbolic location for a memorial. The counterpart in Hiroshima is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. These locations symbolize the nuclear age, remind visitors of the vast destruction and indiscriminate death caused by nuclear weapons, and signify a commitment to peace.
Presidency of Harry S. Truman
In August 1945, the Japanese government ignored surrender demands as specified in the Potsdam Declaration. With the support of most of his aides, Truman approved the schedule of the military's plans to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, and Nagasaki three days later, leaving approximately 135,000 dead; another 130,000 would die from radiation sickness and other bomb-related illnesses in the following five years. Japan agreed to surrender on August 10, on the condition that Emperor Hirohito would not forced to abdicate; after some internal debate, Truman accepted these terms of surrender.
Military history of the United States during World War II
As victory for the United States slowly approached, casualties mounted. A fear in the American high command was that an invasion of mainland Japan would lead to enormous losses on the part of the Allies, as casualty estimates for the planned Operation Downfall demonstrate. As Japan was able to withstood the devastating incendiary raids and the naval blockade despite hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, President Harry Truman gave the order to drop the two only-available atomic bombs, hoping that such sheer force of destruction on a city would break Japanese resolve and end the war. The first bomb was dropped on an industrial city, Hiroshima, on 6 August 1945, killing appropriately 70,000 people. A second bomb was dropped on another industrial city, Nagasaki, on 9 August after it appeared that the Japanese high command was not planning to surrender, killing approximately 35,000 people. Fearing additional atomic attacks, Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945.
RDS-1
The RDS-1 explosion yielded 22 kilotons of TNT, similar to the American Gadget and Fat Man bombs. At Lavrentiy Beria's insistence, the RDS-1 bomb was designed as an implosion weapon similar to the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan; RDS-1 also had a solid plutonium core. The bomb designers had developed a more sophisticated design (tested later as RDS-2), but rejected it due to the known reliability of the Fat Man type design, the USSR having received extensive intelligence on the design of the Fat Man bomb during World War II.
Hiroshima
On Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima from an American Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the "Enola Gay", flown by Colonel Paul Tibbets, directly killing an estimated 70,000 people, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 2,000 Korean slave laborers. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought the total number of deaths to 90,000–166,000. The population before the bombing was around 340,000 to 350,000. About 70% of the city's buildings were destroyed, and another 7% severely damaged.
Duck and cover
According to the 1946 book "Hiroshima" and other books which cover both bombings, in the days between the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some survivors of the first bombing went to Nagasaki and taught others about ducking after the atomic "flash" and informed them about the particularly dangerous threat of imploding window glass. As a result of this and other factors, far fewer died in the initial blast at Nagasaki as compared to those who were not taught to duck and cover. The general population however was not warned of the heat or blast danger following an atomic flash, due to the new and unknown nature of the atomic bomb. Many people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki died while searching the skies, curious to locate the source of the brilliant flash.
Air raids on Japan
Hiroshima was attacked on 6 August. At 8:15 am local time the B-29 "Enola Gay", piloted by Tibbets, dropped the "Little Boy" atomic bomb over the center of the city. The resulting explosion killed tens of thousands of people and destroyed about of buildings. The six American aircraft involved in this attack returned safely to the Marianas. Postwar estimates of casualties from the attack on Hiroshima range from 66,000 to 80,000 fatalities and 69,000 to 151,000 injured. Tens of thousands more subsequently died as a result of radiation and other injuries from the attack; it has been estimated that 140,000 people had died as a result of the atomic bomb by the end of 1945. Estimates of the total number of fatalities range as high as 230,000. Of the survivors of the bombing, 171,000 were rendered homeless.
William Penney, Baron Penney
Along with RAF Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, he accompanied the American Team to Tinian Island from which the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions were flown. On 9 August 1945 he witnessed the bombing of Nagasaki. The US authorities had controversially stopped them seeing the Hiroshima detonation, but at the last minute Penney and Cheshire were granted permission to fly in the B-29 "Big Stink", one of the observation planes that accompanied the Nagasaki weapon delivery bomber "Bockscar". Due to the belated permission, "Big Stink" missed its rendezvous with the bomber at Nagasaki. They saw the Nagasaki detonation from the air at a distance. As the leading expert on the effects of nuclear weapons, Penney was a member of the team of scientists and military analysts who entered Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945 to assess the effects of nuclear weapons.
Charles Donald Albury
Charles Donald Albury (October 12, 1920 – May 23, 2009) was an American military aviator who participated in both atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He co-piloted the United States Army Air Forces B-29 bomber known as the "Bockscar" during the mission which dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The bombing of Nagasaki killed an estimated 40,000 people instantly, and led to Japan's unconditional surrender on August 14, 1945, ending World War II.
Frederick C. Bock
Frederick C. Bock (January 18, 1918 – August 25, 2000) was a World War II pilot who took part in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945.
Operation Crossroads
Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The purpose of the tests was to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships.
