Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima - Aug 06, 1945 - HISTORY.com Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima Share this: Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima Author Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima URL Publisher A+E Networks The United States becomes the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Though the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War II, many historians argue that it also ignited the Cold War. Since 1940, the United States had been working on developing an atomic weapon, after having been warned by Albert Einstein that Nazi Germany was already conducting research into nuclear weapons. By the time the United States conducted the first successful test (an atomic bomb was exploded in the desert in New Mexico in July 1945), Germany had already been defeated. The war against Japan in the Pacific, however, continued to rage. President Harry S. Truman, warned by some of his advisers that any attempt to invade Japan would result in horrific American casualties, ordered that the new weapon be used to bring the war to a speedy end.

On August 6, 1945, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A blast equivalent to the power of 15,000 tons of TNT reduced four square miles of the city to ruins and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more died in the following weeks from wounds and radiation poisoning. Three days later, another bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, killing nearly 40,000 more people. A few days later, Japan announced its surrender. In the years since the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, a number of historians have suggested that the weapons had a two-pronged objective. First, of course, was to bring the war with Japan to a speedy end and spare American lives. It has been suggested that the second objective was to demonstrate the new weapon of mass destruction to the Soviet Union. By August 1945, relations between the Soviet Union and the United States had deteriorated badly. The Potsdam Conference between U.S. President Harry S.

Truman, Russian leader Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill (before being replaced by Clement Attlee) ended just four days before the bombing of Hiroshima. The meeting was marked by recriminations and suspicion between the Americans and Soviets. Russian armies were occupying most of Eastern Europe. Truman and many of his advisers hoped that the U.S. atomic monopoly might offer diplomatic leverage with the Soviets. In this fashion, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan can be seen as the first shot of the Cold War. If U.S. officials truly believed that they could use their atomic monopoly for diplomatic advantage, they had little time to put their plan into action. By 1949, the Soviets had developed their own atomic bomb and the nuclear arms race began. More on This Topic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - World War II - HISTORY.com Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Author Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki URL A+E Networks Introduction On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.” Google The Manhattan Project Even before the outbreak of war in 1939, a group of American scientists–many of them refugees from fascist regimes in Europe–became concerned with nuclear weapons research being conducted in Nazi Germany. In 1940, the U.S. government began funding its own atomic weapons development program, which came under the joint responsibility of the Office of Scientific Research and Development and the War Department after the U.S. entry into World War II . The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was tasked with spearheading the construction of the vast facilities necessary for the top-secret program, codenamed “The Manhattan Project ” (for the engineering corps’ Manhattan district). Did You Know?

After World War II, most of Hiroshima would be rebuilt, though one destroyed section was set aside as a reminder of the effects of the atomic bomb. Each August 6, thousands of people gather at Peace Memorial Park to join in interfaith religious services commemorating the anniversary of the bombing. Over the next several years, the program’s scientists worked on producing the key materials for nuclear fission–uranium-235 and plutonium (Pu-239). They sent them to Los Alamos, New Mexico , where a team led by J. Robert Oppenheimer worked to turn these materials into a workable atomic bomb. Early on the morning of July 16, 1945, the Manhattan Project held its first successful test of an atomic device–a plutonium bomb–at the Trinity test site at Alamogordo, New Mexico. No Surrender for the Japanese By the time of the Trinity test, the Allied powers had already defeated Germany in Europe. Japan, however, vowed to fight to the bitter end in the Pacific, despite clear indications (as early as 1944) that they had little chance of winning.

In fact, between mid-April 1945 (when President Harry Truman took office) and mid-July, Japanese forces inflicted Allied casualties totaling nearly half those suffered in three full years of war in the Pacific, proving that Japan had become even more deadly when faced with defeat. In late July, Japan’s militarist government rejected the Allied demand for surrender put forth in the Potsdam Declaration, which threatened the Japanese with “prompt and utter destruction” if they refused. General Douglas MacArthur and other top military commanders favored continuing the conventional bombing of Japan already in effect and following up with a massive invasion, codenamed “Operation Downfall.” They advised Truman that such an invasion would result in U.S. casualties of up to 1 million. In order to avoid such a high casualty rate, Truman decided–over the moral reservations of Secretary of War Henry Stimson, General Dwight Eisenhower and a number of the Manhattan Project scientists–to use the atomic bomb in the hopes of bringing the war to a quick end. Proponents of the A-bomb–such as James Byrnes, Truman’s secretary of state–believed that its devastating power would not only end the war, but also put the U.S.

in a dominant position to determine the course of the postwar world. “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” Hiroshima, a manufacturing center of some 350,000 people located about 500 miles from Tokyo, was selected as the first target. After arriving at the U.S. base on the Pacific island of Tinian, the more than 9,000-pound uranium-235 bomb was loaded aboard a modified B-29 bomber christened Enola Gay (after the mother of its pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets). The plane dropped the bomb–known as “Little Boy”–by parachute at 8:15 in the morning, and it exploded 2,000 feet above Hiroshima in a blast equal to 12-15,000 tons of TNT, destroying five square miles of the city. Hiroshima’s devastation failed to elicit immediate Japanese surrender, however, and on August 9 Major Charles Sweeney flew another B-29 bomber, Bockscar, from Tinian.

Thick clouds over the primary target, the city of Kokura, drove Sweeney to a secondary target, Nagasaki, where the plutonium bomb “Fat Man” was dropped at 11:02 that morning. More powerful than the one used at Hiroshima, the bomb weighed nearly 10,000 pounds and was built to produce a 22-kiloton blast. The topography of Nagasaki, which was nestled in narrow valleys between mountains, reduced the bomb’s effect, limiting the destruction to 2.6 square miles. At noon on August 15, 1945 (Japanese time), Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s surrender in a radio broadcast. The news spread quickly, and “Victory in Japan” or “V-J Day” celebrations broke out across the United States and other Allied nations. The formal surrender agreement was signed on September 2, aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri , anchored in Tokyo Bay.

Tags BBC ON THIS DAY | 6 | 1945: US drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima Search ON THIS DAY by date About This Site | Text Only 1945: US drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima The first atomic bomb has been dropped by a United States aircraft on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. President Harry S Truman, announcing the news from the cruiser, USS Augusta, in the mid-Atlantic, said the device was more than 2,000 times more powerful than the largest bomb used to date. An accurate assessment of the damage caused has so far been impossible due to a huge cloud of impenetrable dust covering the target. Hiroshima is one of the chief supply depots for the Japanese army. The bomb was dropped from an American B-29 Superfortress, known as Enola Gay, at 0815 local time. The plane's crew say they saw a column of smoke rising and intense fires springing up.

