Vestiges of the atomic bomb have faded in a now vibrant Hiroshima. Portuguese traders and missionaries arrived there in the 16th century, introducing Catholicism to the city. The faith became popular despite opposition from the emperor, who expelled the foreign missionaries and persecuted local Catholics. Because of its excellent harbor and successful history as an open port, Nagasaki developed a robust shipbuilding industry and thrived as a trading center.
Despite the presence of military targets, Nagasaki was not selected as one of the U. It had been on an earlier list in April but had been dropped. Secretary of War Henry Stimson wanted Kyoto removed from the target list, on the grounds that the city was too culturally significant to the Japanese to be destroyed.
Some say his personal fondness for the city—he visited in the s and may have honeymooned there—was the real reason he appealed to President Harry Truman to remove Kyoto from the list.
A replacement was not selected until the day before the official strike orders were issued. It was officially added on July The port city sat at the bottom of the list, its fourth-place position giving it the lowest rank. Atomic bombs needed to be sited visually rather than relying on radar, which made clear skies necessary.
After the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, , the United States planned to drop the next atomic weapon on August 10, but an extended cloudy forecast meant they had to move more quickly. The mission took off from Tinian Island at A. Searching for a window in the clouds, the plane circled the city three times, but Kokura never clearly came into view. Around , the team abandoned Kokura and flew south toward Nagasaki.
When Kazumi Yamada was headed home after his paper route on August 9, second-grader Matsuyoshi Ikeda was at school with his classmates, and year-old Sachiko Matsuo was sheltering with her family outside of town.
Earlier that week, her father had evacuated the family because he believed an American attack was coming. Sachiko and some family members were growing restless in the hills and wanted to head home, but her father insisted they stay before he left to go to work in the city that morning.
At A. The plutonium bomb dropped by the United States unleashed more than 21 kilotons of firepower, ripping through Nagasaki and killing as many as 70, people almost instantly. Byrnes argued on August 29, , and had reached out to the Soviets to see if they would mediate in possible peace negotiations. Others have argued that both attacks were simply an experiment, to see how well the two types of atomic weapons developed by the Manhattan Project worked.
The world may never know. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. Beahan, caught a brief glimpse of the city's stadium through the clouds and dropped the bomb. The yield of the explosion was later estimated at 21 kilotons, 40 percent greater than that of the Hiroshima bomb. Nagasaki was an industrial center and major port on the western coast of Kyushu.
As had happened at Hiroshima, the "all-clear" from an early morning air raid alert had long been given by the time the B had begun its bombing run. A small conventional raid on Nagasaki on August 1st had resulted in a partial evacuation of the city, especially of school children. There were still almost , people in the city below the bomb when it exploded. The hurriedly-targeted weapon ended up detonating almost exactly between two of the principal targets in the city, the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works to the south, and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Torpedo Works left to the north.
Had the bomb exploded farther south the residential and commercial heart of the city would have suffered much greater damage. In general, though Fat Man exploded with greater force than Little Boy, the damage at Nagasaki was not as great as it had been at Hiroshima.
The hills of Nagasaki, its geographic layout, and the bomb's detonation over an industrial area all helped shield portions of the city from the weapon's blast , heat , and radiation effects. The explosion affected a total area of approximately 43 square miles. About 8. Many roads and rail lines escaped major damage. Thousands of bodies bopped up and down the river, bloated and purplish from soak- ing up the water. I was terrified of being left behind. Indeed, the nuclear blast has three components — heat, pressure wave, and radiation — and was unprecedented in its ability to kill en masse.
The bomb, which detonated m above ground level, created a bolide m in diameter and implicated tens of thousands of homes and families underneath. The radiation continues to affect survivors to this day, who struggle with cancer and other debilitating diseases. I was 11 years old when the bomb was dropped, 2km from where I lived. In recent years, I have been diagnosed with stomach cancer, and have undergone surgery in and The atomic bomb has also implicated our children and grandchildren.
One can understand the horrors of nuclear warfare by visiting the atomic bomb museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, listening to first-hand accounts of hi- bakusha survivors, and reading archival documents from that period. Nuclear weapons should, under no circumstances, be used against humans. However, nuclear powers such as the US and Russia own stockpiles of well over 15, nuclear weapons. Not only that, technological advances have given way to a new kind of bomb that can deliver a blast over 1, times that of the Hiroshima bombing.
Weapons of this capacity must be abolished from the earth. However, in our current political climate we struggle to come to a consensus, and have yet to implement a ban on nuclear weapons.
This is largely because nuclear powers are boycotting the agreement. I have resigned to the fact that nuclear weapons will not be abolished during the lifetime of us first generation hibakusha survivors. I pray that younger generations will come together to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons. My brothers and I gently laid his blackened, swollen body atop a burnt beam in front of the factory where we found him dead and set him alight. His ankles jutted out awkwardly as the rest of his body was engulfed in flames.
When we returned the next morning to collect his ashes, we discovered that his body had been partially cremated. Only his wrists, ankles, and part of his gut were burnt properly. The rest of his body lay raw and decomposed. I could not bear to see my father like this. Finally, my oldest brother gave in, suggesting that we take a piece of his skull — based on a common practice in Japanese funerals in which family members pass around a tiny piece of the skull with chopsticks after cremation — and leave him be.
As soon as our chopsticks touched the surface, however, the skull cracked open like plaster and his half cremated brain spilled out. My brothers and I screamed and ran away, leaving our father behind. We abandoned him, in the worst state possible.
Many children are victimized by poverty, malnutrition, and discrimination to this day. I once encountered an infant who died of hypothermia. In its mouth was a small pebble. I believe that grownups are responsible for war. Thousands of children were orphaned on August 6, Without parents, these young children had to fend for themselves. They stole to get by. They were taken in by the wrong adults. They were later bought and sold by said adults. Orphans who grew up in Hiroshima harbor a special hatred for grownups.
I was eight when the bomb dropped. My older sister was She left early that morning to work on a tatemono sokai building demolition site and never came home. My parents searched for her for months and months. They never found her remains. My parents refused to send an obituary notice until the day that they died, in hopes that she was healthy and alive somewhere, somehow.
I too was affected by the radiation and vomited profusely after the bomb attack. My hair fell out, my gums bled, and I was too ill to attend school. My grandmother lamented the suffering of her children and grandchildren and prayed. The war was caused by the selfish misdeeds of adults. Many children fell victim because of it.
Alas, this is still the case today. Us adults must do everything we can to protect the lives and dignity of our children. Children are our greatest blessing. If we rid ourselves of greed and help each other instead, I believe that we will be able to coexist without war. I hope to live on with everyone else, informed by this logic. This is just a thought of mine — each person has differing thoughts and ideologies, which is what makes things challenging.
An alert warning went off. Just then, the alert warning turned into an air raid warning. I decided to stay inside the factory. The air raid warning eventually subsided. It must have been around I started to look forward to the baked potato that I had brought for lunch that day, when suddenly, I was surrounded by a blinding light. I immediately dropped on my stomach. The slated roof and walls of the factory crumbled and fell on top of my bare back. I longed for my wife and daughter, who was only several months old.
I rose to my feet some moments later. The roof had been completely blown off our building.
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