Rhapsody in August
Clark is much moved by the events he sees in the Nagasaki community at the time of the memorial events surrounding the deaths which are annually remembered following the bombing of Nagasaki. Especially significant to Clark is the viewing of a Buddhist ceremony where the local community of Nagasaki meets to remember those who had died when the bomb was dropped. Suddenly, Clark receives a telegram telling him that his father, Kane's brother, has died in Hawaii and he is forced to return there for his father's funeral.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The American monopoly on nuclear weapons lasted only four years before the Soviet Union detonated an atomic bomb in September 1949. The United States responded with the development of the hydrogen bomb, a nuclear weapon a thousand times as powerful as the bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Such ordinary fission bombs would henceforth be regarded as small tactical nuclear weapons. By 1986, the United States would have 23,317 nuclear weapons, while the Soviet Union had 40,159. By 2017, nine nations had nuclear weapons, but Japan was not one of them. Japan reluctantly signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in February 1970, but it still sheltered under the American nuclear umbrella. American nuclear weapons were stored on Okinawa, and sometimes in Japan itself, albeit in contravention of agreements between the two nations. Lacking the resources to fight the Soviet Union using conventional forces, the Western Alliance came to depend on the use of nuclear weapons to defend itself during the Cold War, a policy that became known in the 1950s as the New Look. In the decades after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States would threaten to use its nuclear weapons many times.
Ninoshima
Nine kilometres from central Hiroshima, when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, the island was unscathed by the initial blast. Therefore, for the following three weeks the island became the destination of victims of the atomic bombing. In those weeks about 10,000 people were shipped to the island, to an emergency field hospital set-up there temporarily. The emergency field hospital operated from August 6 to August 25. Most of these were never to leave the island alive as thousands perished. The Hiroshima City War Victims Ninoshima Tower was erected on the island in 1947.
USS Bland (APA-134)
During her time at Hagushi and the ensuing voyage to the Marianas, the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima (6 August) and Nagasaki (9 August). Japan's leaders wrestled with the decision to surrender, and "Bland" completed her voyage, reaching Saipan on 14 August. The announcement of the war's end the following day, however, did not signal rest for the attack transport since the occupation of the former enemy's homeland still lay ahead. Ordered to the Philippines, "Bland" got underway on 16 August and arrived in San Pedro Bay, Leyte, four days later. She remained at anchor there for three days before sailing for Cebu. At that port, she embarked 78 officers and 1,240 men of the Americal Division and sailed for Japan on 1 September.
Nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapons have been used twice in war, both times by the United States against Japan near the end of World War II. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. Army Air Forces detonated a uranium gun-type fission bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" over the Japanese city of Hiroshima; three days later, on August 9, the U.S. Army Air Forces detonated a plutonium implosion-type fission bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. These bombings caused injuries that resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 civilians and military personnel. The ethics of these bombings and their role in Japan's surrender are subjects of debate.
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is an HBO documentary film that was directed and produced by Steven Okazaki and was released on August 6, 2007, on HBO, marking the 62nd anniversary of the first atomic bombing. The film features interviews with fourteen Japanese survivors and four Americans involved in the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Nagato-class battleship
Operation Crossroads began with the first blast (Test Able), an air burst on 1 July 1946; "Nagato" was not close to ground zero and was only lightly damaged. For Test Baker, an underwater explosion, the ship was positioned closer to ground zero. "Nagato" rode out the tsunami of water from the explosion with little apparent damage; she had a slight starboard list of two degrees after the tsunami dissipated. A more thorough assessment could not be made because she was dangerously radioactive. Her list gradually increased over the next five days and she capsized during the night of 29/30 July. Opened to divers in 1996, "Nagato" was named by "The Times" as one of the top 10 wreck diving sites in the world.
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
The residents of Nagasaki consider it their duty to make sure the horrors which they experienced due to the atomic bombing are never repeated. Because of this, the museum is designed in such a way that the audience can see just what effect the bomb had on the city, the reconstruction, and the lasting effects of the atomic bomb. The museum opens with a room dedicated to the city as it was just before the bomb decimated Nagasaki. A clock which stopped at 11:02, the precise time the bomb hit the city, is also on display to demonstrate how so many people were killed in an instant.
The Great Artiste
Flown by 393d commander, Major Charles W. Sweeney, it was assigned to the Hiroshima mission on 6 August 1945, as the blast measurement instrumentation aircraft. On the mission to bomb Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, it was to have been the aircraft carrying the bomb, but the mission schedule had been moved forward two days because of weather considerations, and the instrumentation had not yet been removed from the aircraft. To avoid delaying the mission, Sweeney traded airplanes with the crew of "Bockscar" to carry the Fat Man atomic bomb to Nagasaki. Captain Frederick C. Bock and his C-13 crew flew "The Great Artiste" to Nagasaki on its instrument support mission, and landed with it on Okinawa at the conclusion of the mission. It was the only aircraft to directly participate in both missions. "Enola Gay", flown by Captain George Marquardt's Crew B-10, was the weather reconnaissance aircraft for Kokura, the primary target on the Nagasaki flight. "Enola Gay" reported clear skies over Kokura.
Enola Gay
The Hiroshima mission was followed by another atomic strike. Originally scheduled for 11 August, it was brought forward by two days to 9 August owing to a forecast of bad weather. This time, a Fat Man nuclear weapon was carried by B-29 "Bockscar", piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney. "Enola Gay", flown by Captain George Marquardt's Crew B-10, was the weather reconnaissance aircraft for Kokura, the primary target. "Enola Gay" reported clear skies over Kokura, but by the time "Bockscar" arrived, the city was obscured by smoke from fires from the conventional bombing of Yahata by 224 B-29s the day before. After three unsuccessful passes, "Bockscar" diverted to its secondary target, Nagasaki, where it dropped its bomb. In contrast to the Hiroshima mission, the Nagasaki mission has been described as tactically botched, although the mission did meet its objectives. The crew encountered a number of problems in execution, and had very little fuel by the time they landed at the emergency backup landing site Yontan Airfield on Okinawa.