We found the Japanese in our locality were not eager to befriend us - after all, they had not long ago had the most fearful weapon of all time dropped on their doorstep People's War memories » The President said the atomic bomb heralded the "harnessing of the basic power of the universe". It also marked a victory over the Germans in the race to be first to develop a weapon using atomic energy. President Truman went on to warn the Japanese the Allies would completely destroy their capacity to make war. The Potsdam declaration issued 10 days ago, which called for the unconditional surrender of Japan, was a last chance for the country to avoid utter destruction, the President said. "If they 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 Earth. Behind this air attack will follow by sea and land forces in such number and power as they have not yet seen, but with fighting skill of which they are already aware." The British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who has replaced Winston Churchill at Number 10, read out a statement prepared by his predecessor to MPs in the Commons.

It said the atomic project had such great potential the government felt it was right to pursue the research and to pool information with atomic scientists in the US. As Britain was considered within easy reach of Germany and its bombers, the decision was made to set up the bomb-making plants in the US. The statement continued: "By God's mercy, Britain and American science outpaced all German efforts. These were on a considerable scale, but far behind. The possession of these powers by the Germans at any time might have altered the result of the war." Mr Churchill's statement said considerable efforts had been made to disrupt German progress - including attacks on plants making constituent parts of the bomb.

He ended: "We must indeed pray that these awful agencies will be made to conduce peace among the nations and that instead of wreaking measureless havoc upon the entire globe they become a perennial fountain of world prosperity." Hiroshima bombing - A look back: The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Pictures - CBS News The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Next Hiroshima bombing More than seventy years ago, the world changed forever when an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped the first atomic bomb, "Little Boy," over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, during World War II, on August 6, 1945. The bomb wiped out 90 percent of the city and instantly killed an estimated 80,000 people. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second bomb, "Fat Boy," on Nagasaki killing an estimated 40,000 on August 9. Tens of thousands died later in both cities from the effects of the nuclear bombs. Their destructive power was unprecedented, incinerating buildings and people, and leaving lifelong scars on survivors, both physical and psychological, and on the cities themselves. Days later, World War II was over.

Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced his country's unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945, describing the devastating power of "a new and most cruel bomb." These two photographs show the Atomic mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and aim point. By CBSNews.com Senior Photo Editor Radhika Chalasani Credit: World War II Museum Boston Atomic bomb An atomic cloud billows 20,000 feet above Hiroshima following the explosion of the first atomic bomb to be used in warfare in Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945. A tall column of smoke billows 20,000 feet above Hiroshima after the first atomic bomb strike by American forces on Aug. 6, 1945. Credit: U.S. Army/Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum Enola Gay crew American bomber pilot Paul W. Tibbets Jr., center, stands with the ground crew of the bomber Enola Gay, which Tibbets flew in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945.

Ground crew includes, left to right, engine mechanic Private Harold Olsen, Corporal John Jackson, crew chief Staff Sergeant Walter McCaleb, Tibbets, engine mechanic Sergeant Leonard Markley, engine mechanic Sergeant Jean Cooper and engine mechanic Private John Lesnieski. Credit: AFP/Getty Images Operations order - Enola Gay The operations order was carried on the Enola Gay in the flight log of Jacob Beser, the radar and electronics specialist trained to intercept any Japanese radar impulses that could trigger the special radar-operated fusing switch built into the atomic bomb. Beser was the only crew member to fly both atomic-bomb missions. The document lists details such as timing for weather ships and meals. Credit: Museum of World War II Operations order - Enola Gay Bombs are listed as "special" on the operations order for the Enola Gay. Religious services for Catholics was at 2200 and for Protestants at 2230. Credit: Museum of World War II Hiroshima bombing Credit: Museum of World War II Hiroshima bombing An aerial leaflet in Japanese with photo of President Truman reassuring the Japanese people they would not be harmed if their country surrenders.

Credit: Museum of World War II Hiroshima bombing Translation of aerial leaflet: "PURPOSE: To inform the Japanese of our interpretation of surrender, and what it will mean for the Japanese. COMMENT: President Truman's statement is used to assure the Japanese people that if the military clique is taken from power and the nation surrenders, they will not be enslaved. FORMAT: A picture of President Truman appears on one side of the leaflet which is otherwise devoted completely to the President's statement..." Credit: Museum of World War II Hiroshima bombing - aerial leaflet Translation of aerial leaflet: "If your political and military leaders continue the war, our forces will overwhelm your's more and more, expanding our movements and increasing our attacks. The production of munitions which support Japanese operations, transportation, and manpower is obviously declining, and continuing the war not only increases the hardships of the people of Japan tremendously, but also is of no avail. Our forces demand unconditional surrender from your military; abandoning of hostilities; and laying down of weapons. This unconditional surrender includes Japanese civilians too. In short, it means the ending of the war. The power of the military group which has resulted in the present chaos will be destroyed.

Families who love their sons who are fighting uselessly in the front lines will see them return quickly to their old jobs. Present hardships and sickness will be stopped forever. There is no reason to fear that unconditional surrender means obliteration of the Japanese people or bondage." Credit: Museum of World War II Enola Gay B-29 Enola Gay B-29 Superfortress lands at Tinian Base in the Pacific after dropping the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought about Japan's unconditional surrender. The war ended officially when the papers of surrender were accepted aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri on September 2, 1945. Credit: AP Hiroshima bombing The New York Times front page for August 7, 1945, the day after the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Credit: AP Hiroshima bombing A general panoramic view of Hiroshima showing the devastation after the bomb was dropped in 1945.

Credit: AP The most terrifying engine of destruction Teletype of first news flash stating: "The most terrifying engine of destruction ever devised by man -- an atomic bomb carrying the explosive force of more than 20,000 tons of TNT -- was turned loose against Japan sunday as American Airmen opened a "surrender or else--" assault agains the enemy homeland. President Truman, revealing the biggest and best kept military secretary [secret] of the war --the long dreamed-of release of atomic energy--said today that the awesome weapon was America's answer to Japanese rejection of the Potsdam surrender ultimatum. In wat amounted to a new ultimatum, he warned: If they 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 earth." Credit: Museum of World War II Hiroshima bombing Teletype of first news flash "So mighty is this super bomb, he said in a special statement, that is packs 2000 times more wallop than the 22,000-pound British 'Grand Slam' blockbuster, heretofore the most destructive weapon known to mankind.

