World War Two: The Bombing Of Nagasaki

The Bombing of Nagasaki
There were many means of warfare during World War II. The Atomic bomb was by far one of the destructive of them all. The atomic bomb was capable of destroying an entire city. The bombing of nagasaki8 made the atomic bomb one of the most devastating weapons at that time.
An August 9th The second nuclear weapon of all time was released upon the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The plane that dropped the nuclear weapon was a B-29 bomber. The name of the plane was called Bockscar. “The plane was piloted by Major Charles Sweeny.”(Kelly, Cynthia page 1)”.”The engineer that made the bomb was Dr. Frederick Ashworth” (Kelly Cynthia page 1). The atomic bomb was called “Fat Man”. The bomb was 10 feet tall and weighed 10,800 lbs. The

bomb was 60 inches in diameter. “Fat Man was 10 times as powerful as its counterpart “Little Boy”. “Fat Man” was originally designed to be a gun type weapon. “Fat Man” used plutonium-240. The Engineers that made the weapon used plutonium-240 because of its rapid spontaneous fission rate. The bomb was an implosion type bomb. The implosion started because of a uranium-235 sphere and 64 detonators that drove the plutonium-240 into the uranium core. “Approximately 13.6 pounds of plutonium was used for its payload.” (Kelly, Cynthia page 1) ”The explosive force was equal to a 22-Kiloton blast.” ( History.com Staff page 1)
“Fat Man” was dropped at11:02 A.M. The bomb exploded 1,650feet above the city. The atomic cloud reached 17,000 meters. Although the destruction was bad the landscape surrounding the city help protect the city from the blast. The bomb had a 22-kiloton blast. “Fat Man” caused 1,005 kilometer per hour winds. The heat created by the implosion was up to 3,900 degrees Celsius. The amount of destruction was 2.6 square miles.
The reasons why Nagasaki was chosen was that it was a major military port. Nagasaki was also chosen because the city was a big city and it was not damaged that much by bombing. The city wasn’t a major part of Japanese culture so it wasn’t going to effect the cultural status of Japan. The leaders of the operation was afraid that if they bombed Tokyo the country would be hurled into chaos. The original target however were Kokura, but was degraded due to weather. Other targets on the list of targets was Kyoto and Niigata. Nagasaki was closest to Kokura so the pilot decided to fly to Nagasaki because their fuel was low from the flight to Kokura.
After the bombing 40,000 people were killed. “Approximately 1.176kilograms of plutonium was converted to energy” (Kelly, Cynthia Page 1). During the initial blast most of the people killed were incinerated. Most deaths were Korean workers. Those that did survive the blast died from severe burns and radiation sickness. Few people lived after the bombing and lived complete lives. Those that survived everything had scars and mutations. The mutations were passed down to the survivor’s descendants. The bomb left fires burning in the city for up to three days.
There were many results of the bombing of Nagasaki. One of the most note able was that on August 15, 1945 Emperor Hirohito surrendered his country unconditionally. It hurled the world into the Nuclear age. And it changed the survivors of the Nagasaki bombing lives for every.
Although there were many means for the end World War II, one of the most deadly was the atomic bomb. The bombing of Nagasaki was the most devastating bombing recorded during the time of World War II. That is why the bombing of Nagasaki made the atomic bomb one of the most destructive weapons of that time.