Necessary Evil (aircraft)
Colonel Paul Tibbets had chosen "Necessary Evil", commanded by Captain George Marquardt, to lead a third atomic bomb drop against Japan. Secretary of War Henry Stimson stated following the bombing of Nagasaki, "These two heavy blows have fallen in quick succession upon the Japanese and there will be quite a little space before we intend to drop another".
The primary target was the city of Koromo (current day Toyota). Toyota Motor Company was dedicated to truck production for the Imperial Japanese Army at this time making it the likely target. Stimson notes in his diary entry August 10, 1945 "[Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal] told me that they were planning another big attack by [Pacific Third Fleet Admiral William "Bull"] Halsey and he was afraid this would go on.". Colonel Tibbets under orders by General Curtis LeMay, dispatched Lt. Col. Classen, the deputy group commander, in the unnamed victor 94 and crew B-6 in Jabit III, together with their ground crews, to Wendover AAFB to stage for the possibility of transporting further Fat Man [Model 1561] bomb assemblies to Tinian. At Los Alamos, the second plutonium core for the third bomb had been fabricated and was ready for shipment from Mare Island Naval Shipyard to Tinian by special courier Lt. William A. King on a C-54 cargo aircraft of the 509th CG. These shipments were halted on August 14, 1945 by orders from Washington. "Kuromo" appears in a target log below Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Smithsonian Channel documentary "The Men Who Brought The Dawn".
Bombing of Osaka
The first air raid on Osaka lasted for about three and a half hours from 23:57 on March 13, 1945, to 03:25. A total of 274 B-29 heavy bombers attacked Osaka. At first, 43 bombers of the 314th Bombardment Wing flew from Guam island. It was a low-level night raid from an altitude of about 2,000m aiming at the local civilian housings. The pathfinder dropped napalm bombs at a target in Minato ward and made a conflagration. The following bombers dropped incendiary cluster bombs around the point. Then, 107 bombers of the 313th Bombardment wing arrived from Tinian and attacked Naniwa ward. Finally, 124 bombers of the 73rd Bombardment Wing from Saipan arrived and attacked Kita ward and Nishi ward. This bomb raid resulted in 3,987 dead and 678 missing.
Potsdam Declaration
At a press conference with the Japanese press in Tokyo, Suzuki stated that the Japanese policy towards the declaration would be one of , which the United States interpreted as meaning "rejection by ignoring", leading to a decision by the White House to carry out the threat of destruction. Subsequent to the White House decision, the United States Army Air Forces dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and then the second atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki three days later on August 9, 1945. These two bombings devastated the two cities, killing an estimated 129,000–246,000 people and destroying much of the cities' infrastructure as well as military bases and war industries in a matter of seconds in a radius that stretched for more than 1 mile (1.6 kilometers).
Takashi Nagai
Nagai left behind a voluminous output of essays, memoirs, drawings, and calligraphy on themes including God, war, death, medicine, and orphanhood. These enjoyed a large readership during the American occupation of Japan (1945–52) as spiritual chronicles of the atomic bomb experience. His books have been translated into languages, including Chinese, Korean, French, and German. Three of his literary works are currently available in English: "We of Nagasaki", a compilation of atomic-bomb victim testimonies edited by Nagai; "The Bells of Nagasaki" (trans. William Johnston); and "Leaving My Beloved Children Behind" (trans. Maurice M. Tatsuoka and Tsuneyoshi Takai). His works were recently republished in new Japanese editions by Paulist Press.
Bombing of Nagaoka
The main raid on Nagaoka occurred on 1 August 1945. Commencing at around 10:30 p.m. that night, 125 B-29 Superfortress bombers from the 313th Bombardment Wing struck the city with an estimated 163,000 incendiary bombs totaling 925 tons. The raid lasted for 1 hour and 40 minutes. The city suffered severe damage, though estimates of its extent vary: in 1953 the USAAF's official history stated that 65.5 percent of Nagaoka's urban area was destroyed, and this figure was also used by historian Richard B. Frank in 2001. However, in 2016 the "Washington Post" reported that 80 percent of Nagaoka had been burnt out. A total of 1,486 people were killed in Nagaoka, including more than 280 school age children. The American force that attacked Nagaoka did not suffer any casualties.
393d Bomb Squadron
The 393d Bombardment Squadron is the only United States Air Force squadron to carry out a nuclear attack on an enemy in combat. During World War II, its aircraft attacked Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan 9 August 1945 with atomic bombs.
159th Liaison Squadron
At the end of July, the squadron received orders to move to Ie Shima. However, on 6 August, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan and three days later a second atomic bomb devastated Nagasaki. On 14 August the Japanese announced their surrender. On 19 August, the squadron witnessed a bit of history when a pair of Japanese Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" Bombers, painted white with green crosses landed on the island on their way to Manila. They were carrying a surrender delegation to meet General MacArthur for surrender negotiations. The Japanese transferred to a C-54 Skymaster at Yontan while their crews stayed behind to tend to their planes and be observed by curious onlookers. The war ended on 2 September without any combat being seen by the squadron on Okinawa.
