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 American bomber drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima - Aug 06, 1945 - HISTORY.com This Day In History: 08/06/1945 - Atomic Bomb Hits Hiroshima President Harry Truman orders the Enola Gay to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima, Cy Young joined major league baseball, the first woman swims the English Channel, and Jamaican independence is declared in This Day in History video. The date is August 6th. The atom bomb was also dropped on Nagasaki which helped end World War II when Japan surrendered. Lead Story American bomber drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima Share this: American bomber drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima Author American bomber drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima URL Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1945, at 8:16 a.m.

Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world’s first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout. U.S. President Harry S. Truman, discouraged by the Japanese response to the Potsdam Conference’s demand for unconditional surrender, made the decision to use the atom bomb to end the war in order to prevent what he predicted would be a much greater loss of life were the United States to invade the Japanese mainland. And so on August 5, while a “conventional” bombing of Japan was underway, “Little Boy,” (the nickname for one of two atom bombs available for use against Japan), was loaded onto Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbets’ plane on Tinian Island in the Marianas. Tibbets’ B-29, named the Enola Gay after his mother, left the island at 2:45 a.m. on August 6.

Five and a half hours later, “Little Boy” was dropped, exploding 1,900 feet over a hospital and unleashing the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT. The bomb had several inscriptions scribbled on its shell, one of which read “Greetings to the Emperor from the men of the Indianapolis” (the ship that transported the bomb to the Marianas). There were 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima before the bomb was dropped; only 28,000 remained after the bombing. Of the city’s 200 doctors before the explosion; only 20 were left alive or capable of working. There were 1,780 nurses before-only 150 remained who were able to tend to the sick and dying. According to John Hersey’s classic work Hiroshima, the Hiroshima city government had put hundreds of schoolgirls to work clearing fire lanes in the event of incendiary bomb attacks. They were out in the open when the Enola Gay dropped its load. There were so many spontaneous fires set as a result of the bomb that a crewman of the Enola Gay stopped trying to count them.

Another crewman remarked, “It’s pretty terrific. What a relief it worked.” Related Videos Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 1945 | Atomic Heritage Foundation Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 1945 Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 1945 History Page Type: Date: Thursday, June 5, 2014 After the Interim Committee decided to drop the bomb, the Target Committee determined the locations to be hit, and President Truman issued the Potsdam Proclamation as Japan’s final warning, the world soon learned the meaning of “complete and utter destruction.” The first two atomic bombs ever used were dropped on Japan in early August, 1945. For a detailed timeline of the bombings, please see Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombing Timeline . Hiroshima On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped its first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The bomb was known as "Little Boy", a uranium gun-type bomb that exploded with about thirteen kilotons of force.

At the time of the bombing, Hiroshima was home to 280,000-290,000 civilians as well as 43,000 soldiers. Between 90,000 and 166,000 people are believed to have died from the bomb in the four-month period following the explosion. The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that after five years there were perhaps 200,000 or more fatalities as a result of the bombing, while the city of Hiroshima has estimated that 237,000 people were killed directly or indirectly by the bomb's effects, including burns, radiation sickness, and cancer. The bombing of Hiroshima, codenamed Operation Centerboard, was approved by Curtis LeMay on August 4, 1945. The B-29 plane that carried Little Boy from Tinian Island in the western Pacific to Hiroshima was known as the Enola Gay, after pilot Paul Tibbets' mother.

Along with Tibbets, copilot Robert Lewis, bombardier Tom Ferebee, navigator Theodore Van Kirk, and tail gunner Robert Caron were among the others on board the Enola Gay. Below are their eyewitness accounts of the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan. Pilot Paul Tibbets: "We turned back to look at Hiroshima. The city was hidden by that awful cloud... boiling up, mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall. No one spoke for a moment; then everyone was talking. I remember (copilot Robert) Lewis pounding my shoulder, saying 'Look at that! Look at that! Look at that!' (Bombardier) Tom Ferebee wondered about whether radioactivity would make us all sterile. Lewis said he could taste atomic fission. He said it tasted like lead." Navigator Theodore Van Kirk recalls the shockwaves from the explosion: "(It was) very much as if you've ever sat on an ash can and had somebody hit it with a baseball bat... The plane bounced, it jumped and there was a noise like a piece of sheet metal snapping.

