Thursday, March 12, 2009
Atomic Bomb Ends the War
After losing over 6,000 marines during the invasion of Iwo Jima, President Truman was reluctant to order a direct assault on Japan. Luckily, there was an alternative - the atomic bomb. American scientists led by J Robert Oppenheimer had been secretly developing a new kind of weapon that was capable of new levels of destruction. It had been successfully tested on July 16th, 1945, in the New Mexican desert. President Truman decided to utilize this new asset immediately and warned the Japanese that they faced "utter destruction" if they did not surrender. On August 6th, 1945, the US sent a lone bomber to the Japanese town of Hiroshima, an important industrial city. The bomber, named the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb nicknamed Little Boy and annihilated the entire city in an single blast. Those that did not die immediately suffered from radiation poisoning and did not live for long. Still, the Japanese refused to surrender. The Allies dropped a second bomb, named Fat Man, on the city of Nagasaki, destroying half the city. Emporer Hirohito was appalled at the destruction and ordered his military leaders to surrender. The official peace papers were drawn up and signed on September 2nd of the same year on the US battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. General MacArthur declared that peace had finally come to the Pacific.
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This bomb brought tons of destruction and suffering, it was a turning point war but it was really sad.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't know that the bombs were named Little Boy and Fat Man.
Nice!
ReplyDeleteIt's sad how we Americans consider ourselves civilized protectors of freedom, but we had to resort to such violent measures to end the war.
Hirohito made the right decision to order surrender.
ReplyDeleteNice summarization of the war's ending.
The whole atomic bomb thing is just terrible. I read somewhere (or perhaps heard it from my dad?) that Richard Feynman was one of the scientist working on creating the bomb. After it was tested, he started to regret helping make it becuase he suddenly realized how much destruction it would cause. =(
ReplyDeleteGood job!
ReplyDeleteI think it was the right decision for the emperor to surrender.
I think if the US had elaborated on its threat Japan might have surrendered without the need of using little boy and phat man. I think Japan didn't take the warning seriously. I wouldn't have either, because it really just sounds like a political euphemism for "back up son or i'll pop you."
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered if it was a good idea for the US to use the atomic bomb, since today the US is the only power in the world to use it upon another country.
ReplyDelete