The first of the bombs went smashing down on Hiroshima, highly important Japanese army base on the home island of Honshu. The devastation wrought is not yet known but military men said the bomb's potentialities stagger the imagination. Details of the weapon must remain a military secret but the War Department disclosed that one of its chief components is radio-active uranium, a rare element in the chromium group found in a combination of pitchblende and certain other rare minerals..." Credit: Museum of World War II President Truman President Harry S. Truman smiles over a battery of microphones in Washington, D.C., August 9, 1945, following his nationwide radio report on the Potsdam conference and the war in the Pacific. President Truman warned the Hiroshima attack was only the beginning of things to come unless the Japanese surrendered. Credit: AP The devastated city of Hiroshima after the first atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. The bombing of Nagasaki happened three days after the first bomb was released on Hiroshima. Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images Hiroshima bombing Two brothers who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima four days earlier, August 10, 1945. The U.S.

atomic attacks killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima and more than 70,000 in Nagasaki, either instantly or later through the horrific effects of burns from the white-hot nuclear blast and radiation sickness. Credit: AFP/AFP/Getty Images Hiroshima bombing The devastated city of Hiroshima days after the first atomic bomb was dropped by a U.S. Air Force B-29 in 1945. Though Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced his country's unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945, the official surrender to Allied forces did not happen till September 2, 1945, putting an end to a devastating second world war. Credit: AFP/AFP/Getty Images "Fat Man" atomic bomb The plutonium"Fat Man" atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. It was more powerful than the unleashed on Hiroshima, weighing nearly 10,000 pounds and built to create a 22-kiloton blast. Credit: AP Nagasaki atomic bomb A mushroom cloud rises 20,000 feet over Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, moments after the atomic bomb was dropped by U.S. forces.

The topography of Nagasaki, nestled between mountains, shielded the city to a large extent, limiting the damage to 2.6 square miles. Within those 2.6 square miles there were devastating consequences. Credit: AP Nagasaki bombing A Japanese woman and child in traditional clothing, survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, are seen here, August 9, 1945. Their faces are marked with burns by the heat of the explosion. Scanty food rations were given out to the suffering public. Credit: AP Nagasaki bombing Some of the tunnel shelters very close to ground zero in Nagasaki are visible. The few people who were able to get to the shelters survived the atomic blast and thermonuclear radiation. Credit: AP Nagasaki atomic bomb This photo from the U.S. Signal Corps shows the devastation after an atom bomb exploded over Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Credit: AP Site of Hiroshima Peace Memorial The gutted Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall is seen after the August 6, 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Nov. 1945.

The building was later preserved as the Hiroshima Peace Memorial (known as the Atomic Bomb Dome or Genbaku Dome). Credit: U.S. Army/Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum Hiroshima bombing victim A victim of the first A-bomb ever used in warfare is seen in September 1945, at the Ujina Branch of the First Army Hospital in Hiroshima. The thermal rays emitted by the explosion burned the pattern of this woman's kimono upon her back. Credit: AP Hiroshima bombing An allied correspondent stands in a sea of rubble in front of the shell of a building that once was a movie theater in Hiroshima on September 8, 1945. The world's first atomic bomb instantly destroyed almost all of the houses and buildings in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Credit: AP Hiroshima bombing People walk over Aioi Bridge as the gutted Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall (L), currently known as Atomic Bomb Dome or A-Bomb Dome, is seen in the background after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945.

Credit: Shigeo Hayashi/Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum/Handout via Reuters Hiroshima bombing The landscape of Hiroshima shows widespread rubble and debris in an aerial view September 5, 1945, one month after the atomic bomb was dropped. Credit: AP Victims of Hiroshima bombing Victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 are seen at an emergency relief station in the Otagawa River embankment in Hiroshima on August 9, 1945. Credit: Yotsugi Kawahara/Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum Victim of Hiroshima bombing A 21-year-old soldier, who was exposed to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and has purple subcutaneous hemorrhage spots on his body, is treated at the Ujina Branch of the Hiroshima First Army Hospital in Hiroshima prefecture, Japan on September 3, 1945. Credit: Gonichi Kimura/Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum/Handout via Reuters Nagasaki A-bomb An arrow marks the spot where the A-bomb struck Nagasaki.

Much of the bombed is desolate, the trees on the hills in the background remained charred and dwarfed from the blast and there's little reconstruction, except for wooden shacks as homes. Credit: AP Hiroshima bombing People walk past the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital after the August 6, 1945 atomic bombing of the city, November, 1945. Credit: U.S. Army/Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum/Handout via Reuters Nagasaki A-bomb victim In Nagasaki, a victim of the second atomic bomb ever used in warfare is seen lying sick on a mat in late 1945. Tens of thousands died after the release of the bombs from effects of the radioactive fallout. Credit: AP Nagasaki A-bomb A sacred Torii Gate stands erect over the completely destroyed area of a Shinto shrine in Nagasaki on October 1945, after the second atomic bomb ever used in warfare was dropped by the U.S. over the Japanese industrial center. Due to its structure, the blast of the explosion could go around it, therefore leaving the arch intact.

Credit: AP Nagarekawa Protestant Church Church services continued in the Nagarekawa Protestant Church in 1945, after the atomic bomb destroyed the church in Hiroshima. Credit: AP Hiroshima bombing The devastated city of Hiroshima in 1948, three years after the the atomic bomb was dropped on the city. Credit: AFP/AFP/Getty Images After effects of atomic bomb Children wear masks to protect themselves from radiation in the devastated city of Hiroshima in 1948, nearly three years after the U.S. August 6, 1945 bombing of the city. All told, around 200,000 died as a result of the two bombings. It's likely the estimates of the death toll are conservative since official records were minimal. Japan's formal surrender was signed September 2, 1945 aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri, ending World War II. Credit: AFP/AFP/Getty Images A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries: The first atomic bomb is detonated The first atomic bomb is detonated 1945 Photo: Atomic bomb test explosion in Alamagordo, New Mexico, July 16, 1945.

