Hiroshima and Its Importance in US History

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Table of Contents

Introduction
History to World War II
The Atomic Bomb
Aftermath of Atomic Bomb
Was the Use of Atomic Bomb Necessary? Were There no Alternatives?
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Hiroshima is the capital city of Hiroshima district, which is situated in the south west of the province Honshu in Japan. It is situated on minor deltaic plain with an area of around 656 square kilometers or 253 square miles, almost 280 kilometers in the west of Osaka at the head of Hiroshima Bay on Inland Sea. Its population is around 1,126,282 (According to census of 2000).

Hiroshima was formerly a fishing town, which spectacularly urbanized between 1600 and 1868 as a castle town of the Asano family. Through the end of1600’s, it had turned into one of Japan’s major cities. It operated as a bench of local government, and in the role of a business focal point and a port of in-house steering. Its affluence and inhabitants augmented by the end ofv1800’s and in near the beginning of 1900’s with its manufacturing development. Through World War II (1939-1945), Hiroshima was an imperative military base.

History to World War II

Hiroshima started as a town surrounding a fort constructed in 1593 by a feudal lord named, Terumoto Mori. This fort, smashed during the atomic bomb attack however moderately reconstructed, adopted the name Hiroshima which means “Broad Island” as of its position in the

Ota River delta. Eventually, bridges offered approach to the delta. More than 80 bridges linked six islands of the city not only with the mainland but with each other as well.

Hiroshima developed in the early stages because of its location on the important territory and the water routes linking central Honshu with Kyushu Island. These routes were the San-yo road and the Inland Sea. The Asano descendants, who proscribed the Hiroshima region all over the Tokugawa epoch that is, (1603–1867), supported the city’s trade and promoted industry.

Following the Meiji Reinstatement in 1868, Hiroshima extended as a progressive transport and industrialized focus. Key port services were accomplished by 1889, and five years afterward the city was connected with Kobe and Shimonoseki by railway. Hiroshima’s iron and steel industry was supplied with coal from Kyushu in north, whose manufactured goods in turn were used in a rising manufacturing business.

Hiroshima received the consideration of the world while a U.S. B-29 bomber (the Enola Gay) dropped the first atomic bomb ever utilized in fighting on the city, devastating it. On August 1925, the atomic bomb, which had been ironically called “Little Boy” was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, leaving at least eighty thousand people dead instantaneously. The total number of casualties (people, who died of injuries and radiation) ranges from 90,000 to 140,000.

The question arises how such a terrible thing could ever happen, because it simply cannot be justified in any possible way. Now it seems to be just a horrible nightmare or something entirely inconceivable. However, we have to admit that there were some reasons for the Truman to do it. The main purpose of those attacks was to compel Japan to surrender and yield to the Potsdam ultimatum.

It must also be mentioned that the sites for bombing were very carefully chosen. The plan was that the explosion must cause considerable damage and demonstrate the whole destructive power of the new weapon; therefore such big cities as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen. Naturally, Hiroshima was of some military and industrial importance but as it has already been mentioned, it did not pose any threat to the American forces.

The Atomic Bomb

The atomic bomb is a volatile mechanism that relies on the discharge of energy in a nuclear rejoinder called “Fission” denotes breaking up the atomic nuclei. The discharge of energy attained by this technique is approximately a million counts larger than an equivalent mass of chemical high-explosive. The bomb it creates was the most remarkable and distressing function of science during World War II.

Theory of the Bomb

That mass could be changed into energy was envisaged by Albert Einstein near the beginning of the 20th century. It was established experimentally when John D. Cockcroft and Ernest Walton first broke up the atom in 1932. But not until 1939, when a totally novel spectacle was revealed by Otto Hahn and Fritz Stresemann, did a net gain of energy came out be potential. Neutrons hitting the element uranium caused it to fission into fragments having less mass than the initial atom. This mass loss became visible as the energy of motion of the fragments and in released energy.

Surrounded by the bits of the break up atom were recently shaped neutrons. It was accepted that these could come across other uranium nuclei, make them to fission, and begin a series of reaction. If the series of reactions were restricted to a reasonable velocity, a novel source of energy could result. Permitted to proceed unhindered, the series of reaction could discharge energy speedily and with volatile strength.

