Essay On The Bombing Of Hiroshima

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In August 1945, a uranium-type atomic bomb was dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, Japan, during the final stages of World War II. The following months after the bomb was dropped, many people were killed by burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries. These effects lasted about 4-6 months. Around 90,000 to 166,000 people died either instantaneous or the lasting effects. On August 15th, just days after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan announced their surrender to the Allies. Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain the only two cities atomic bombed during wartime. On August 6th, 1945, on a clear, sunny day, there was a single American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, piloted by 29 year-old air-force colonel named Paul W. Tibbets, who had trained for months before the dropping of the atomic bomb, nicked named ‘Little boy’. He had spent these months dropping mock equivalents made of explosives and concrete onto Utah or the Pacific Ocean. There were no Japanese to challenge this deadly plane. The target of said bomb was the Aioi Bridge, which spanned the Ota River, at the heart of the city. At 8:15 Hiroshima time, the crew of the Enola Gay dropped the bomb. Forty-three seconds later, at an altitude of 1,900 ft., the Little Boy exploded in an awesome cloud of fire and smoke. In that time, and this time, we regard the bombing of Hiroshima with stark simplicity: one bomb, one city, and punishment to the Japanese for attacking Pearl Harbor. But, of course, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was not so simple. There was much conflict and this discussion is charged with emotion. Americans both felt deep satisfaction and anxiety and these feelings have co-existed ever since. Part of us wishes to believe that we had done the correct ... ... middle of paper ... ... Was it correct to drop a bomb to ‘punish’ the civilians of Japan? Yet, despite all that, the weapon of massive destruction ended the war, and saved more lives than ended; it was vital to end the war; the Japanese cabinet had vowed to sacrifice as many lives to defend their homeland. The devastating firebombing of Tokyo had not caused the officials to waver. Only something as powerful as an atomic bomb was sufficient to convince Emperor Hirohito to stop the war on reasonable terms. While it was an American hand that released the bomb, and the Japanese died in droves, the bomb was everyone and their offspring’s problem. Had the Japanese, or Germans, or the British developed the bomb first, they surely would have used it. No one’s hands were entirely clean. Many had lamented and rejoiced all the same of the destruction of Hiroshima, thus making it The World’s Bomb.

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