AP/Wide World Photos In 1932, James Chadwick discovered the neutron , a small atomic particle with mass but no charge. This turned out to be an extremely useful tool for bombarding atomic nuclei. Two years later, Enrico Fermi bombarded uranium with neutrons, hoping that it would cause the uranium to emit a beta particle and become a new, artificial element above uranium in the periodic table. It seemed he had done this and in the process showed that slow-moving neutrons were more effective than high-energy neutrons for the task. Fermi won the Nobel Prize for his work in 1938. He was a committed antifascist and when he and his wife left Italy for the Nobel ceremony, it was for good. They settled in the United States. Meanwhile, Fermi's work had produced some puzzling results and physicists Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann, and Lise Meitner took it up in Germany. They began to suspect that Fermi hadn't created a new element at all but might have actually split the uranium atom in two -- at that point a barely imaginable event.

Before they could confirm this, Meitner -- who was an Austrian of Jewish descent -- had to flee the country when Germany annexed Austria in 1938. With the help of Niels Bohr , she got a position in Stockholm. From there, Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch proved that the uranium atom had been split. Hahn published the results in January 1939 and Meitner and Frisch published the explanation a month later, introducing the term "nuclear fission." Using Bohr's liquid drop model of the nucleus, they suggested that when split, both halves of the atom would have a positive charge and would repel each other with powerful force. The German government took little notice of the finding at first. But others felt the implications were immediately clear. Niels Bohr brought news of Meitner's discovery to the United States in 1939. Several scientists, realizing that fission could be used to build a devastating weapon, wrote to President Roosevelt to inform him. He immediately set up a committee to research the matter. (Back in Germany, Hahn refused to do weapons research. He had worked on chemicals used as weapons in World War I.

His advisers assured him it would bring a speedier end to the war, but he was horrified when he saw Russian soldiers who'd been gassed.) By the end of 1941, British studies had outlined the materials requirements for an atomic bomb and uranium research was going on at about 12 American universities. In 1942 Fermi's team at the University of Chicago created a sustained chain reaction of fission for the first time. Also during 1942, the Manhattan District of the Corps of Engineers was formed to construct three secret "cities" for major portions of atomic bomb development. At Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a nuclear reactor and plant for separating uranium 235 from natural uranium was built. In Hanford, Washington, three reactors were built to extract plutonium (another element with atoms that could be split) from a non-fissionable type of uranium. Finally a lab for the design and construction of the bomb was built at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The cost of these Manhattan Project installations was $2 billion. J.

Robert Oppenheimer was made director of the Los Alamos lab, and in 1943 he gathered about 200 of the best scientists in the field to live and work there. They designed two bombs, one using uranium (called "Little Boy") and one using plutonium ("Fat Man"). By early 1945, the plants at Oak Ridge and Hanford had produced enough raw material for testing. On July 13, 1945, at a site called Trinity 100 km northwest of Alamogordo, a plutonium bomb was assembled and brought to the top of a tower. The test was postponed by thunderstorms. On July 16, the bomb was detonated, producing an intense flash of light seen by observers in bunkers 10 km away and a fireball that expanded to 600 meters in two seconds. It grew to a height of more than 12 kilometers, boiling up in the shape of a mushroom. Forty seconds later, the blast of air from the bomb reached the observation bunkers, along with a long and deafening roar of sound.

The explosive power, equivalent to 18.6 kilotons of TNT, was almost four times larger than predicted. Some of the Los Alamos scientists had circulated a petition asking President Truman to give Japan a warning and a chance to surrender before using the bomb. Some signed, some didn't, but the project remained a secret until the end. Twenty-one days after the test, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the uranium bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later the plutonium bomb was used to bomb Nagasaki. The two bombs killed approximately 150,000 people when they fell. Earlier in the year, intense bombing of Tokyo with conventional bombs had killed about 100,000 people without causing Japan to surrender, but on August 15, 1945, Japan officially surrendered, bringing an end to World War II. After the war, hydrogen bombs and other nuclear weapons continued to be developed by the United States and its former ally the Soviet Union. The competition between the ideologically different nations led to an "arms race" that shaped the postwar decades both economically and philosophically. Nuclear fission was also put to civilian use in power generators in several countries.

They made cheap electricity and were a source of radioisotopes for other types of research, but came with their share of problems and dangers. Reactors are still in use, but in many places have fallen out of favor as an energy source. Copyright notice: The photo above is copyright protected and is the property of the Associated Press. Any use without prior written permission from AP/Wide World Photos is prohibited. Any violation will be subject to legal action. The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1940 - 1949 The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki At the time this photo was made, smoke billowed 20,000 feet above Hiroshima while smoke from the burst of the first atomic bomb had spread over 10,000 feet on the target at the base of the rising column. (August 6, 1945). SuperStock/Getty Images By Jennifer Rosenberg Updated February 29, 2016. Attempting to bring an earlier end to World War II , U.S. President Harry Truman made the fateful decision to drop a massive atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

On August 6, 1945, this atomic bomb, known as "Little Boy," flattened the city, killing at least 70,000 people that day and tens of thousands more from radiation poisoning. While Japan was still trying to comprehend this devastation, the United States dropped another atomic bomb.This bomb, nicknamed "Fat Man," was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people immediately and another 20,000 to 40,000 in the months following the explosion. On August 15, 1945, Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced an unconditional surrender, ending World War II. The Enola Gay Heads to Hiroshima At 2:45 a.m. on Monday, August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber took off from Tinian, a North Pacific island in the Marianas, 1,500 miles south of Japan. The 12-man crew ( picture ) were on board to make sure this secret mission went smoothly.

continue reading below our video 10 Best Universities in the United States Colonel Paul Tibbets , the pilot, nicknamed the B-29 the "Enola Gay" after his mother. Just before take-off, the plane's nickname was painted on its side . The Enola Gay was a B-29 Superfortress (aircraft 44-86292), part of the 509th Composite Group. In order to carry such a heavy load as an atomic bomb, the Enola Gay was modified: new propellers, stronger engines, and faster opening bomb bay doors. (Only 15 B-29s underwent this modification.) Even though it had been modified, the plane still had to use the full runway to gain the necessary speed, thus it did not lift off until very near the water's edge.1 The Enola Gay was escorted by two other bombers that carried cameras and a variety of measuring devices. Three other planes had left earlier in order to ascertain the weather conditions over the possible targets. The Atomic Bomb Known as Little Boy Is on Board On a hook in the ceiling of the plane, hung the ten-foot atomic bomb, "Little Boy." Navy Captain William S.