There have been a number of questions to physicists since 1939 like what could be the exact number of neutrons released in fission? And which elements may not detain the neutrons but would restrain or decrease their velocity, thus escalating the probability of uranium fission? And whether only the less heavy and rare isotope of uranium (U-235) fission or the common isotope (U-238) could be used? They realized that fission every time discharges a small number of neutrons. A chain reaction, consequently, was hypothetically probable, if not too many neutrons escaped from the mass or were confined by impurities. Common water was established to control the neutrons well but to capture too many; strong water, obtainable only in small quantities, and graphite, never before produced at such high levels of cleanliness, verified preferable. U-235 was concluded to be the fissionable component. Though, uranium as found in nature comprised of only 0.7% U-235; it needed to be separated from the 99.3% U-238.

Development of the Bomb

Numerous scientists were alarmed by the prospect that Nazi Germany may perhaps manufacture an atomic bomb. The Hungarian-born physicists Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, and Edward Teller convinced Einstein to bring about these frights identified to U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Stimulated by a letter from Einstein, in late 1939, President Roosevelt planned a U.S. endeavor to get hold of an atomic weapon before the Germans. Considerable support did not start, nevertheless, awaiting his controller of scientific actions for the war, Vannevar Bush, took responsibility. The plan was named the Manhattan Project when it came under U.S. Army control in the middle of 1942.

U-235 Gun-Type Atomic Bomb

Since the qualms were so vast at each stride, each and every development and practice was tracked until revealed futile. Out of a number of techniques examined for extrication of the two uranium isotopes, gaseous diffusion and electromagnetic separation were accepted into production at Oak Ridge, Tenn. As follows uranium-235 was supplemented from its common 0.7% to weapons grade of more than 90%. This decontaminated substance was subsequently formed into the mechanism of a gun-type weapon at the Los Alamos, N.Mex., laboratory led by J. Robert Oppenheimer. Two pieces of U-235, separately not adequately big to uphold a chain reaction, were brought together quickly in a gun barrel to form a supercritical mass that exploded instantly. Assurance in this version was so high that it was not experienced. Its first and only use was in bombing the Japanese city of Hiroshima, on Aug. 6, 1945.

Aftermath of Atomic Bomb

Through the commencement of World War II, Hiroshima was the seventh- major city in Japan, with a population of 350,000. Throughout the war it was a local military command center in addition to a main rail center and manufacturer of war equipment. The city stayed practically unharmed in anticipation of 1945.

The US government was in a hurry to end the war and to achieve this goal they made up their mind to utilize the atomic bomb, which was recently developed, against Japan.

The first bomb blasted over a spot close to the middle of Hiroshima at 8:15 A.M. on August 6, 1945, devastating almost everything inside a radius of 6,000 to 8,000 feet (1,830–2,450 meters). The mutilation further than this region was substantial. More than 71,000 people were murdered, and many later expired of wounds and from the outcomes of radiation.

During a period of five years, casualties because of straight contact to the bomb had arrived at a probable 200,000. Survivors were even now dying of leukemia, pernicious anemia, and other diseases provoked by radiation. Social, economic, and emotional problems were also on a rise.

Approximately 98% of Hiroshima’s edifices were smashed or relentlessly broken. Subsequent to the bombing it was thought that nothing would grow in this atomic desert for 75 years. But within a few months plants were budding and rebuilding of the city was in progress.

The effects of the bombing were devastating. The explosion had a blast equivalent to approximately 13 kilotons of TNT. According to the official records, at least ninety per cent of buildings in Hiroshima were either destroyed or considerably damaged.

Unexpected and Unknown Effects of Radiation

Doctors of the Red Cross mission could not understand what they were dealing with because these symptoms of radiation overdose were almost unknown to them. Dr Sasaki says that hospitals were teaming with the wounded people, those who managed to survive the short-term effects of the explosion, but after a while, Dr Sasaki encountered something he had never seen before the effects of radiation. They were blood disorders, vomiting, and hair shedding. These are the symptoms of leukemia or blood cancer as one may call it. The shortage of supplies and medical instruments also hampered the work of physicians. It must be also taken into consideration that the long-tem effects of radiation overdose, which was caused by that atomic explosion, are still very noticeable.