First Into Nagasaki
Several of the eyewitnesses Weller interviewed described seeing a parachute, or parachutes, falling on the day of the bombing. In an account published more than twenty years after his visit to Nagasaki, Weller asserts that the bomb which destroyed Nagasaki was a "lazy-falling missile floating under a parachute.""...riding under a silk handkerchief." ["First into Nagasaki" page 3] Since the bomb did not descend by parachute (a fact well known twenty years later) this description is incorrect.
Little Boy
"Little Boy" was the code name for the type of atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 during World War II. It was the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. The bomb was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay" piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces. It exploded with an energy of approximately and caused widespread death and destruction throughout the city. The Hiroshima bombing was the second nuclear explosion in history, after the Trinity test, and the first uranium-based detonation.
Mushroom cloud
The atomic bomb cloud over Nagasaki, Japan was described in "The Times" of London of 13 August 1945 as a "huge mushroom of smoke and dust". On 9 September 1945, "The New York Times" published an eyewitness account of the Nagasaki bombing, written by William L. Laurence, the official newspaper correspondent of the Manhattan Project, who accompanied one of the three aircraft that made the bombing run. He wrote of the bomb producing a "pillar of purple fire", out of the top of which came "a giant mushroom that increased the height of the pillar to a total of 45,000 feet".
Bombing of Nagaoka
The took place on the night of 1 August 1945, as part of the strategic bombing campaign waged by the United States against military and civilian targets and population centers in the Japan home islands during the closing stages of World War II. Between 65.5 and 80 percent of the urban area of Nagaoka was destroyed during the bombing.
Jose P. Laurel
On July 26, 1945, the Potsdam Declaration served upon Japan an ultimatum to surrender or face utter annihilation. The Japanese government refused the offer. On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima, with some 300,000 inhabitants, was almost totally destroyed by an atomic bomb dropped from an American plane. Two days later, the Soviet Union declared war against Japan and invaded Manchuria. The next day, August 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The Allied Forces' message now had a telling effect: Japan unconditionally surrendered to the Allied Powers on August 15, 1945.
History of Japan
However, on August 6, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, killing over 90,000 people. This was the first nuclear attack in history. On August 9 the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Manchukuo, and Nagasaki was struck by a second atomic bomb. The unconditional surrender of Japan was announced by Emperor Hirohito and communicated to the Allies on August 14, and broadcast on national radio on the following day, marking the end of Imperial Japan's ultranationalist ideology, and was a major turning point in Japanese history.
History of the anti-nuclear movement
On August 6, 1945, towards the end of World War II, the Little Boy device was detonated over the Japanese military city of Hiroshima. Exploding with a yield equivalent to 12,500 tonnes of TNT, the blast and thermal wave of the bomb destroyed nearly 50,000 buildings (including the headquarters of the 2nd General Army and Fifth Division) and killed approximately 75,000 people, among them 20,000 Japanese soldiers and 20,000 Korean slave laborers. Detonation of the Fat Man device exploded over the Japanese industrial city of Nagasaki three days later after Hiroshima, destroying 60% of the city and killing approximately 35,000 people, among them 23,200-28,200 Japanese munitions workers, 2,000 Korean slave laborers, and 150 Japanese soldiers. The two bombings remains the only events where nuclear weapons have been used in combat. Subsequently, the world's nuclear weapons stockpiles grew.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
After three runs over the city, and with fuel running low because of the failed fuel pump, "Bockscar" and "The Great Artiste" headed for their secondary target, Nagasaki. Fuel consumption calculations made en route indicated that "Bockscar" had insufficient fuel to reach Iwo Jima and would be forced to divert to Okinawa, which had become entirely Allied-occupied territory only six weeks earlier. After initially deciding that if Nagasaki were obscured on their arrival the crew would carry the bomb to Okinawa and dispose of it in the ocean if necessary, Ashworth agreed with Sweeney's suggestion that a radar approach would be used if the target was obscured. At about 07:50 Japanese time, an air raid alert was sounded in Nagasaki, but the "all clear" signal was given at 08:30. When only two B-29 Superfortresses were sighted at 10:53, the Japanese apparently assumed that the planes were only on reconnaissance and no further alarm was given.
USS Tills
As the war progressed to its conclusion in the Pacific, "Tills" commenced a needed availability at Guam. While in Apra Harbor, the destroyer escort received word that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August. As "Tills" entered dry-dock ABSD-6 three days later for repairs to her sonar dome, a second atomic blast hit Nagasaki. While the destroyer escort was docked, in company with , , and , airwaves brought the welcome news that Japan had surrendered on 15 August. The long Pacific war was over.
First Into Nagasaki
On April 27, 1945, Lieut. Gene Flewellen commanding the B-29 "Experiment Perilous" was forced by weather to abandon his original target on Kyūshū and, without accompanying aircraft, flew southward down the coast seeking a target of opportunity and bombed the Nagasaki dock area. The absence of anti-aircraft fire indicated that the Japanese were "entirely surprised. The lone B-29 wheeled and headed south. Several hours later the pilot put the huge craft down at Saipan, with ten minutes of gas left in his tanks."
