Hiroshima Bombing Dbq

1050 Words3 Pages

There are “two examples of the combat use of nuclear weapons in history” the US armed forces, in the final stages of World War II. The officially declared goal was to speed up the surrendering of Japan, although this was meant to stop the war as soon possible, with shedding as little blood as possible, still, many innocent people were killed, and this started the arms race between the US and USSR. The Hiroshima bombing affected lives of thousands and thousands of people, both in Japan and the States, which caused Americans to question whether this decision was the right one or not. Truman ordered the atomic bombing on August 3, but due to the cloudiness over the target there was a delay. On the morning of August 6, 1945 an American …show more content…

The city produced guns, ships and other military equipment. Nagasaki has not been exposed to large-scale bombing prior to the explosion of the atomic bomb, but on August 1, 1945 a few incendiary bombs were dropped, damaging the south-western part of the city. The main target of the US atomic bomb was the city of Kokura, Nagasaki was the second plan. On August 9, the American bomber B-29, under the command of Major Charles Sweeney,“took off from Tinian Island”. In contrast to the first bombing, the second one faced numerous technical problems. Before the take off, there was fuel pump problem detected in one of the fuel tanks, and still, the crew decided to conduct the flight as planned. However, after the team saw that the city had 70% cloudiness, which does not allow for bombing, the B-29 headed for Nagasaki. When the two B-29s were visible to the air defense of Japan, the Japanese took them for their own and did not announce an alarm. The B-29 arrived at Nagasaki,and as it turned out, it was also covered with clouds. Sweeney reluctantly approved to drop the bomb at the target, even with much less …show more content…

If the bomb was dropped onto the south, between the business and residential districts, the damage would have been much stronger. In general, although the power of the atomic blast in Nagasaki was more than in Hiroshima, the devastating effect of the explosion was smaller. It was caused by a combination of factors - the presence of hills in Nagasaki, as well as the fact that the epicenter of the explosion was above the industrial zone - all this helped protect some areas of the city from the effects of the explosion. Even though the damage wasn't as big as the previous bombing, there were still many victims. One of the survivors, Sumiteru Taniguchi, says “every day I wondered when I would die. Every day I would scream, Kill me! Kill me!" The nuclear explosion over Nagasaki affected an area of approximately 110 km², of which 22 is water and 84 were partially populated. According to the report Nagasaki Prefecture, "the people and the animals were killed almost instantly" at a distance of 1 km from the epicenter. Almost all the houses in a radius of 2 km were destroyed.Of the 52,000 buildings in Nagasaki, 14,000 were destroyed 5400 seriously damaged.Only 12% of the buildings remained

Open Document