Insufficient Medical Aid

Out of one hundred and fifty total number of the doctors in the city, sixty five out rightly expired during the attack and those who survived were also injured and in a state of shock. Their clinics, hospitals equipments and even medicines were smashed. So was the case with nurses, out of one thousand seven hundred and eighty of the total one thousand six hundred and fifty four were either dead or seriously wounded.¹⁵ The largest hospital of the city was that of Red Cross, where only six out of thirty doctors were able to work. Out of almost two hundred nurses hardly ten were able to serve the patients. There was only one uninjured doctor named, Dr. Sasaki. After the attack he was the only one to provide medical aid to the wounded chief surgeon in addition to all injured doctors, nurses and countless patients, with his pair of glasses lost and no appropriate useable medical supplies.

Was the Use of Atomic Bomb Necessary? Were There no Alternatives?

Since past sixty years US government has been arguing that the sole purpose of using the atomic bomb during World War II at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was simply to stop the war. Undeniably, a passionate argument has always been there that were the bombs essential to prevent the war and were there really no options. In this connection a new theory has been presented that argues not only about the presence of other alternatives instead of bombs but also convinces that the bombs were absolutely an inappropriate option to end the war. This research study is presented by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa under the title “Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan”.

Hasegawa has first time referred to Soviet archives also in addition to Japanese and US sources over the topic while referring to a great deal of studies by a number of historians and thus, has provided a new vision to the decision making practice of Japan which was concluded in the ultimate choice of Japanese emperor Hirohito “Bear the Unbearable” and finally admit defeat. The ultimate finding of this minutely conducted research is really strange. A detailed minute to minute investigation of all how and why factors available for Japanese administration concludes that Soviet Union pronouncement for the war on August 8, 1945 made them give up and definitely not the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hasegawa concludes that US justification of nuclear attacks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a step to end the war is no more acceptable.

This conclusion seem to have sustained the “Revisionist” analysis about the use atomic bombs, whereas it contradicts the “Traditional” explanation that the purpose of atomic bombs was to discontinue the war and that there were really no other sensible options left. The Revisionists further argue that President Truman and his consultants were actually not willing to contemplate any other alternatives to nuclear weapons as their purpose was also to exhibit their nuclear supremacy to the Soviet Union and the rest of the world. Briefly, by ending the war through the atomic bombs US have commenced the “Nuclear Age”, and have unlocked a chain of “Atomic Diplomacy” that give a boost to the rising cold war.

Moreover, Hasegawa explains that Truman had strongly made up his mind to use the atomic bombs and had abandoned any available and even applicable alternatives as he was willing to take revenge of Pearl Harbor and the savagery at Pacific War. Therefore no attempt was made for Japan to admit defeat unreservedly. Otherwise safety of Emperor Hirohito could be assured but in that case the prospects of exposing the nuclear power and the Pearl Harbor revenge would have missed, if Japanese had agreed to the terms.

Conclusion

After the first bombing President Truman said the following words, “If they do not accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth.” His announcement proves that this attack was to scare the Japanese government into surrendering. Moreover, we cannot say that the disastrous of the atomic explosion were unknown to the US government, because the first nuclear test was carried out in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16. One of the scientists, who witnessed this event, described it in the following way, “the earth had opened and the skies had split or like the moment of creation when the God said “Let there be light”.

Therefore, we may arrive at the conclusion that President Truman did not even try to avert this catastrophe. Now at the beginning of the twenty-first century this catastrophe seems to be something impossible something that will never happen to us. However, we cannot disregard the existing anger, because no one is insured against it. It appears that the only way to avoid new Hiroshima or Nagasaki is the nuclear disarmament.

Although, Truman argues that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were targets of armed forces, however more than one hundred and ten thousand civilians and twenty thousand soldiers were killed in a single go. Countless more expired as an aftermath of radiation which assures that whether it was used to stop the war or for any kind of revenge or for any other political reason, destroying so many lives in a single instant can never be justified as a positive and correct decision and the atomic bomb has proved itself as a mode of mass destruction promoting terrorism.

References

Badash, Lawrence. “atomic bomb.” Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier Online. 2008. Web.

Chan, James. “Hiroshima (city).” Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier Online. 2008. Web.

Dempster, Prue. “Hiroshima.” Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online. 2008. Web.

Hakim, Joy. A History of US War, Peace and all that Jazz. New York: Oxford. University Press, 1995.

Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi.”Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan”. Harvard University Press, 2005.

Hersey, John. Hiroshima. New York: Random House, 1974.

Kenneth B. “Hiroshima.” World Book Online Reference Center. 2008. Web.

Mikiso, Hane. Modern Japan: A Historical Survey. Westview Press, 2005.

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