Those of us who had flown quite a bit over Europe thought that it was anti-aircraft fire that had exploded very close to the plane." On viewing the atomic fireball: "I don't believe anyone ever expected to look at a sight quite like that. Where we had seen a clear city two minutes before, we could now no longer see the city. We could see smoke and fires creeping up the sides of the mountains." Tail gunner Robert Caron: "The mushroom 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. 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 and what have you... I saw fires springing up in different places, like flames shooting up on a bed of coals." Six miles below the crew of the Enola Gay, the people of Hiroshima were waking up and preparing for their daily routines. It was 8:16 A.M. Up to that point, the city had been largely spared by the rain of conventional air bombing that had ravaged many other Japanese cities.

Rumors abounded as to why this was so, from the fact that many Hiroshima residents had emigrated to the U.S. to the supposed presence of President Truman's mother in the area. Still, many citizens, including schoolchildren, were recruited to prepare for future bombings by tearing down houses to create fire lanes, and it was at this task that many were laboring or preparing to labor on the morning of August 6. Just an hour before, air raid sirens had sounded as a single B-29, the weather plane for the Little Boy mission, approached Hiroshima. A radio broadcast announced the sighting of the Enola Gay soon after 8 A.M. The city of Hiroshima was annihilated by the explosion. 70,000 of 76,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed, and 48,000 of those were entirely razed. Survivors recalled the indescribable and incredible experience of seeing that the city had ceased to exist. A college history professor: "I climbed Hikiyama Hill and looked down. I saw that Hiroshima had disappeared... I was shocked by the sight... What I felt then and still feel now I just can't explain with words.

Of course I saw many dreadful scenes after that—but that experience, looking down and finding nothing left of Hiroshima—was so shocking that I simply can't express what I felt... Hiroshima didn't exist—that was mainly what I saw—Hiroshima just didn't exist." Medical doctor Michihiko Hachiya: "Nothing remained except a few buildings of reinforced concrete... For acres and acres the city was like a desert except for scattered piles of brick and roof tile. I had to revise my meaning of the word destruction or choose some other word to describe what I saw. Devastation may be a better word, but really, I know of no word or words to describe the view." Writer Yoko Ota: "I reached a bridge and saw that the Hiroshima Castle had been completely leveled to the ground, and my heart shook like a great wave... the grief of stepping over the corpses of history pressed upon my heart." Those who were close to the epicenter of the explosion were simply vaporized by the intensity of the heat. One man left only a dark shadow on the steps of a bank as he sat.

The mother of Miyoko Osugi, a 13-year-old schoolgirl working on the fire lanes, never found her body, but she did find her geta sandal. The area covered by Miyoko's foot remained light, while the rest of it was darkened by the blast. Many others in Hiroshima, farther from the Little Boy epicenter, survived the initial explosion but were severely wounded, including injuries from and burns across much of their body. Among these people, panic and chaos were rampant as they struggled to find food and water, medical assistance, friends and relatives and to flee the firestorms that engulfed many residential areas. Having no point of reference for the bomb's absolute devastation, some survivors believed themselves to have been transported to a hellish version of the afterlife. The worlds of the living and the dead seemed to converge. A Protestant minister: "The feeling I had was that everyone was dead. The whole city was destroyed... I thought this was the end of Hiroshima—of Japan—of humankind... This was God's judgment on man." A six-year-old boy: "Near the bridge there were a whole lot of dead people... Sometimes there were ones who came to us asking for a drink of water.