First Into Nagasaki
However, the "Chicago Daily News" on August 30, 1945 published under size extra large headline: ""1st INSIDE STORY OF HIROSHIMA Reporter Tells How City Vanished in Atom Blast"" a notable scoop by Leslie Nakashima written for United Press (and also printed in the "New York Times" "Newsman finds all of Hiroshima gone after atom blow.") Born in Hawaii and previously a reporter for the "Honolulu Star-Bulletin" and a foreign correspondent with wire agency UP in pre-war Tokyo this Nisei's dispatch includes: "...I arrived at Hiroshima at 5 A.M. Aug. 22, to find out about my mother, who lived in the outskirts of the city. Alighting from the train, I found that Hiroshima station—once one of the largest in western Japan—no longer existed. ...The sight before me as I headed for the outskirts of the city where my mother lived was unbelievable. It was unbelievable because only a fortnight before the bombing I had seen the city intact when I evacuated my wife and two daughters to central Japan. Except for one or two bombs dropped on separate occasions by B-29's, Hiroshima had not been subjected to heavy incendiary attacks. ...But I found my mother safe. She had been weeding grass in a relative's vegetable field about two miles southeast of the city when she saw the flash...A school in the suburbs near mother's home has been converted into a field hospital to care for people who suffered burns. The majority of these cases is believed hopeless. Many of the victims are unidentifiable. Even now two or three patients are dying daily at this one hospital."
Ralph Austin Bard
On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima without the warning that Bard recommended, inflicting approximately 70,000 deaths, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000 Korean slave laborers. On August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and launched the invasion of Manchuria which decimated the already-weakening Manchukuo Imperial Army. On August 9, a second bomb was used on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing approximately 35,000 people, including 27,778 Japanese munitions employees, 2,000 Korean slave laborers, and 150 Japanese combatants. On August 15, the Emperor announced the surrender of Japan.
Boeing B-29 Superfortress
"Enola Gay", flown by Tibbets, dropped the first bomb, called Little Boy, on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. "Enola Gay" is fully restored and on display at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, outside Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. "Bockscar" dropped the second bomb, called Fat Man, on Nagasaki three days later. "Bockscar" is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
Whale Whores
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are identified as the cause of Japanese whaling. The two Japanese cities were destroyed by atomic weapons during the final stages of World War II under orders by U.S. President Harry Truman, which killed about 220,000 people. In "Whale Whores", the Japanese are presented with a doctored picture of the "Enola Gay", the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The picture shows a dolphin and a whale piloting the plane to bomb the city. The Miami Dolphins, a National Football League professional football team, are killed along with real dolphins by the whalers in "Whale Whores". Near the end of the episode, Stan and the crew of the MY Steve Irwin encounter fishing ship captain Sig Hansen and his crew from the Discovery Channel reality series, "Deadliest Catch". The scene with Paul Watson's crew throwing "stinky butter" at the whalers refers to Watson and his crew's practice of throwing stink bombs containing butyric acid, an acid found in rancid butter and cheese, at Japanese whaling vessels, including the factory vessel, the "Nisshin Maru".
Big Stink (aircraft)
Big Stink – later renamed Dave's Dream – was a United States Army Air Forces Boeing B-29-40-MO Superfortress bomber (Victor number 90) that participated in the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. Assigned to the 393d Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group, it was used as a camera plane in support of the bomb-carrying B-29 "Bockscar" to photograph the explosion and effects of the bomb, and also to carry scientific observers. The mission was flown by crew C-14 but with Group Operations Officer Major James I. Hopkins, Jr., as the aircraft commander.
Japan and weapons of mass destruction
The atomic age on Japan's southern islands began during the final weeks of the war when the U.S. Army Air Force launched two atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki from bases on Tinian in the Marianas Islands. Bockscar, the B-29 that dropped the Fat Man nuclear weapon on Nagasaki, landed at Yontan Airfield on Okinawa on August 9, 1945. The U.S. military immediately began constructing a second B-29 base and a facility for atom bomb processing in Okinawa to be completed in September 1945 that would open more targets in mainland Japan.
Environmental impact of war
After four years of World War II in August 1945, the United States of America dropped an atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima in Japan. About 70,000 people died in nine seconds at the bombing in Hiroshima, which was comparable to that of the devastating Operation Meetinghouse air raid over Tokyo. Three days after the bombing in Hiroshima, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on the industrial city of Nagasaki, killing 35,000.The nuclear weapon released a catastrophic load of energy. The temperature once the bombs were blasted reached about 7200°F. With temperature that high, all the flora and fauna are destroyed along with the infrastructure and human life in the impact zone. When the atomic bomb was dropped, it released enormous quantity of energy and radioactive particles. The radioactive particles released contaminated the land and water for miles. The initial blast increased the surface temperature, along with the crushing winds caused by the initial blast, trees and buildings in the path were all destroyed.
Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims
The foundation also tours internationally, holding anti-nuclear displays in cities around the world. The 2005 exhibition was held at the Peace Museum in Chicago, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the bombing as well as a conference in New York which reviewed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 2007, the exhibition was held in Guernica, Spain, which was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe in April 1937.
