On August 6, 1945, the United States becomes the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout.
Though the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War II, many historians argue that it also ignited the Cold War
Since 1940, the United States had been working on developing an atomic weapon, after having been warned that Nazi Germany was already conducting research into nuclear weapons. By the time the United States conducted the first successful test (an atomic bomb was exploded in the desert in New Mexico in July 1945), Germany had already been defeated. The war against Japan in the Pacific, however, continued to rage. President Harry S. Truman, warned by some of his advisers that any attempt to invade Japan would result in horrific American casualties, ordered that the new weapon be used to bring the war to a speedy end.
On August 6, 1945, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A blast equivalent to the power of 15,000 tons of TNT reduced four square miles of the city to ruins and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more died in the following weeks from wounds and radiation poisoning. Three days later, another bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, killing nearly 40,000 more people. A few days later, Japan announced its surrender.
In the years since the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, a number of historians have suggested that the weapons had a two-pronged objective. First, of course, was to bring the war with Japan to a speedy end and spare American lives. It has been suggested that the second objective was to demonstrate the new weapon of mass destruction to the Soviet Union.
By August 1945, relations between the Soviet Union and the United States had deteriorated badly. The Potsdam Conference between U.S. President Harry S. Truman, Russian leader Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill (before being replaced by Clement Attlee) ended just four days before the bombing of Hiroshima. The meeting was marked by recriminations and suspicion between the Americans and Soviets. Russian armies were occupying most of Eastern Europe. Truman and many of his advisers hoped that the U.S. atomic monopoly might offer diplomatic leverage with the Soviets. In this fashion, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan can be seen as the first shot of the Cold War.
If U.S. officials truly believed that they could use their atomic monopoly for diplomatic advantage, they had little time to put their plan into action. By 1949, the Soviets had developed their own atomic bomb and the nuclear arms race began.
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The original gender reveal. “Surprise, it’s a little boy!”
A fat little guy at that, but with an explosive personality!
War crime tribunals are only for the losers. Churchill , FDR and all their acolytes should have been hanged for treason.
e.g. ” Great Britain, in violation of all the ethics of civilized warfare that had theretofore been respected by our race, and in treacherous violation of solemnly assumed diplomatic covenants about “open cities”, had secretly carried out intensive bombing of such open cities in Germany for the express purpose of killing enough unarmed and defenceless men and women to force the German government reluctantly to retaliate and bomb British cities and thus kill enough helpless British men, women, and children to generate among Englishmen enthusiasm for the insane war to which their government had committed them.
It is impossible to imagine a governmental act more vile and more depraved than contriving death and suffering for its own people — for the very citizens whom it was exhorting to “loyalty” — and I suspect that an act of such infamous and savage treason would have nauseated even Genghis Khan or Hulagu or Tamerlane, Oriental barbarians universally reprobated for their insane blood-lust. History, so far as I recall, does not record that they ever butchered their own women and children to facilitate lying propaganda….In 1944 members of British Military Intelligence took it for granted that after the war Marshal Sir Arthur Harris would be hanged or shot for high treason against the British people…”
https://www.unz.com/runz/hitler-churchill-the-holocaust-and-the-war-in-ukraine/
There are rules in war?
Yes, for the losers. Think about the people killed in the fire bombing of Tokyo and the bombing of Berlin and Dresden.
Within the first few months after the bombing… between 90,000 and 166,000 people died in Hiroshima, while another 60,000 to 80,000 died in Nagasaki.
Tokyo WWII firebombing, the single most deadly bombing raid in history, remembered 70 years on
The atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have dominated the retelling of WWII history, but as a single attack the bombing of Tokyo was more destructive. The firestorms killed about 100,000 civilians and wiped out about half of the city.
Saw the Enola Gay at the Air and Space museum in Virginia, in the same place as the Apollo 11 capsule. So there’s that for credibility.
Some quotes from the “leaders” of the day:
General Dwight Eisenhower on learning of the planned bombings: “I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and voiced to [Secretary of War Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’.”
Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s Chief of Staff: “The use of this barbarous weapon…was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.”
Major General Curtis LeMay, 21st Bomber Command: “The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb…The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”
General Hap Arnold, US Army Air Forces: “The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air.” “It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”
Ralph Bird, Under Secretary of the Navy: “The Japanese were ready for peace, and they already had approached the Russians and the Swiss…In my opinion, the Japanese war was really won before we ever used the atom bomb.”
Brigadier General Carter Clarke, military intelligence officer who prepared summaries of intercepted cables for Truman: “When we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it…we used [Hiroshima and Nagasaki] as an experiment for two atomic bombs. Many other high-level military officers concurred.”
Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Pacific Fleet commander: “The use of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.”
Nothing like piling on, is there? Kick ’em when they’re down.
Might makes right is the Machiavellian way after all.
“If you kill enough of them they stop fighting.”
also Major General Curtis LeMay
If you accept their attempts at surrender (as was being attempted in the months prior, while thousands of Americans continued to die), they also stop fighting. In the end, they accepted basically the same conditional surrender terms that Truman, etc. had been rejecting for months. How many Americans DIED, all so that Truman could show off his new toy to the Russians?
All of your quotes are opinions and speculation, after the fact. Read some history about the end of the war in Japan and you will find out that the surrender almost did not happen since the die-hard militarists in Japan did not want to surrender. Peace feelers went out to Russia because the Japanese wanted to concentrate what forces they had left against the U.S., and not Russia. The die-hard militarists were willing to destroy their own country rather than surrendering to the U.S. The atomic bombs provided a way for the less militaristic to rationalize surrender. Leaders who know that surrender will destroy their power will do anything to keep power. Look at what’s happening in the U.S. at this time.
What’s worse the atomic munition or this:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/07/asia/japan-tokyo-fire-raids-operation-meetinghouse-intl-hnk/index.html
This is a cnn story too……
The Japanese did not surrender because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they we far more afraid of being invaded by the Russians than being bombed by the US. The US was unwilling to sacrifice the enormous number of troops it would have taken to occupy Japan by invasion, but the Russians and Chinese were already amassing troops for invasion… They had already defeated Japan in China, and were going to annex Japan if defeated. The US was desperate to keep that from happening, that is the real reason they used nuclear weapons… It allowed the US to claim the Japanese defeat, and for the Japanese to surrender to the US instead of being invaded and annexed by Russia….
Paul Tibbets flew the Enola Gay (44-86292) which he had named after his mother and chose the serial for. Dropped Little Boy. I share a very similar last name but have no relation. Fascinating stuff. Haven’t seen the new movie Oppenheimer, but there was an 80’s movie that I thought was good called Fat Man, Little Boy. It had Paul Newman in it if I recall correctly.
Indeed … it was ‘Fat Man and Little Boy’ … Paul Newman, Dwight Schultz (from the A-Team series) …
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097336/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_fat%2520ma
Truman and many of his advisers hoped that the U.S. atomic monopoly might offer diplomatic leverage with the Soviets. In this fashion, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan can be seen as the first shot of the Cold War.
While that is probably true their biggest concern was the cost in American lives in invading the Islands of Japan. It was estimated that well over a million armed forces men would die and Japan being very militaristic at the time would have to kill women and children up close and personal to win. The bomb did the same thing but made the deaths impersonal. Even the first nuke didn’t persuade Japan to surrender, but the second one did. Was it moral? I really can’t judge that, as I was not alive at the time.
Great story for the silver screen.
Too bad it can never work as advertised.
It was a lemon…they partied on that money an bought estates…just like the PUkreepians are doing right now.