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The effects of radiation on health
The effects of radiation on health
The effects of radiation on health
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Why Hiroshima was such an ideal target for American bombing In the year 1945, On the 6th of August precisely, at exactly 15 minutes past 8 in the morning (8.15am) the little boy (A-bomb) exploded showering Hiroshima city with radiation, x-rays and gamma rays. The eyewitness of the events in Hiroshima begins by narrating how these events took place. The Atomic bomb starts as a light in the sky, then turns to a magnesium burn blistering in the sky, a sheet of sun and finally into a soundless flash. Within a fraction of a second, more than half of the city was destroyed leaving more than 80000 people dead and more injured. In the book Hiroshima by John Hersey, he looked at several factors that made Hiroshima an ideal place for American bombing, the experiences of characters in his book and their occupation before the attack and the side effects of radiation sickness. Also in this essay, I explained why the medical staff and rescuers effort to save the victims had so little impact immediately after the explosion. The city of Hiroshima was an ideal target for various reasons. First, Hiroshima is situated at the wider, delta of river Ota making it nearly level and rising a little over the sea level. These personal stories help to show how Hiroshima had no unity as people lived their own lives. For instance, most characters we encounter live by themselves and people who have families like Dr, Fuji does not live with them where his wife resides in Osaka, and Fuji resides in Hiroshima. These anecdotes show that Hiroshima had no united political or nationwide reaction to the attack, however, after the bomb, all the affected came together as one community despite their differences. “One feeling they did seem to share, however, was a curious kind of related community spirit . . . Pride in the way they and their fellow survivors had stood up to a dreadful ordeal’’ (Hersey
watching a neighbor tearing down his house because it lay in the path of an
The book “Hiroshima,” written by John Hersey is an alluring piece coupled with an underlining, mind grabbing message. The book is a biographical text about the lives of six people: Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamura, Father Kleinsorge, Dr. Sasaki, and Rev. Tanimoto, in Hiroshima, Japan. It speaks of these aforementioned individuals’ lives, following the dropping of the world’s first atomic bomb on 06 Aug 1945, and how it radically changed them, forever. John Hersey, the author of “Hiroshima,” attempts to expose the monstrosity of the atomic bomb, through his use of outstanding rhetoric, descriptive language, and accounts of survivors. He also attempts to correlate the Japanese civilians of Hiroshima to the American public, in hope that Americans
As a matter of first importance, the characters in the story are incredibly affected by the Hiroshima bomb dropping. The bomb being
In the book Hiroshima, author paints the picture of the city and its residents' break point in life: before and after the drop of the "Fat Boy". Six people - six different lives all shattered by the nuclear explosion. The extraordinary pain and devastation of a hundred thousand are expressed through the prism of six stories as they seen by the author. Lives of Miss Toshiko Sasaki and of Dr. Masakazu Fujii serve as two contrasting examples of the opposite directions the victims' life had taken after the disaster. In her "past life" Toshiko was a personnel department clerk; she had a family, and a fiancé. At a quarter past eight, August 6th 1945, the bombing took her parents and a baby-brother, made her partially invalid, and destroyed her personal life. Dr. Fujii had a small private hospital, and led a peaceful and jolly life quietly enjoying his fruits of the labor. He was reading a newspaper on the porch of his clinic when he saw the bright flash of the explosion almost a mile away from the epicenter. Both these people have gotten through the hell of the A-Bomb, but the catastrophe affected them differently. Somehow, the escape from a certain death made Dr. Fujii much more self-concerned and egotistic. He began to drown in self-indulgence, and completely lost the compassion and responsibility to his patients.
In John Hersey's book, Hiroshima, he provides a detailed account of six people and how the bombing of Hiroshima affected their lives. John Heresy felt it was important to focus his story on six individuals to create a remembrance that war affects more than just nations and countries, but actual human beings. Moreover, the book details the effect the bomb had on the city of Hiroshima. “Houses all around were burning, and the wind was now blowing hard.” (Hersey, 27).