They were bleeding from their faces and from their mouths and they had glass sticking in their bodies. And the bridge itself was burning furiously... The details and the scenes were just like Hell." A sociologist: "My immediate thought was that this was like the hell I had always read about... I had never seen anything which resembled it before, but I thought that should there be a hell, this was it—the Buddhist hell, where we were thought that people who could not attain salvation always went... And I imagined that all of these people I was seeing were in the hell I had read about." A boy in fifth grade: "I had the feeling that all the human beings on the face of the earth had been killed off, and only the five of us (his family) were left behind in an uncanny world of the dead." A grocer: "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... Many of them died along the road—I can still picture them in my mind—like walking ghosts...

They didn't look like people of this world." Many people traveled to central places such as hospitals, parks, and riverbeds in an attempt to find relief from their pain and misery. However, these locations soon became scenes of agony and despair as many injured and dying people arrived and were unable to receive proper care. A sixth-grade girl: "Bloated corpses were drifting in those seven formerly beautiful rivers; smashing cruelly into bits the childish pleasure of the little girl, the peculiar odor of burning human flesh rose everywhere in the Delta City, which had changed to a waste of scorched earth." A fourteen-year-old boy: "Night came and I could hear many voices crying and groaning with pain and begging for water. Someone cried, 'Damn it! War tortures so many people who are innocent!' Another said, 'I hurt! Give me water!' This person was so burned that we couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. The sky was red with flames.

It was burning as if scorching heaven." Nagasaki Three days after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9 – a 21-kiloton plutonium device known as "Fat Man.” On the day of the bombing, an estimated 263,000 were in Nagasaki, including 240,000 Japanese residents, 9,000 Japanese soldiers, and 400 prisoners of war. Prior to August 9, Nagasaki had been the target of small scale bombing by the United States. Though the damage from these bombings was relatively small, it created considerable concern in Nagasaki and many people were evacuated to rural areas for safety, thus reducing the population in the city at the time of the nuclear attack. It is estimated that between 40,000 and 75,000 people died immediately following the atomic explosion, while another 60,000 people suffered severe injuries. Total deaths by the end of 1945 may have reached 80,000.

The decision to use the second bomb was made on August 7, 1945 on Guam. Its use was calculated to indicate that the United States had an endless supply of the new weapon for use against Japan and that the United States would continue to drop atomic bombs on Japan until the country surrendered unconditionally. The city of Nagasaki, however, was not the primary target for the second atomic bomb. Instead, officials had selected the city of Kokura, where Japan had one of its largest munitions plants. The B-29 "Bockscar", piloted Major Charles Sweeney, was assigned to deliver the "Fat Man" to the city of Kokura on the morning of August 9, 1945. Accompanying Sweeney on the mission were copilots Charles Donald Albury and Fred J. Olivi, weaponeer Frederick Ashworth, and bombadier Kermit Beahan. At 3:49am, "Bockscar" and five other B-29s departed the island of Tinian and headed towards Kokura.

When the plane arrived over the city nearly seven hours later, thick clouds and drifting smoke from fires started by a major firebombing raid on nearby Yawata the previous day covered most of the area over Kokura, obscuring the aiming point. Pilot Charles Sweeney made three bomb runs over the next fifty minutes, but bombardier Beahan was unable to drop the bomb because he could not see the target visually. By the time of the third bomb run, Japanese antiaircraft fire was getting close, and Second Lieutenant Jacob Beser, who was monitoring Japanese communications, reported activity on the Japanese fighter direction radio bands. Running low on fuel, the crew aboard Bockscar decided to head for the secondary target, Nagasaki. When the B-29 arrived over the city twenty minutes later, the downtown area was also covered by dense clouds. Frederick Ashworth, the plane's weaponeer proposed bombing Nagasaki using radar. At that moment, a small opening in the clouds at the end of the three-minute bomb run permitted bombardier Kermit Beahan to identify target features. At 10:58 AM local time, Bockscar visually dropped Fat Man.