Parsons ("Deak"), chief of the Ordnance Division in the " Manhattan Project ," was the Enola Gay's weaponeer. Since Parsons had been instrumental in the development of the bomb, he was now responsible for arming the bomb while in-flight. Approximately 15 minutes into the flight (3:00 a.m.), Parsons began to arm the atomic bomb; it took him 15 minutes. Parsons thought while arming "Little Boy": "I knew the Japs were in for it, but I felt no particular emotion about it."2 "Little Boy" was created using uranium-235, a radioactive isotope of uranium. This uranium-235 atomic bomb, a product of $2 billion of research, had never been tested. Nor had any atomic bomb yet been dropped from a plane. Some scientists and politicians pushed for not warning Japan of the bombing in order to save face in case the bomb malfunctioned. Clear Weather Over Hiroshima There had been four cities chosen as possible targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Nagasaki, and Niigata (Kyoto was the first choice until it was removed from the list by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson ).

The cities were chosen because they had been relatively untouched during the war. The Target Committee wanted the first bomb to be "sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it was released."3 On August 6, 1945, the first choice target, Hiroshima, was having clear weather. At 8:15 a.m. (local time), the Enola Gay's door sprang open and dropped "Little Boy." The bomb exploded 1,900 feet above the city and only missed the target, the Aioi Bridge, by approximately 800 feet. The Explosion at Hiroshima Staff Sergeant George Caron, the tail gunner, described what he saw: "The mushroom cloud itself was a spectacular sight, a bubbling mass of purple-gray smoke and you could see it had a red core in it and everything was burning inside. . . . It looked like lava or molasses covering a whole city. . . ."4 The cloud is estimated to have reached a height of 40,000 feet. Captain Robert Lewis, the co-pilot, stated, "Where we had seen a clear city two minutes before, we could no longer see the city.

We could see smoke and fires creeping up the sides of the mountains."5 Two-thirds of Hiroshima was destroyed. Within three miles of the explosion, 60,000 of the 90,000 buildings were demolished. Clay roof tiles had melted together. Shadows had imprinted on buildings and other hard surfaces. Metal and stone had melted. Unlike other bombing raids, the goal for this raid had not been a military installation but rather an entire city. The atomic bomb that exploded over Hiroshima killed civilian women and children in addition to soldiers. Hiroshima's population has been estimated at 350,000; approximately 70,000 died immediately from the explosion and another 70,000 died from radiation within five years. A survivor described the damage to people: The appearance of people was . . . well, they all had skin blackened by burns. . . . They had no hair because their hair was burned, and at a glance you couldn't tell whether you were looking at them from in front or in back. . . . They held their arms bent [forward] like this . . .

and their skin - not only on their hands, but on their faces and bodies too - hung down. . . . If there had been only one or two such people . . . perhaps I would not have had such a strong impression. But wherever I walked I met these people. . . . Many of them died along the road - I can still picture them in my mind -- like walking ghosts.6 The Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki While the people of Japan tried to comprehend the devastation in Hiroshima, the United States was preparing a second bombing mission. The second run was not delayed in order to give Japan time to surrender, but was waiting only for a sufficient amount of plutonium-239 for the atomic bomb. On August 9, 1945 only three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, another B-29, Bock's Car ( picture of crew ), left Tinian at 3:49 a.m. The first choice target for this bombing run had been Kokura. Since the haze over Kokura prevented the sighting of the bombing target, Bock's Car continued on to its second target.

At 11:02 a.m., the atomic bomb, "Fat Man," was dropped over Nagasaki. The atomic bomb exploded 1,650 feet above the city. Fujie Urata Matsumoto, a survivor, shares one scene: The pumpkin field in front of the house was blown clean. Nothing was left of the whole thick crop, except that in place of the pumpkins there was a woman's head. I looked at the face to see if I knew her. It was a woman of about forty. She must have been from another part of town -- I had never seen her around here. A gold tooth gleamed in the wide-open mouth. A handful of singed hair hung down from the left temple over her cheek, dangling in her mouth. Her eyelids were drawn up, showing black holes where the eyes had been burned out. . . . She had probably looked square into the flash and gotten her eyeballs burned. Approximately 40 percent of Nagasaki was destroyed. Luckily for many civilians living in Nagasaki, though this atomic bomb was considered much stronger than the one exploded over Hiroshima, the terrain of Nagasaki prevented the bomb from doing as much damage.

The decimation, however, was still great. With a population of 270,000, approximately 40,000 people died immediately and another 30,000 by the end of the year. I saw the atom bomb. I was four then. I remember the cicadas chirping. The atom bomb was the last thing that happened in the war and no more bad things have happened since then, but I don't have my Mummy any more. So even if it isn't bad any more, I'm not happy. --- Kayano Nagai, survivor8 Notes 1. Dan Kurzman, Day of the Bomb: Countdown to Hiroshima (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1986) 410. 2. William S. Parsons as quoted in Ronald Takaki, Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1995) 43. 3. Kurzman, Day of the Bomb 394. 4. George Caron as quoted in Takaki, Hiroshima 44. 5. Robert Lewis as quoted in Takaki, Hiroshima 43.

6. A survivor quoted in Robert Jay Lifton, Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (New York: Random House, 1967) 27. 7. Fujie Urata Matsumoto as quoted in Takashi Nagai, We of Nagasaki: The Story of Survivors in an Atomic Wasteland (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1964) 42. 8. Kayano Nagai as quoted in Nagai, We of Nagasaki 6. Bibliography Hersey, John. Hiroshima. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985. Kurzman, Dan. Day of the Bomb: Countdown to Hiroshima. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1986. Liebow, Averill A. Encounter With Disaster: A Medical Diary of Hiroshima, 1945. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1970. Lifton, Robert Jay. Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima. New York: Random House, 1967. Nagai, Takashi.

We of Nagasaki: The Story of Survivors in an Atomic Wasteland. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1964. Takaki, Ronald. Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1995. The Atomic Bomb aka The Manhattan Project FPG/ Taxi/ Getty Images Updated October 20, 2015. On August 2, 1939, just before the beginning of World War II, Albert Einstein wrote to then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Einstein and several other scientists told Roosevelt of efforts in Nazi Germany to purify uranium-235, which could be used to build an atomic bomb. It was shortly thereafter that the United States Government began the serious undertaking known then only as "The Manhattan Project." Simply put, the Manhattan Project was committed to expediting research that would produce a viable atomic bomb. Making Enriched Uranium The most complicated issue to be addressed in making of an atomic bomb was the production of ample amounts of "enriched" uranium to sustain a chain reaction. At the time, uranium-235 was very hard to extract.