Contact fuze
Notable examples of air-dropped bombs that did use contact fuzes include the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The bomb was intended for air burst detonation and was fitted with both radar height-finding and barometric fuzes. As the device was so secret, and the risk of informative fragments or plutonium being recovered after a failed drop was considered to be unacceptable, it was fitted with supplementary contact fuzes that were only intended to destroy the weapon beyond recognition. Four AN-219 piezo-electric impact fuzes were fitted to the nose of the bomb casing.
Kosaza, Nagasaki
Despite the atomic bomb detonated in 1945 on Nagasaki, Kosaza is habitable.
History of nuclear weapons
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of World War II quickly followed the 1945 Trinity nuclear test, and the Little Boy device was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Exploding with a yield equivalent to 12,500 tonnes of TNT, the blast and thermal wave of the bomb destroyed nearly 50,000 buildings and killed approximately 75,000 people. Subsequently, the world’s nuclear weapons stockpiles grew.
509th Operations Group
The 509th CG made history on 6 August 1945, when the B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay," piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The B-29 "Bockscar," piloted by Major Charles Sweeney visited the Japanese mainland on 9 August 1945 and dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The radius of total destruction was about , followed by fires across the northern portion of the city to south of the bomb. About 58% of the Mitsubishi Arms Plant was damaged, and about 78% of the Mitsubishi Steel Works. The Mitsubishi Electric Works suffered only 10% structural damage as it was on the border of the main destruction zone. The Nagasaki Arsenal was destroyed in the blast. Although many fires likewise burnt following the bombing, in contrast to Hiroshima where sufficient fuel density was available, no firestorm developed in Nagasaki as the damaged areas did not furnish enough fuel to generate the phenomenon. Instead, the ambient wind at the time pushed the fire spread along the valley.
First Into Nagasaki
On, August 10, 1944 Nagasaki had been bombed by B-29s "launched from China against Nagasaki's urban area. The twenty-four attacking bombers unloaded 4 tons of fragmentation bombs and 77 tons of incendiaries on the primary.
Nagasaki Peace Park
The Monument for Korean Atomic Victims is located in Nagasaki Peace Park in Nagasaki, Japan. At the time of the atomic bombing in Nagasaki, there were many people of nationalities other than Japanese that were living in the area. There were an estimated 12,000 to 14,000 Koreans living in Nagasaki during the bombing. It is believed that up to 2,000 of them died because of the atomic bomb. At the time, those Koreans were being used as forced labor as a part of the Japanese war effort. This monument commemorates the Korean victims and serves as a message asking for peace in the world, an abolition of nuclear weapons, and a peaceful reunification of the Korean nation. The Monument for Korean Atomic Victims was unveiled on August 9, 1979.
Nuclear disarmament
On August 6, 1945, towards the end of World War II, the "Little Boy" device was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Exploding with a yield equivalent to 12,500 tonnes of TNT, the blast and thermal wave of the bomb destroyed nearly 50,000 buildings (including the headquarters of the 2nd General Army and Fifth Division) and killed 70,000–80,000 people outright, with total deaths being around 90,000–146,000. Detonation of the "Fat Man" device exploded over the Japanese city of Nagasaki three days later on 9 August 1945, destroying 60% of the city and killing 35,000–40,000 people outright, though up to 40,000 additional deaths may have occurred over some time after that. Subsequently, the world’s nuclear weapons stockpiles grew.
First Into Nagasaki
The "Miami Herald" article incorrectly states atomic POW casualties "Forty-eight were killed instantly and four others died later." while Dispatch #5 states "Forty-eight were wounded, four instantly killed, and four, including Aalders, died." The incorrect POW casualty figures also appear in Weller's "Los Angeles Times" article of September 16, 1945 and his "New York Post" article of September 15, 1945, and his article in the "Akron Beacon Journal" headlined "Yank Saw Atom Bomb Wipe Out Nagasaki" and above that "It Was 'Terrific, White Flash'" September 15, 1945 (this article includes interviews "supra" from Dispatch#1, Dispatch#5, and Dispatch#8). The Associated Press' Vernon Haugland quotes Dr. Vink "only four of our 200 prisoners were killed"[outright when the bomb exploded; four more died subsequently] in article published widely, including in the "New York Times" and on September 10, 1945 in the "Miami Herald". Thus papers in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, and Akron all print Weller's incorrect casualty statistics, whilst Dispatch#5 gives correct data, as does the Associated Press in 1945.
Stafford L. Warren
The detonation of the two atomic bombs in Japan "raised as many military and medicomilitary questions as they answered". A series of nuclear tests was planned, codenamed Operation Crossroads. Some 42,000 personnel were deployed to Bikini Atoll as part of Admiral William H. P. Blandy's Joint Task Force 1 to conduct the test. Their health and safety was Lyons's responsibility, but the specialised job of radiological safety was handled by the Manhattan Project. Warren, as Chief of the Radiological Safety Section (RADSAFE), planned and implemented measures to assess, limit and control the impact of radiation. Teams were given special training at Oak Ridge in the operation of instrumentation to measure radioactivity, and the interpretation of their readings. Training was also conducted aboard en route to Bikini Atoll, where it arrived on 12 June 1946. In all, some 3,500 personnel were assigned to RADSAFE. Warren was appalled by the effects of radioactive contamination on the environment. "The deadly range of radioactive products from the atomic bomb has been clearly demonstrated under controlled conditions..." he wrote, "the only defense against atomic bombs still lies outside the scope of science. It is the prevention of atomic war."