It exploded 43 seconds later with a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT at an altitude of 1,650 feet, about 1.5 miles northwest of the intended aiming point. The radius of total destruction from the atomic blast was about one mile, followed by fires across the northern portion of the city to two miles south of where the bomb had been dropped. In contrast to many modern aspects of Hiroshima, almost all of the buildings in Nagasaki were of old-fashioned Japanese construction, consisting of wood or wood-frame buildings with wood walls and tile roofs. Many of the smaller industries and business establishments were also situated in buildings of wood or other materials not designed to withstand explosions. As a result, the atomic explosion over Nagasaki leveled nearly every structure in the blast radius. The failure to drop 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 from the explosion. 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. Nearly half of the city was completely destroyed. Bockscar's copilot Fred J. Olivi published a detailed account of the effects of the atomic explosion over Nagasaki. Here are some of his reactions: Olivi: "Suddenly, the light of a thousand suns illuminated the cockpit. Even with my dark welder's goggles, I winced and shut my eyes for a couple of seconds. I guessed we were about seven miles from "ground zero" and headed directly away from the target, yet the light blinded me for an instant. I had never experienced such an intense bluish light, maybe three or four times brighter than the sun shining above us." "I've never seen anything like it! Biggest explosion I've ever seen...This plume of smoke I'm seeing is hard to explain. A great white mass of flame is seething within the white mushroom shaped cloud. It has a pinkish, salmon color. The base is black and is breaking a little way down from the mushroom." "The Mushroom cloud was coming right at us.

I immediately looked up and could see that he was right, the cloud was getting close to Bockscar. We had been told not to fly through the atomic cloud because it was extremely dangerous to the crew and aircraft. Knowing this, Sweeney put Bockscar into a steep dive to the right, away from the cloud, throttles wide open. For a few moments we could not tell if we were out-running the ominous cloud or if it was gaining on us, but gradually we pulled away from the dangerous radioactive cloud before it engulfed us, much to everyone's relief." Tatsuichiro Akizuki: "All the buildings I could see were on fire... Electricity poles were wrapped in flame like so many pieces of kindling... It seemed as if the earth itself emitted fire and smoke, flames that writhed up and erupted from underground. The sky was dark, the ground was scarlet, and in between hung clouds of yellowish smoke. Three kinds of color—black, yellow, and scarlet—loomed ominously over the people, who ran about like so many ants seeking to escape... It seemed like the end of the world." Aftermath On August 14, Japan surrendered.

Journalist George Weller was the "first into Nagasaki" and described the mysterious "atomic illness" (the onset of radiation sickness) that was killing patients who outwardly appeared to have escaped the bomb's impact. Controversial at the time and for years later, Weller's articles were not allowed to be released until 2006. Controversy The debate over the bomb – whether there should have been a test demonstration, whether the Nagasaki bomb was necessary, and more – continues to this day. The bombing of Hiroshima, from 10 km away Hiroshima after the bombing Hiroshima's financial district after the bombing Hiroshima after the bombing Manhattan Project: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 THE ATOMIC BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA (Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945) The Manhattan Project and the Second World War, 1939-1945 In the early morning hours of August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay took off from the island of Tinian and headed north by northwest toward Japan.

The bomber's primary target was the city of Hiroshima, located on the deltas of southwestern Honshu Island facing the Inland Sea. Hiroshima had a civilian population of almost 300,000 and was an important military center, containing about 43,000 soldiers. The bomber, piloted by the commander of the 509th Composite Group, Colonel Paul Tibbets, flew at low altitude on automatic pilot before climbing to 31,000 feet as it neared the target area. At approximately 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima time the Enola Gay released "Little Boy," its 9,700-pound uranium gun-type bomb, over the city. Tibbets immediately dove away to avoid the anticipated shock wave. Forty-three seconds later, a huge explosion lit the morning sky as Little Boy detonated 1,900 feet above the city, directly over a parade field where soldiers of the Japanese Second Army were doing calisthenics. Though already eleven and a half miles away, the Enola Gay was rocked by the blast. At first, Tibbets thought he was taking flak.