In fact, the ratio of conversion from uranium ore to uranium metal is 500:1. continue reading below our video The Manhattan Project Compounding this, the one part of uranium that is finally refined from the ore is over 99% uranium-238, which is practically useless for an atomic bomb. To make the task even more difficult, the useful U-235 and nearly useless U-238 are isotopes, nearly identical in their chemical makeup. No ordinary chemical extraction method could separate them; only mechanical methods could work. A massive enrichment laboratory/plant was constructed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Harold Urey and his colleagues at Columbia University devised an extraction system that worked on the principle of gaseous diffusion, and Ernest Lawrence (inventor of the Cyclotron) at the University of California in Berkeley implemented a process involving magnetic separation of the two isotopes. Next, a gas centrifuge was used to further separate the lighter U-235 from the heavier, non-fissionable U-238.

Once all of these procedures had been completed, all that needed to be done was to put to the test the entire concept behind atomic fission ("splitting the atom ," in layman's terms). Robert Oppenheimer - Manhattan Project Over the course of six years, from 1939 to 1945, more than $2 billion was spent during the history of the Manhattan Project. The formulas for refining uranium and putting together a working atomic bomb were created and seen to their logical ends by some of the greatest minds of our time. Chief among the people who unleashed the power of the atom was Robert Oppenheimer , who oversaw the project from conception to completion. Testing The Gadget aka Atomic Bomb Finally, the day came when all at Los Alamos would find out if "The Gadget" (code-named as such during its development) was going to be the colossal dud of the century or perhaps an end to the war. It all came down to a fateful morning in midsummer, 1945.

At 5:29:45 (Mountain War Time) on July 16, 1945, in a white blaze that stretched from the basin of the Jemez Mountains in northern New Mexico to the still-dark skies, "The Gadget" ushered in the Atomic Age. The light of the explosion then turned orange as the atomic fireball began shooting upwards at 360 feet per second, reddening and pulsing as it cooled. The characteristic mushroom cloud of radioactive vapor materialized at 30,000 feet. Beneath the cloud, all that remained of the soil at the blast site were fragments of jade green radioactive glass created by the heat of the reaction. The brilliant light from the detonation pierced the early morning skies with such intensity that residents from a faraway neighboring community would swear that the sun came up twice that day. Even more astonishing is that a blind girl saw the flash 120 miles away. Upon witnessing the explosion, its creators had mixed reactions. Isidor Rabi felt that the equilibrium in nature had been upset as if humankind had become a threat to the world it inhabited.

Robert Oppenheimer , though ecstatic about the success of the project, quoted a remembered fragment from the Bhagavad Gita. "I am become Death," he said, "the destroyer of worlds." Ken Bainbridge, the test director, told Oppenheimer, "Now we're all sons of bitches." After viewing the results several participants signed petitions against loosing the monster they had created, but their protests fell on deaf ears. The Jornada del Muerto of New Mexico would not be the last site on planet Earth to experience an atomic explosion. Key Staff - Manhattan Project Scientists Who Invented the Atomic Bomb under the Manhattan Project: Robert Oppenheimer , David Bohm , Leo Szilard , Eugene Wigner, Otto Frisch, Rudolf Peierls, Felix Bloch, Niels Bohr , Emilio Segre, James Franck, Enrico Fermi , Klaus Fuchs and Edward Teller . View a copy of the letter Einstein wrote Roosevelt that prompted the Manhattan Project.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki & the First Atomic Bombs Hiroshima, Nagasaki & the First Atomic Bombs By Marc Lallanilla, Staff Writer | May 9, 2014 07:27pm ET MORE This photo of the mushroom cloud over Nagasaki was taken by Charles Levy from one of the B-29 Superfortresses used in the attack. Credit: U.S. National Archives By the summer of 1945, World War II had raged across several continents for six years, beginning when German forces invaded Poland in 1939. To a world grown weary of death and destruction, the surrender of Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945, was welcome news. Japan, however, vowed to fight to the very end. Their resolve was evident in the Battle of Okinawa: By the time it ended in June, Allied forces lost more than 14,000 soldiers and Japan's military suffered more than 77,000 deaths — plus the loss of an estimated 100,000 Japanese civilians. Against this backdrop, Allied forces drew up plans for Operation Downfall, a large-scale invasion of Japan.

But with Allied casualties from an invasion estimated to reach 1 million deaths — plus another 10 million Japanese casualties, including civilians — Allied planners searched for another way to end the war, which they found in the Manhattan Project. This is a mockup of "Little Boy," the atomic bomb that was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945. Credit: U.S. National Archives The Manhattan Project Concerned over reports that Nazi Germany was developing a new type of weapon using radioactive uranium, in 1939 U.S. government officials began to investigate the potential of uranium — particularly the uranium-235 isotope — for making a powerful bomb. Within a matter of months, a coalition of American, British and European scientists — many of whom were refugees from Germany, Italy and other fascist nations — began collaborating on a vast international project to develop a uranium-based bomb before any Axis powers beat them to it. Because one early component of the project was based in the U.S. Army's Manhattan District, the name Manhattan Project eventually stuck, though work was carried out in Los Alamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Hanford, Washington; Chalk River, Ontario, and several other sites.

After several years of intensive research under strict secrecy, the Manhattan Project developed two different bombs that used two different nuclear materials: uranium-235 and plutonium-239. This is a mockup of "Fat Man," the atomic bomb that was dropped over Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945. Credit: U.S. Department of Defense 'Little Boy' and 'Fat Man' About 140 pounds (64 kilograms) of highly enriched uranium-235 was used to create "Little Boy," a nuclear-fission bomb that worked by shooting a large, hollow cylinder of uranium over a smaller uranium insert. Far from little, the bomb weighed about 9,700 pounds (4,400 kg). "Fat Man" was even bigger — about 10,300 pounds (4,670 kg) — and used a core of plutonium-239 to create a nuclear chain reaction that would release the energy of about 21 kilotons of TNT dynamite.

[ Countdown: Top 10 Greatest Explosions Ever ] The complexity of the plutonium bomb caused some concern among project engineers, so a test of the bomb was scheduled for July 16, 1945. On that day, at Alamogordo, New Mexico, the first atomic bomb blast the world had ever witnessed occurred, ushering in the Atomic Age. One of the few buildings left standing in Hiroshima was the Genbaku Dome of the Hiroshima Chamber of Commerce, which stood very close to the epicenter of the atomic bomb blast on Aug. 6, 1945. Today it is preserved as a peace memorial and is a UNESCO world heritage site. Credit: Public domain. Hiroshima In 1945, Hiroshima, Japan, was a city of about 350,000 people that was largely untouched by the war. Situated on a coastal plain, the city was an important manufacturing and military center — at least 40,000 military personnel were stationed in Hiroshima during the summer of 1945. For these and other reasons, the city was selected as the first target of an atomic bomb attack. Early in the morning of Aug.