Frederick Ashworth
Frederick Lincoln "Dick" Ashworth (24 January 1912 – 3 December 2005) was a United States Navy officer who served as the weaponeer on the B-29 "Bockscar" that dropped a Fat Man atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945 during World War II.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Most elements of the Japanese Second General Army headquarters were at physical training on the grounds of Hiroshima Castle, barely from the hypocenter. The attack killed 3,243 troops on the parade ground. The communications room of Chugoku Military District Headquarters that was responsible for issuing and lifting air raid warnings was in a semi-basement in the castle. Yoshie Oka, a Hijiyama Girls High School student who had been mobilized to serve as a communications officer had just sent a message that the alarm had been issued for Hiroshima and neighboring Yamaguchi, when the bomb exploded. She used a special phone to inform Fukuyama Headquarters (some away) that "Hiroshima has been attacked by a new type of bomb. The city is in a state of near-total destruction."
Bomber Command
The air attacks on Japan included the most devastating single air raid in history. It was not, as some might think, the result of dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was a firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9–10 March 1945, which created a conflagration and killed 100,000 people and destroyed 16 square miles of the city, far more damage and deaths than either the atomic bombing of Hiroshima or of Nagasaki.
Strategic bombing during World War II
Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers on 15 August 1945, signing the Instrument of Surrender on 2 September 1945, officially ending the Pacific War and World War II. The two atomic bombings generated strong sentiments in Japan against all nuclear weapons. Japan adopted the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which forbade the nation from developing nuclear armaments. Across the world anti-nuclear activists have made Hiroshima the central symbol of what they are opposing.
McAllister Hull
McAllister Hull (September 1, 1923 – February 9, 2011) was an American theoretical physicist who took part in the creation of the atomic bomb that was dropped over Nagasaki in 1945, ending World War II.
Murray Sayle
In August 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,"The New Yorker" published a lengthy investigative piece by Sayle entitled "Did the Bomb End the War?" Sayle contended that the bombing was not motivated by a desire to persuade the Japanese to surrender, and was instead motivated by the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and concerns that Soviet forces would then invade Hokkaido and force a division of Japan.
Manhattan Project
On the morning of 9 August 1945, a second B-29 ("Bockscar"), piloted by the 393d Bombardment Squadron's commander, Major Charles W. Sweeney, lifted off with Fat Man on board. This time, Ashworth served as weaponeer and Kokura was the primary target. Sweeney took off with the weapon already armed but with the electrical safety plugs still engaged. When they reached Kokura, they found cloud cover had obscured the city, prohibiting the visual attack required by orders. After three runs over the city, and with fuel running low, they headed for the secondary target, Nagasaki. Ashworth decided that a radar approach would be used if the target was obscured, but a last-minute break in the clouds over Nagasaki allowed a visual approach as ordered. The Fat Man was dropped over the city's industrial valley midway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works in the north. The resulting explosion had a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT, roughly the same as the Trinity blast, but was confined to the Urakami Valley, and a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills, resulting in the destruction of about 44% of the city. The bombing also crippled the city's industrial production extensively and killed 23,200–28,200 Japanese industrial workers and 150 Japanese soldiers. Overall, an estimated 35,000–40,000 people were killed and 60,000 injured.
American military technology during World War II
On August 6 and 9, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki instantly killing 120,000 people. Roughly 100,000 more people died of radiation poisoning in the following years. Six days after the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered. The Manhattan Project was the leading collaborative scientific effort and the most secretive of the time. At first, several different labs had scientists working on smaller parts of the atom bomb, but they had no idea as to the magnitude of the project. Later, the project was moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico, led by renowned physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum covers the history of the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. It portrays scenes of World War II, the dropping of the atomic bomb, the reconstruction of Nagasaki, and present day. Additionally, the museum exhibits the history of nuclear weapons development.
Bockscar
Bockscar, sometimes called Bock's Car, is the name of the United States Army Air Forces B-29 bomber that dropped a Fat Man nuclear weapon over the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II in the second – and last – nuclear attack in history. One of 15 Silverplate B-29s used by the 509th, "Bockscar" was built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant at Bellevue, Nebraska, at what is now Offutt Air Force Base, and delivered to the United States Army Air Forces on 19 March 1945. It was assigned to the 393d Bombardment Squadron, 509th Composite Group to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah in April.
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
Within the museum is a history of the city before the bomb was dropped. The hypocenter of the explosion was the Urakami district, which was a traditionally rustic and isolated suburb. However, the population soared after the 1920s when the district was chosen as the site for munitions factories. An industrial zone was quickly created. Additionally, the Urakami district was home to the Nagasaki Medical College. When the bomb was dropped at 11:02 A.M. on August 9, 1945, the 20 neighborhoods within a one-kilometer radius of the hypocenter were completely destroyed by the heat flash and blast winds generated by the explosion. They were then reduced to ashes by the fires which followed. Within 2 km of the hypocenter, roughly 80% of the houses collapsed and burned. When the smoke cleared, the area was strewn with corpses.