After a second shock wave (reflected from the ground) hit the plane, the crew looked back at Hiroshima. "The city was hidden by that awful cloud . . . boiling up, mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall," Tibbets recalled. The yield of the explosion was later estimated at 15 kilotons (the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT). On the ground moments before the blast it was a calm and sunny Monday morning. An air raid alert from earlier that morning had been called off after only a solitary aircraft was seen (the weather plane), and by 8:15 the city was alive with activity -- soldiers doing their morning calisthenics, commuters on foot or on bicycles, groups of women and children working outside to clear firebreaks. Those closest to the explosion died instantly, their bodies turned to black char. Nearby birds burst into flames in mid-air, and dry, combustible materials such as paper instantly ignited as far away as 6,400 feet from ground zero. The white light acted as a giant flashbulb, burning the dark patterns of clothing onto skin (right) and the shadows of bodies onto walls.

Survivors outdoors close to the blast generally describe a literally blinding light combined with a sudden and overwhelming wave of heat. (The effects of radiation are usually not immediately apparent.) The blast wave followed almost instantly for those close-in, often knocking them from their feet. Those that were indoors were usually spared the flash burns, but flying glass from broken windows filled most rooms, and all but the very strongest structures collapsed. One boy was blown through the windows of his house and across the street as the house collapsed behind him. Within minutes 9 out of 10 people half a mile or less from ground zero were dead. People farther from the point of detonation experienced first the flash and heat, followed seconds later by a deafening boom and the blast wave. Nearly every structure within one mile of ground zero was destroyed, and almost every building within three miles was damaged. Less than 10 percent of the buildings in the city survived without any damage, and the blast wave shattered glass in suburbs twelve miles away. The most common first reaction of those that were indoors even miles from ground zero was that their building had just suffered a direct hit by a bomb. Small ad hoc rescue parties soon began to operate, but roughly half of the city's population was dead or injured.

In those areas most seriously affected virtually no one escaped serious injury. The numerous small fires that erupted simultaneously all around the city soon merged into one large firestorm, creating extremely strong winds that blew towards the center of the fire. The firestorm eventually engulfed 4.4 square miles of the city, killing anyone who had not escaped in the first minutes after the attack. One postwar study of the victims of Hiroshima found that less than 4.5 percent of survivors suffered leg fractures. Such injuries were not uncommon; it was just that most who could not walk were engulfed by the firestorm. Even after the flames had subsided, relief from the outside was slow in coming. For hours after the attack the Japanese government did not even know for sure what had happened. Radio and telegraph communications with Hiroshima had suddenly ended at 8:16 a.m., and vague reports of some sort of large explosion had begun to filter in, but the Japanese high command knew that no large-scale air raid had taken place over the city and that there were no large stores of explosives there.

Eventually a Japanese staff officer was dispatched by plane to survey the city from overhead, and while he was still nearly 100 miles away from the city he began to report on a huge cloud of smoke that hung over it. The first confirmation of exactly what had happened came only sixteen hours later with the announcement of the bombing by the United States. Relief workers from outside the city eventually began to arrive and the situation stabilized somewhat. Power in undamaged areas of the city was even restored on August 7th, with limited rail service resuming the following day. Several days after the blast, however, medical staff began to recognize the first symptoms of radiation sickness among the survivors. Soon the death rate actually began to climb again as patients who had appeared to be recovering began suffering from this strange new illness. Deaths from radiation sickness did not peak until three to four weeks after the attacks and did not taper off until seven to eight weeks after the attack. Long-range health dangers associated with radiation exposure, such as an increased danger of cancer, would linger for the rest of the victims' lives, as would the psychological effects of the attack. No one will ever know for certain how many died as a result of the attack on Hiroshima.