6, a B-29 airplane named Enola Gay (after the mother of its pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets) took off from Tinian, an island roughly six hours from Hiroshima by air. Inside the Enola Gay's bomb bay was "Little Boy." At 8:15 a.m., the Enola Gay's bay doors opened and "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima. The bomb exploded about 1,900 feet (580 meters) over the unsuspecting city. The enormous blast instantly destroyed most of the city and claimed some 45,000 lives; another 19,000 people are estimated to have died from radiation exposure or other direct effects within four months. "The mushroom [cloud] itself was a spectacular sight, a bubbling mass of purple-gray smoke and you could see it had a red core in it and everything was burning inside," said the Enola Gay's tail gunner, Staff Sgt. Robert Caron. "As we got farther away, we could see the base of the mushroom and below we could see what looked like a few-hundred-foot layer of debris and smoke." On the ground, however, the scene was more horrific than spectacular.

"In the following waves [after the initial blast] people’s bodies were terribly squeezed, then their internal organs ruptured," wrote a journalist with LIFE magazine . "Then the blast blew the broken bodies at 500 to 1,000 miles per hour through the flaming, rubble-filled air. Practically everybody within a radius of 6,500 feet was killed or seriously injured and all buildings crushed or disemboweled." These photos show Nagasaki before and after the atomic blast on Aug. 9, 1945. Credit: U.S. National Archives Nagasaki To the surprise of some Allied military commanders, the destruction of Hiroshima did not bring about a Japanese surrender. Of the cities remaining on the Allied force's list of potential targets, the ancient fortress city of Kokura was at the top of the list. Shortly before 4 a.m. on Aug. 9, a B-29 named Bockscar (a pun on the aircraft's captain, Frederick C. Bock) took off from Tinian, headed for the city of Kokura.

In the plane's bomb bay was the plutonium-fueled "Fat Man." Cloud cover and poor visibility over Kokura spared the city, so the crew of Bockscar headed toward Nagasaki. A large seaport, the city was home to several important manufacturers, including the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, and enterprises devoted to shipbuilding, weapons development and other military industries. It, too, was obscured by clouds, but the crew was able to find a break in the cloud cover, and shortly after 11 a.m., "Fat Man" exploded over Nagasaki. The powerful blast destroyed much of the city, and at least 40,000 people were killed immediately. The hilly terrain of Nagasaki — and the fact that the bomb was dropped almost 2 miles (3.2 km) from its intended target — prevented greater destruction. Nonetheless, by the end of 1945, about 80,000 people died from the bomb over Nagasaki. About half of the city was reduced to rubble and ash by the blast and the subsequent fires. Effects of the blasts At noon on Aug.

15 — six days after Nagasaki was bombed — Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced an unconditional surrender, effectively ending World War II. Jubilant celebrations broke out across the globe, but there was little to celebrate in Japan. The exact number of deaths from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will never be known, but at least 103,000 died from the immediate blast or the effects of radiation sickness, according to the World Nuclear Organization . There were also a high number of stillbirths and birth deformities reported among survivors of the bombings. However, no long-term genetic damage has been reported among the survivor's children, who are subject to ongoing screening. After the victors' initial celebrations quieted down, there was profound soul-searching by most of the people involved in the decision to use atomic weaponry. The devastation wrought by two just two bombs was unprecedented in human history, and the debate over the use of nuclear weapons remains relevant to this day. "Yesterday man unleashed the atom to destroy man, and another chapter in human history opened, a chapter in which the weird, the strange, the horrible becomes the trite and obvious," wrote a New York Times correspondent one day after the Hiroshima bombing.

Alarmed by the use of atomic weaponry, many of the scientists responsible for the Manhattan Project organized as the Federation of Atomic Scientists , an organization that continues to work against nuclear proliferation. World War 2 World War 2 Links World War 2 Atomic Bomb On August 6 and 9, 1945, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by the first atomic bombs used in warfare. The first atomic bomb ever to be used in a military operation was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan On August 6, 1945 at 8:16:02 a.m. Hiroshima time. The bomb, affectionately named "Little Boy," exploded 1,900 feet above the courtyard of Shima Hospital, with a force equivalent to 12,500 tons of TNT. By the end of 1945, 140,00 people had died as a direct result of the bombing. Within the following five years, another 60,000 would die of bomb-related causes. The bomb killed men, women, and children indiscriminately. It killed both military personnel and civilians.

Although the city produced military items and housed soldiers, it was not selected as a "purely military target" as President Truman had promised. There were six civilians in Hiroshima to every soldier. The second bomb, called "Fat Man," exploded over Nagasaki, Japan, at 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945. It exploded at 1,650 feet with a force of 22,000 tons of TNT. 70,000 people lost their lives in Nagasaki by the end of 1945 due to the bombing. A total of 140,00 died within the next five years. Hiroshima During World War II, Hiroshima was a city of considerable military importance. It contained the 2nd Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops.

To quote a Japanese report, "Probably more than a thousand times since the beginning of the war did the Hiroshima citizens see off with cries of 'Banzai' the troops leaving from the harbor." The center of the city contained a number of reinforced concrete buildings as well as lighter structures. Outside the center, the area was congested by a dense collection of small wooden workshops set among Japanese houses; a few larger industrial plants lay near the outskirts of the city. The houses were of wooden construction with tile roofs. Many of the industrial buildings also were of wood frame construction. The city as a whole was highly susceptible to fire damage. Some of the reinforced concrete buildings were of a far stronger construction than is required by normal standards in America, because of the earthquake danger in Japan. This exceptionally strong construction undoubtedly accounted for the fact that the framework of some of the buildings which were fairly close to the center of damage in the city did not collapse. Another is that the blast was more downward than sideways; this has much to do with the "survival" of the Prefectural Promotional Hall (pictured), which was only a few metres from the aiming point.

