The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945, at about 8:15 am Japanese time, the US aircraft Enola Gay dropped an untested uranium-235 gun-assembly bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" over Hiroshima.
The devastation was unlike anything in the history of warfare, ushering in the era of weapons of mass destruction.
In the 1930s, scientists showed that nuclear energy could be released from an atom, either by splitting the nucleus (fission) or fusing two smaller atoms to form a larger one (fusion).
As the Second World War erupted, intense research focused on how to artificially induce nuclear fission by firing a free neutron into an atom of radioactive uranium or plutonium. Through their efforts, scientists found a way to induce a chain reaction within a bomb that would generate an unprecedented amount of energy.
Hiroshima was immediately flattened. The resulting explosion killed 70,000 people instantly; by December 1945, the death toll had risen to some 140,000.
The radius of total destruction was reportedly 1.6km.
"The impact of the bomb was so terrific that practically all living things - human and animal - were literally seared to death by the tremendous heat and pressure set up by the blast," Tokyo radio said in the aftermath of the explosion, according to a report by The Guardian in August 1945.
"All the dead and injured were burned beyond recognition. Those outdoors were burned to death, while those indoors were killed by the indescribable pressure and heat."
But the damage did not end there. The radiation released from the explosion caused further suffering.
Thousands more died from their injuries, radiation sickness, and cancer in the years that followed, bringing the toll closer to 200,000, according to the Department of Energy's history of the Manhattan Project.
Why Did the USA dropped the Bomb?
Japan was a fierce enemy of the US and its allies, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union during World War II.
By 1945, the allies had turned the tide of the war and pushed the Japanese forces back from many locations.
The Japanese had publicly stated their intent to fight to the bitter end and were using tactics such as kamikaze attacks, in which pilots would suicide dive against US warships.
In July 1945, US President Harry Truman and allies demanded the "immediate and unconditional" surrender of Japan, but Japan did not issue a clear response.
Shortly after, the US attacked Hiroshima, which was seen as a strategically sound target due to weather conditions, aircraft range, military impact, and morale impact upon the enemy.
"What has been done is the greatest achievement of organised science in history. It was done under high pressure and without failure," Truman said 16 hours after the atomic bomb was dropped.
"We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war."
Truman said if Japan's leaders "do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this Earth".
He added: "Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware."
After Hiroshima
After the bomb obliterated Hiroshima, the Japanese did not surrender.
Three days later, the US launched another mission to bomb Kokura, however, the city was obscured by clouds. The city of Nagasaki was chosen as a target instead. "Fat Man" was dropped over Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, instantly killing at least 40,000 people.
The British pilot Leonard Cheshire, who was involved in the mission to bomb Nagasaki, later recalled the cloud caused by the atomic blast: "Obscene in its greedy clawing at the earth, swelling as if with its regurgitation of all the life that it had consumed."
The bombings were as questionable back then as they are today. Six out of seven five-star US generals and admirals at the time felt there was no need to drop the bomb because Japanese surrender was imminent.
Some members of Truman’s administration would argue in favour of cooperation with the Soviets, seeing it as the only way to avoid a nuclear arms race. But an opposing view, articulated by State Department official George Kennan in his famous “Long Telegram” in early 1946, would prove far more influential, inspiring the Truman Doctrine and the “containment” policy toward Soviet and communist expansionism around the globe.
Later in 1946, during the first meeting of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC), the United States presented the Baruch Plan, which called for the Soviets to share every detail of their atomic energy program—including opening their facilities to international inspectors—before the United States would share anything with them. Surprising no one, the Soviets rejected these terms.
The Impact
On August 15, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender, and on September 2, the surrender was formally signed, bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close.
The power of the atomic bomb would usher a change in geopolitics that still reverberates to this day, with several countries currently vying to acquire this technology.
In 1947, the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project created the Doomsday Clock, which represents the likelihood of a man-made global catastrophe, with midnight symbolising the destruction of civilization as we know it.
In the peace negotiations at Yalta, as at Potsdam, the ideological gulf between the Soviet Union and its Western allies solidified, particularly when it came to the fate of Eastern Europe.
Even today, historians continue to disagree over whether or not the Truman administration made the decision to drop the atomic bomb for political reasons to intimidate the Soviet Union—rather than strictly military ones.
“The bomb was so top secret that there were no formal meetings about it, there was no official discussion about what to do, there wasn't the kind of decision-making process that we have with most kinds of policy,” says Campbell Craig, professor of international relations in the School of Law and Politics at Cardiff University and co-author of The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War (with Sergey Radchenko). “So a lot of our opinions about what really drove the United States to drop the bomb is guesswork.”
Whatever the U.S. intention had been at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stalin certainly saw U.S. possession of the atomic bomb as a direct threat to the Soviet Union and its place in the post-war world—and he was determined to level the playing field. Meanwhile, thanks to atomic espionage, Soviet scientists were well on their way to developing their own bomb.
In 2019, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists maintained the ‘two minutes to midnight’ time, citing continuing climate change, US and Russian nuclear modernisation efforts; information warfare threats, and other dangers from "disruptive technologies" such as artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and cyberwarfare.
In contrast to other cultural heritage buildings, the Atomic Bomb Dome must be maintained in the exact state of destruction caused by the bomb. This is critical to understanding its relevance and importance as a World Heritage Site.
The atrium of the then Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall was almost directly below the hypocentre of the bomb. Although the building sustained heavy damage, it managed to escape complete destruction. It was the heartbreaking diary of a schoolgirl Hiroko Kajiyama that led to the decision to preserve the Atomic Bomb Dome in its current state. Hiroko had been exposed to the radiation from the bomb as an infant and subsequently died from leukemia at the age of 16.
The dome acts as a reminder of the force and untold suffering caused by the bomb while continuing to symbolize the fight to rid the world of nuclear weapons and bring about world peace.