Some 70,000 people probably died as a result of initial blast, heat, and radiation effects. This included about twenty American airmen being held as prisoners in the city. By the end of 1945, because of the lingering effects of radioactive fallout and other after effects, the Hiroshima death toll was probably over 100,000. The five-year death total may have reached or even exceeded 200,000, as cancer and other long-term effects took hold. At 11:00 a.m., August 6 (Washington D.C. time), radio stations began playing a prepared statement from President Truman informing the American public that the United States had dropped an entirely new type of bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima -- an "atomic bomb." Truman warned that if Japan still refused to surrender unconditionally, as demanded by the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, the United States would attack additional targets with equally devastating results. Two days later, on August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and attacked Japanese forces in Manchuria, ending American hopes that the war would end before Russian entry into the Pacific theater.

By August 9th, American aircraft were showering leaflets all over Japan informing its people that "We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2,000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate. We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city." Meanwhile, Tibbets's bomber group was simply waiting for the weather to clear in order to drop its next bomb, the plutonium implosion weapon nicknamed "Fat Man" (left) that was destined for the city of Nagasaki. Sources and notes for this page . Portions of the text for this page were adapted from, and portions were taken directly from the Office of History and Heritage Resources publication: F. G.

Gosling, The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb (DOE/MA-0001; Washington: History Division, Department of Energy, January 1999) , 51-53. Also used was the report on "The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" in the official Manhattan District History, produced by the War Department in 1947 at the direction of Leslie Groves, especially pages 1-19; the "Atomic Bombings" document is available in the University Publications of America microfilm collection, Manhattan Project: Official History and Documents (Washington: 1977), reel #1/12; the report itself is a government document. Tibbets's description is from Paul W. Tibbets, "How to Drop an Atom Bomb," Saturday Evening Post 218 (June 8, 1946), 136.

The estimate of Little Boy's yield is from United States Nuclear Tests, July 1945 through September 1992 (DOE/NV-209-REV 15; Las Vegas, NV: Nevada Operations Office, Department of Energy, December 2000) , vii. Summaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki casualty rates and damage estimates appear in Leslie R. Groves, Now It Can Be Told (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 319, 329-330, 346, and Vincent C. Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb, United States Army in World War II (Washington: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1988), 545-548. A translation of the leaflets dropped on Japan in between Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be found in Dennis Merrill, ed., Documentary History of the Truman Volume 1, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan (Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1995), 194-195.

The photograph of the mushroom cloud is courtesy the United States Air Force (USAF) (via the National Archives (NARA)). The photographs of Little Boy and Fat Man are courtesy the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (via NARA). The photograph of the Enola Gay landing at Tinian Island is courtesy the USAF. The photograph of the woman with burns on her back is courtesy the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (via NARA). The photographs of the mushroom cloud taken from the ground and of the debris (including the Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku "A-bomb" Dome) are courtesy the Federation of American Scientists . The photographs of the hospital and of the lone soldier walking through an almost-completely leveled portion of the city are courtesy the Department of the Navy (via NARA); the former was taken by Wayne Miller.

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 U.S. drops the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 - NY Daily News U.S. drops the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 U.S.

drops the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 NEW YORK DAILY NEWS A mushroom cloud billows about one hour after a nuclear bomb was detonated above Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6, 1945. (AP) NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, August 5, 2015, 12:00 PM (Originally published by the Daily News on August 7, 1945. This story was written by Jack Doherty.) WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 6 - The most terrible weapon in history - an atomic bomb with more explosive power than 20,000 tons of TNT - was dropped on Japan last night, it was disclosed today as President Truman hurled a new ultimatum at the [Japanese], warning them to surrender or be wiped out. In revealing the most closely guarded secret of World War II, the President announced in a dramatic statement issued through the White House: “Sixteen hours ago (7 P.M. Sunday, New York time) an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese army base. The bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of TNT.

It had more power than 2,000 times the blast power of British ‘Grand Slam,' which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare… it is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.” ATOMIC BOMB DROPPED ON NAGASAKI IN 1945 The extent of damage from superbomb No. 1 was not immediately learned. A War Department statement said that “reconnaissance planes state that an impenetrable cloud of dust and smoke covered the target area.” “As soon as accurate details of the result of the bombing become available, they will be released by the Secretary of War,” it added. Atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, published August 7, 1945. (New York Daily News) Atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, published August 7, 1945.