Kermit Beahan
The mission to bomb Nagasaki was conducted on Beahan's 27th birthday. Admiral Frederick L. Ashworth, who participated on the mission as weaponeer, credited Beahan with saving the mission from failure by finding an opening in the clouds by which to complete the required visual bombing of the city. An estimated 35,000–40,000 people were killed outright by the bombing of Nagasaki.
First Into Nagasaki
The "Boston Evening Globe" on September 15, 1945 published a page one article "By George Weller Nagasaki" with bold all caps headline "American Saw Atom Bomb Hit Nagasaki" using content described as "unpublished" [page 24 "First into Nagasaki"] and at the end of the article "Continued on Page 2" is the following: "(Copyright, 1945, by the Boston Globe and Chicago Daily News.)". Text from Dispatch #6 and Dispatch #1 is used (example: "Walk in Nagasaki's streets today and you walk in ruins." This is the first line of Dispatch #1). Weller's interview with the Japanese lieutenant (Dispatch #1) is used in the "Boston Evening Globe" article as is Weller's interview with Captain Farley (Dispatch #5), and Weller's interview with Dr. Nakashima (Dispatch #8). Quoted statements by ex-POWs Bridgman and King (Dispatch #5) are in this "Boston Evening Globe" article, which covers both Japanese and Allied observers' eyewitness accounts of the bomb as well as Dr. Nakashima's description of the bomb's medical symptoms. The Boston article reads: "However, about 70 percent of deaths have been from plain burns." (Dispatch #6). The "New York Post" on September 15, 1945 published an article by George Weller headlined "U.S. Prisoners Held at Nagasaki Describe Terrors of Atom Blast" using the same line of text as the Boston article (Dispatch #1), death statistics (Dispatch #3) and re-located position of POW camp (Dispatch #4). The New York article includes Weller's interviews with Captain Farley, Dr. Vink, Harold Bridgman, and Fred King (Dispatch #5). The article concludes with the bomb's "peculiar 'disease'" (Dispatch #8).
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Unlike the other target cities, Nagasaki had not been placed off limits to bombers by the Joint Chiefs of Staff's July 3 directive, and was bombed on a small scale five times. During one of these raids on August 1, a number of conventional high-explosive bombs were dropped on the city. A few hit the shipyards and dock areas in the southwest portion of the city, and several hit the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works. By early August, the city was defended by the 134th Anti-Aircraft Regiment of the 4th Anti-Aircraft Division with four batteries of anti-aircraft guns and two searchlight batteries.
Nuclear warfare
On August 6, 1945, the uranium-type nuclear weapon codenamed "Little Boy" was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima with an energy of about , destroying nearly 50,000 buildings (including the headquarters of the 2nd General Army and Fifth Division) and killing approximately 70,000 people, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000 Korean slave laborers. Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium-type nuclear weapon codenamed "Fat Man" was used against the Japanese city of Nagasaki, with the explosion equivalent to about , destroying 60% of the city and killing approximately 35,000 people, including 23,200–28,200 Japanese munitions workers, 2,000 Korean slave laborers, and 150 Japanese combatants. The industrial damage in Nagasaki was high, partly owing to the inadvertent targeting of the industrial zone, leaving 68–80 percent of the non-dock industrial production destroyed.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
After leaving Tinian the aircraft made their way separately to Iwo Jima to rendezvous with Sweeney and Marquardt at 05:55 at , and set course for Japan. The aircraft arrived over the target in clear visibility at . Parsons, who was in command of the mission, armed the bomb in flight to minimize the risks during takeoff. He had witnessed four B-29s crash and burn at takeoff, and feared that a nuclear explosion would occur if a B-29 crashed with an armed Little Boy on board. His assistant, Second Lieutenant Morris R. Jeppson, removed the safety devices 30 minutes before reaching the target area.
During the night of August 5–6, Japanese early warning radar detected the approach of numerous American aircraft headed for the southern part of Japan. Radar detected 65 bombers headed for Saga, 102 bound for Maebashi, 261 en route to Nishinomiya, 111 headed for Ube and 66 bound for Imabari. An alert was given and radio broadcasting stopped in many cities, among them Hiroshima. The all-clear was sounded in Hiroshima at 00:05. About an hour before the bombing, the air raid alert was sounded again, as "Straight Flush" flew over the city. It broadcast a short message which was picked up by "Enola Gay". It read: "Cloud cover less than 3/10th at all altitudes. Advice: bomb primary." The all-clear was sounded over Hiroshima again at 07:09.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
At 08:09, Tibbets started his bomb run and handed control over to his bombardier, Major Thomas Ferebee. The release at 08:15 (Hiroshima time) went as planned, and the Little Boy containing about of uranium-235 took 44.4 seconds to fall from the aircraft flying at about to a detonation height of about above the city. "Enola Gay" traveled before it felt the shock waves from the blast.
Takashi Nagai
On 9 August 1945, at 11:02 am, the second atomic bomb struck Nagasaki. At the time of the atomic bombing, Dr. Nagai was working in the radiology department of Nagasaki Medical College Hospital. He received a serious injury that severed his right temporal artery but joined the rest of the surviving medical staff in dedicating themselves to treating the atomic bomb victims. He wrote a 100-page medical report about his observations detailing the "concentric circles of death" around the epicentre of the blast.