page_title: Nuclear warfare
section_title: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
hierarchical_section_title: Nuclear warfare / History / 1940s / Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
caption_attribution_description: العربية: صورة لسحابة عيش الغراب الناتجة عن الأنفجار النووي عند إلقاء قنبلة "الرجل البدين" على مدينة ناگازاكي اليابانية سنة 1945 اثناء الحرب العالمية الثانية. Български: Гъбата от атомният взрив над Нагасаки на 9 август 1945 Deutsch: Atombombenabwurf mit einer Boeing B-29 Superfortress auf Nagasaki am 9. August 1945. Der Atompilz stieg 18&#160;km hoch. English: Mushroom cloud above Nagasaki after atomic bombing on August 9, 1945. Taken from the north west. Русский: Атомная бомбардировка города Нагасаки 9 августа 1945 года. Español: Nube de hongo sobre Nagasaki producida por la bomba atómica. Tomada desde un B-29 a una altura de 18 km Français&#160;: Le champignon atomique sur Nagasaki est monté jusqu'à une altitude de 18 km. Nederlands: Paddestoelwolk boven Nagasaki na de aanval op 9 augustus 1945. Genomen vanuit het noordwesten. Română: Ciuperca atomică de la Nagasaki, Japonia, 9 august 1945. Svenska: Atombomben över Nagasaki resulterar i ett svampformat moln som sträcker sig över 18 km upp i luften. Scope and content: Original caption: A dense column of smoke rises more than 60,000 feet into the air over the Japanese port of Nagasaki, the result of an atomic bomb, the second ever used in warfare, dropped on the industrial center August 8, 1945, from a U.S. B-29 Superfortress. General notes: Atomic Cloud Rises Over Nagasaki (Q55437339)
context_page_description: Nuclear warfare is a military conflict or political strategy which deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can produce destruction in a much shorter time and can have a long-lasting radiological result. A major nuclear exchange would have long-term effects, primarily from the fallout released, and could also lead to a "nuclear winter" that could last for decades, centuries, or even millennia after the initial attack. Some analysts dismiss the nuclear winter hypothesis, and calculate that even with nuclear weapon stockpiles at Cold War highs, although there would be billions of casualties, billions more rural people would nevertheless survive. However, others have argued that secondary effects of a nuclear holocaust, such as nuclear famine and societal collapse, would cause almost every human on Earth to starve to death.
  So far, two nuclear weapons have been used in the course of warfare, both by the United States near the end of World War II. On August 6, 1945, a uranium gun-type device was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
context_section_description: During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted atomic raids on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events were the only times nuclear weapons have been used in combat.
  For six months before the atomic bombings, the U.S. 20th Air Force under General Curtis LeMay executed low-level incendiary raids against Japanese cities. The worst air raid to occur during the process was not the nuclear attacks, but the Operation Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo. On the night of March 9–10, 1945, Operation Meetinghouse commenced and 334 Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers took off to raid, with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of incendiaries and explosives on Tokyo. The bombing was meant to burn wooden buildings and indeed the bombing caused fire that created a 50 m/s wind, which is comparable to tornadoes. Each bomber carried 6 tons of bombs. A total of 381,300 bombs, which amount to 1,783 tons of bombs, were used in the bombing. Within a few hours of the raid, it had killed an estimated 100,000 people and destroyed 41 km² (16 sq mi) of the city and 267,000 buildings in a single night — the deadliest bombing raid in military aviation history other than the atomic raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By early August 1945, an estimated 450,000 people had died as the U.S. had intensely firebombed a total of 67 Japanese cities.
  In late June 1945, as the U.S. wrapped up the two-and-a-half-month Battle of Okinawa (which cost the lives of 260,000 people, including 150,000 civilians), it was faced with the prospect of invading the Japanese home islands in an operation codenamed Operation Downfall. Based on the U.S. casualties from the preceding island-hopping campaigns, American commanders estimated that between 50,000 and 500,000 U.S. troops would die and at least 600,000–1,000,000 others would be injured while invading the Japanese home islands. The U.S. manufacture of 500,000 Purple Hearts from the anticipated high level of casualties during the U.S. invasion of Japan gave a demonstration of how deadly and costly it would be. President Harry S. Truman realized he could not afford such a horrendous casualty rate, especially since over 400,000 American combatants had already died fighting in both the European and the Pacific theaters of the war.
  On July 26, 1945, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of China issued a Potsdam Declaration that called for the unconditional surrender of Japan. It stated that if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction". The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum, sending a message that they were not going to surrender. In response to the rejection, President Truman authorized the dropping of the atomic bombs. At the time of its use, there were only two atomic bombs available, and despite the fact that more were in production back in mainland U.S., the third bomb wouldn't be available for combat until September.
  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 15 kilotons of TNT (63,000 gigajoules), 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 20 kilotons of TNT (84,000 gigajoules), 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.
  Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers o
caption: Mushroom cloud from the atomic explosion over Nagasaki rising 18,000 m (59,000 ft) into the air on the morning of August 9, 1945.
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