(New York Daily News) (The Associated Press pointed out that the one atomic bomb dropped on Japan carried a wallop more violent than 2,000 B-29 superfortress normally could hand a city, using the old type TNT bombs. One B-29 ordinarily can deliver about 10 tons of TNT bombs to a target.) Last night’s bomb hit Hiroshima, on the Inland Sea, on the southeast coast of the main [Japanese] home island of Honshu. Truman warned that others would strike if the [Japanese] did not surrender immediately. “It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction,” the President said, “that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. 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 this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in which numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already aware.” Even Deadlier Ones Coming. War Secretary Stimson revealed that even deadlier atomic bombs will soon be made.

“Improvements,” he said, “will be forthcoming shortly which will increase by several fold the present effectiveness” of the terror weapon. Stimson flatly declared that “we are convinced that Japan will not be in a position to use an atomic bomb in this war,” and added that “it is abundantly clear that the possession of this weapon by the U.S. even in its present form, should prove tremendous aid in the shortening of the war against Japan.” Here, superimposed on an aerial photo of Manhattan and Long Island City, are the boundaries of Hiroshima (broken white line) first city to feel the effects of the atomic bomb. (New York Daily News) This September, 1945 file picture shows the remains of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industry Promotion Building, now known as the Atomic-Bomb Dome, which was later preserved as a monument. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) This Sept. 8, 1945 picture shows an allied correspondent standing in the rubble in front of the shell of a building that once was a movie theater in Hiroshima, Japan, a month after the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare was dropped.

(Stanley Troutman/AP) This photo dated 1945 shows the devastated city of Hiroshima in days after the first atomic bomb was dropped by a US Air Force B-29, August 6, 1945. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images) A charred tram is seen in the middle of a devastated Hiroshima, Japan, 300-meters (328 yards) from the epicenter on Aug. 12, 1945, six days after the nuclear bombing by the United States. (YOTSUGI KAWAHARA/AP) A few steel and concrete buildings and bridges are still intact in Hiroshima after the Japanese city was hit by an atomic bomb by the U.S., during World War II Sept. 5, 1945. (MAX DESFOR/AP) The use in combat of the single atomic bomb was the culmination of three years of effort by science, industry, and the Army.

So closely guarded was the secret of the new weapon that 125,000 workers at three hush-hush plants in Richland, Wash.; Oak Ridge, near Knoxville, Tenn., and near Santa Fe., N.M., never knew what they were producing, in more than two and one-half years. On the super weapon, which works on an entirely new theory, the U.S., in cooperation with the British, gambled $2,000,000,000 that scientists could smash the atom, thus releasing the deadliest source of power ever discovered. Truman said that “we have spent $2,000,000,000 on the greatest scientific gamble in history and - won.” The atomic bomb uses uranium as the essential ore in its production. War Secretary Stimson said that “steps have been taken and will continue to be taken to insure adequate supplies of this mineral.” Race of Scientific Minds. President Truman’s statement revealed that the bomb, despite its imagination-staggering deadliness, has an “exceedingly small” physical size, which confounded workers at the three atomic bomb plants.

“They see great quantities of material going in and they see nothing coming out of these plants,” he said, “for the physical size of the explosive charge is exceedingly small.” The history of the atomic bomb is also the history of feverish race among Germany’s scientific minds, and the combined scientific minds of the U.S. and Great Britain. The Battle of the Laboratories,” as President Truman called it, “held fateful risks for us as well as the battles of the air, land and sea, and we have now won the battle of the laboratories as we have won the other battles.” Nuclear bomb victims are sheltered at the Hiroshima Second Military Hospital's tent relief center at the banks of the Ota River in Hiroshima, Japan, one day after the world's first nuclear bombing. (YOTSUGI KAWAHARA/AP) A nuclear bomb victim lies in quarantine on the island of Ninoshima in Hiroshima, Japan, 9,000-meter (9,843-yard) from the epicenter. (MASAMI ONUKA/AP) This picture dated August 1945 in the Mariana Islands shows the US crew of the B-29 "Enola Gay" plane, including pilot Paul W.