Japan will never forgotten the day of August 6 and 9 in 1945; we became the only victim by the atomic bombs in the world. When the atomic was dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was World War II. The decision of dropping the atomic bombs was affected by different backgrounds such as the Manhattan Project, and the Pacific War. At Hiroshima City, the population of Hiroshima was 350,000 when the atomic bomb dropped. Also, the population of Nagasaki was around 250,000 ("Overview."). However, there was no accurate number of death because all of documents were burned by the atomic bombs. On the other hand, the atomic bombs had extremely strong power and huge numbers of Japanese who lived in Hiroshima
The protagonists of the story are the six characters. The six characters struggle to survive after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. They had to overcome diversity due to the disfigurement, loss of love ones and their homes due to the bomb.
Sakue Shimoshira, a 10 year old at the time of the Nagasaki Bombing, tells her experience, “On that unforgettable day of August 9th 1945, the air-raid sirens started ringing out from early in the morning, and we children rushed to our regular dugout… There was a flash of light, and the ...
“Hiroshima,” brings to light the psychological impact the detonation of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima had. Following the atomic bomb, over a hundred thousand people were dead and another one hundred thousand people severely injured in a city with a population of 250,000. Dr. Sasaki and Mr. Tanimoto were left wondering why they had survived while so many others had perished, this is known as survivor’s guilt and it can be very heavy and dangerous baggage to carry. On the historic day of the first use of the atomic weapon, Mr. Tanimoto spent most of his time helping people however, one night he was walking in the dark and he tripped over an injured person. He felt a sense of shame for accidentally hurting wounded people, who were in enough pain
After Truman decided to bomb Japan, they had to plan it out. They first had to decide where to release the bomb. They ended up choosing Hiroshima, Japan and Nagasaki, Japan as their two locations. Hiroshima was a significant military city in the war. It confined two army headquarters and was Japan’s communication center (World War 2 Atomic Bomb 1). Hiroshima was also a huge industrial city and had not been bombed before so it would let Japan see the wrath of the United States (Koeller 1). The planning and actual event of the bombing went great. On August 6, 1945 at 8:15 in the morning the bomb was dropped. The bomb that landed in Hiroshima was called the “Little Boy” (World War 2 Atomic Bomb 2). The bomb ended up killing about 170,000 people. 70,000 people died the first day and 100,000 people died in the next few months due to the radioactivity of the bomb and burns fro...
Hiroshima is not only a significant military center but also a communication center. Being one of the major seaports in Southern Japan, many ships and boats come and leave everyday, making it to have a population more than 255,000. Its landscape also made it stand out to be the chosen city. It is surrounded by mountains meaning that it will increase the level of destruction making it a better potential target.
Neither city was a military or naval base. Hiroshima was “. on a river delta and had been a fishing settlement for centuries” (Lawton) while Nagasaki was a shipbuilding city. Furthermore, Nagasaki had been bombed five times in the twelve months previous to the assault by the U.S. (“The Bombing of Nagasaki”). Both cities were also highly populated, leading to high casualty levels.
In his essay "Hiroshima," John Berger examines the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. As he flips through the pages of the book Unforgettable Fire, he begins to relay his own views on the dropping of the A-bomb. Berger suggests his belief that it was an act of terrorism on the Japanese.
Headquarters (Robinson). In order to monitor all of the results, the city had to be untouched, meaning the target had to have no signs of previous bombings. Based on these requirements, the designation of Hiroshima for the bombing was not a simple determination. After a target was selected and the weapon was developed, testing was set to begin. On July 16, 1945, the first test in Alamogordo, New Mexico, proved that the bomb was prepared for release onto the Japanese population (Robinson).The calculations revealed the bomb’s maximum blast effect was intended for a target over one mile in radius, meaning the population had to be crowded, making it perfect for urban Hiroshima.
When the “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima in less than a second it the fireball had consumed 900 feet of land. The damage only got worse from there on. As time ticked by two-thirds of Hiroshima’s buildings were destroyed and a black rain fell down on places untouched by the bomb. Black rain is dirt, dust, soot and highly radioactive particles that were sucked into the air at the time of the fireball. At this point America knew what is was doing yet they continued to wreck Japan. When the second bomb, “Fat Man”, was dropped on Nagasaki the terror was just the same. In seconds 40 percent of Nagasaki was in ruins. Not only did it blow apart everything in sight, but it also haunted the crops and lives for years after the bomb. “Two years after the bombing plants growing at ground zero presaged the frightening