The population of Hiroshima had reached a peak of over 380,000 earlier in the war but prior to the atomic bombing the population had steadily decreased because of a systematic evacuation ordered by the Japanese government. At the time of the attack the population was approximately 255,000. This figure is based on the registered population, used by the Japanese in computing ration quantities, and the estimates of additional workers and troops who were brought into the city may not be highly accurate. Hiroshima was the primary target of the first U.S. nuclear attack mission. The mission went smoothly in every respect. The weather was good, and the crew and equipment functioned perfectly. In every detail, the attack was carried out exactly as planned, and the bomb performed exactly as expected. The bomb exploded over Hiroshima at 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945. About an hour previously, the Japanese early warning radar net had detected the approach of some American aircraft headed for the southern part of Japan. The alert had been given and radio broadcasting stopped in many cities, among them Hiroshima. The planes approached the coast at a very high altitude.

At nearly 8:00 A.M., the radar operator in Hiroshima determined that the number of planes coming in was very small - probably not more than three - and the air raid alert was lifted. The normal radio broadcast warning was given to the people that it might be advisable to go to shelter if B-29's were actually sighted, but no raid was expected beyond some sort of reconnaissance. At 8:16 A.M., the B-29 Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb called "Little Boy" over the central part of the city and the bomb exploded with a blast equivalent to 12,000 tons of TNT, killing 80,000 outright. At the same time, Tokyo control operator of the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation noticed that the Hiroshima station had gone off the air. He tried to use another telephone line to reestablish his program, but it too had failed. About twenty minutes later the Tokyo railroad telegraph center realized that the main line telegraph had stopped working just north of Hiroshima. From some small railway stops within ten miles of the city there came unofficial and confused reports of a terrible explosion in Hiroshima. All these reports were transmitted to the Headquarters of the Japanese General Staff.

Military headquarters repeatedly tried to call the Army Control Station in Hiroshima. The complete silence from that city puzzled the men at Headquarters; they knew that no large enemy raid could have occurred, and they knew that no sizeable store of explosives was in Hiroshima at that time. A young officer of the Japanese General Staff was instructed to fly immediately to Hiroshima, to land, survey the damage, and return to Tokyo with reliable information for the staff. It was generally felt at Headquarters that nothing serious had taken place, that it was all a terrible rumor starting from a few sparks of truth. The staff officer went to the airport and took off for the southwest. After flying for about three hours, while still nearly 100 miles from Hiroshima, he and his pilot saw a great cloud of smoke from the bomb. In the bright afternoon, the remains of Hiroshima were burning. Their plane soon reached the city, around which they circled in disbelief. A great scar on the land, still burning, and covered by a heavy cloud of smoke, was all that was left of a great city. They landed south of the city, and the staff officer immediately began to organize relief measures, after reporting to Tokyo.

Tokyo's first knowledge of what had really caused the disaster came from the White House public announcement in Washington, sixteen hours after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. By the end of 1945, it is estimated that 60,000 more people died due to nuclear fallout sickness. However, this total does not include longer term casualties from radiation exposure. Starting almost immediately after the conclusion of World War II, and continuing to the present day, the dropping of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been questioned. Their use has been called barbarian since, besides destroying a military base and a military industrial center, tens of thousands of civilians were killed. Some have claimed that the Japanese were already essentially defeated, and that use of the bombs was unnecessary. Some have also suggested that a demonstration of an atomic bomb in an uninhabited region should have been attempted. In reply, defenders of the decision to use the bombs say that it is almost certain that the Japanese would not have surrendered without their use, and that hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions - would have perished in the planned U.S. invasion of Japan.

To support their argument, they point out that the Japanese agreed to surrender only after the second bomb was dropped, when it was evident that the first was not an isolated event, and future prospects were for a continuing rain of such bombs. Actually, the U.S. did not have another atomic bomb ready after the bombing of Nagasaki due the difficulty of producing fissile material. Regarding the suggestion of a demonstration, they maintain that, given the mind-set of the Japanese at the time, it is unlikely that any conceivable benign demonstration would have induced surrender. Others contend that Japan had been trying to surrender for at least two months, but the US refused by insisting on an unconditional surrender—which they did not get even after the bombing, the bone of contention being retention of the Emperor. Tens of thousands of people marked the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city on August 6, 1985. Nagasaki The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and was of great war-time importance because of its many and varied industries, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials. The narrow long strip attacked was of particular importance because of its industries.

In contrast to many modern aspects of Nagasaki, the residences almost without exception were of flimsy, typical Japanese construction, consisting of wood or wood-frame buildings, with wood walls with or without plaster, and tile roofs. Many of the smaller industries and business establishments were also housed in wooden buildings or flimsily built masonry buildings. Nagasaki had been permitted to grow for many years without conforming to any definite city zoning plan and therefore residences were constructed adjacent to factory buildings and to each other almost as close as it was possible to build them throughout the entire industrial valley. Nagasaki had never been subjected to large scale bombing prior to the explosion of a nuclear weapon there. On August 1st, 1945, however, a number of high explosive bombs were dropped on the city. A few of these bombs hit in the shipyards and dock areas in the southwest portion of the city. Several of the bombs hit the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works and six bombs landed at the Nagasaki Medical School and Hospital, with three direct hits on buildings there.

While the damage from these few bombs were 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 nuclear attack. At 11:02 am on August 9, 1945, the American B-29 Superfortress "Bockscar," in search of the shipyards, instead spotted the Mitsubishi Arms Works through a break in the clouds. On this target, it dropped the nuclear bomb Fat Man, the second nuclear weapon to be detonated over Japan. Even though the "Fat Man" missed by over a mile and a half, it still leveled nearly half the city. 75,000 of Nagasaki's 240,000 residents were killed, followed by the death of at least as many from resulting sickness and injury. However another report issues a different residental number, speaking of Nagasaki's population which dropped in one split-second from 422,000 to 383,000, thus 39,000 were killed, over 25,000 were injured.

If taken into account those who died from radioactive materials causing cancer, the total number of casualties is to be believed at least 100,000 killed residents. Estimates from physicists who have studied each atomic explosion state that the bomb that was used had utilized only 1/10th of 1 percent of their respective explosive capabilities. The city was rebuilt after the war, albeit dramatically changed, as any city would be after such colossal damage. New temples were built, and new churches as well, since the Christian presence never died out and even increased dramatically in numbers after the war. Some of the rubble was left as a memorial, like the one-legged torii gate and a stone arch near ground zero. New structures were also raised as memorials, such as the Atomic Bomb Museum. Nagasaki remains first and foremost a port city, supporting a rich shipping industry and setting a strong example of perseverance and peace. World War 2 World-War-2.info is the best resource for World War 2 information available on the Internet.

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Question: What year was the first atomic bomb dropped?
Answer: 1945