TIbbets (C), which dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images) This photo dated 1948 shows the devastated city of Hiroshima some three years after the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city, August 06, 1945, at the end of World War II. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images) This photo dated 1948 shows children wearing masks to protect themselves from radiation in the devastated city of Hiroshima nearly three years after the US bombing on the city. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images) Prior to 1939, it was an accepted scientific belief that, theoretically, the atom could be smashed to release atomic energy. No one, however, knew any practical method of doing it. By 1942, the Germans, President Truman said, were working 24 hours a day to find a way “to add atomic energy to the other engines of war with which they hoped to enslave the world. But they failed.” “Beginning in 1940, before Pearl Harbor, scientific knowledge useful in war was pooled between the U.S. and Great Britain, and many priceless helps to our victories have come from that arrangement,” he continued.

"Under that general policy the research on the atomic bomb was begun. With American and British scientists working together, we entered the race of discovery against the Germans.” Experiments Conducted Here. The late President Roosevelt and former Prime Minister Churchill, Truman said, agreed that experiments should be conducted in this country, free from bombing attack and threat of invasion. Highly praising the resultant success of the combined Anglo-American efforts, the President commented: “What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history. It was done under high pressure and without failure.” With use of the shattering new weapon, he added, “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.” This file photo shows smoke billowing 20,000 feet above Hiroshima, Japan while smoke from the burst of the first atomic bomb spread over 10,000 feet on the target at the base of the rising column.

(AFP/AFP/Getty Images) This file photo dated August 10, 1945 shows two brothers who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima four days earlier. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images) Truman said he would recommend to Congress establishment of a commission to control production and use of atomic power in the U.S., and that he would “give further consideration and make further recommendations” to Congress as to how atomic power can become a “powerful and forceful influence towards the maintenance of world peace.” Stimson announced that the man who directed the Army’s $2,000,000,000 job of discovering and perfecting atom-smashing was Major Gen. Leslie R. Groves, formerly of Pasadena, Calif., who now lives here. Groves, for the past three years, has held the title of commanding officer of the “Manhattan Engineering District,” the phony name given the hush-hush project to fool spies. Many Plants Played Part.

A partial list of industrial firms which contributed “so signally” to the atomic bomb, as given out by Stimson, included: Du Pont de Nemours & Co., which designed and constructed the mammoth Hanford installations in the State of Washington; a special subsidiary of the M.W. Kellogg Co., of N.Y., which designed one of the plants at Clinton, Tenn.; The J.A. Jones Co., which built the Clinton plant, and the Union Carbide and Carbon Co., which operates it. Other firms listed were the Stone & Webster Engineering Corp., Allis-Chalmers, Westinghouse, Chrysler, General Electric and Tennessee Eastman Corp. Stimson also named a policy committee, with Truman’s approval, to formulate recommendations for postwar organization of atomic power development. On the committee are Stimson, as chairman; and State Secretary Byrnes; former Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard; Assistant Secretary of State Will Clayton Harvard President Dr. James Conant; M.I.T. President Dr. Karl T. Compton; and George L. Harrison, president of the New York Life Insurance Co., who is now a special consultant to Stimson. He was named alternate chairman of the committee.

Stimson also revealed that a combined policy committee, set up in August, 1943, to expedite production, was staffed by Stimson, Bush and Conant for the U.S.; Field Marshal Sir John Dill and Col. J.J. Llewellin for the United Kingdom; and C.D. Howe, for Canada. Tags: 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.

Question: What type of bomber dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945?
Answer: BOEING B-29 SUPERFORTRESS