International Conflict - Aspects of war Essay
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Taufiq Zainal S&E 10.3
The United States, with assistance from the United Kingdom and Canada, designed and built the first atomic bombs under what was called the Manhattan Project. The project was initially started when European refugee scientists and American scientists feared that the Nazi's would also be conducting a full-scale bomb development program which was later discovered to be much smaller and further behind than first predicted. The project itself eventually employed over 130,000 people at its peak at over thirty institutions spread over the United States, and cost a total of nearly US$2 billion, making it one of the largest and most costly research and development programs of all time. The first nuclear device, called "Gadget," was detonated during the "Trinity" test near Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were the second and third to be detonated and as of 2007 the only ones ever detonated in a military action. U.S. President Harry S. Truman was initially unaware of the Manhattan Project until Franklin Roosevelt's death. President Harry S. Truman asked U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to head a group of prominent citizens called the Interim Committee, which included three respected scientists and had been set up to advise the President on the military, political, and scientific questions raised by the possible use of the first atomic bomb. On May 31, Henry L. Stimson put his conclusions to the committee and a four-man Scientific Panel. Stimson supported use of the bomb, stating "Our great task is to bring this war to a prompt and successful conclusion." But Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the Scientific Panel members, stated that a single atomic bomb would probably kill twenty thousand people, and the target should be a military one, not civilian. Another scientist, Dr. Arthur Holly Compton, suggested dropping the bomb on an isolated part of Japan to demonstrate its power while minimising civilian deaths. But this was soon dismissed, since if Japan was to be notified in advance of an attack, the bomber might be shot down; alternately, the first bomb might fail to detonate. In early July, on the way to the "Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender" (Potsdam) Deceleration, Truman re-examined the decision to use the bomb. In the end, Truman made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. His stated intention in ordering the bombings was to bring about a quick resolution of the war by inflicting destruction, and instilling fear of further destruction, that was sufficient to cause Japan to surrender. The atomic bomb was still a highly guarded secret and was not mentioned in the declaration.
Several targets were chosen to employ the two atomic weapons. The Target Committee rejected the use of the weapon against a strictly military objective because of the chance of missing a small target not surrounded by a larger urban area. The psychological effects on Japan were of great importance to the committee members. They also agreed that the initial use of the weapon should be sufficiently spectacular for its importance to be internationally recognised. The committee, recommended Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and the arsenal at Kokura as possible targets. The committee felt Kyoto, as an intellectual centre of Japan, had a population better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon. Hiroshima was chosen because of its large size, its being an important army depot and the potential that the bomb would cause greater destruction because the city was surrounded by hills which would have a "focusing effect". After General Spaatz reported that Hiroshima was the only targeted city without prisoner of war camps, Washington decided to assign it highest priority. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson struck Kyoto from the list because of its cultural significance, over the objections of General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project. According to Professor Edwin O. Reischauer, Stimson "had known and admired Kyoto ever since his honeymoon there several decades earlier." On July 25 General Carl Spaatz was ordered to bomb one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, or Nagasaki as soon after August 3rd as weather permitted and the remaining cities as additional weapons became available.
The state of Hiroshima before the bombing was a city of some industrial and military significance. A number of military camps were located nearby, including the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defence of all of southern Japan. Hiroshima was a minor supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications centre, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. It was one of several Japanese cities left deliberately untouched by American bombing, allowing an ideal environment to measure the damage caused by the atomic bomb. The centre of the city contained several reinforced concrete buildings and lighter structures. Outside the centre, the area was congested by a dense collection of small wooden workshops set among Japanese houses. A few larger industrial plants lay near the outskirts of the city. The houses were of wooden construction with tile roofs, and many of the industrial buildings also were of wood frame construction. The city as a whole was highly susceptible to fire damage. At the time of the attack the population was approximately 255,000.
About an hour before the bombing, Japanese early warning radar detected the approach of some American aircraft headed for the southern part of Japan. An alert was given and radio broadcasting stopped in many cities, among them Hiroshima. At nearly 08:00 (Hiroshima time), the radar operator in Hiroshima determined that the number of planes coming in was very small, probably not more than three and the air raid alert was lifted. To conserve fuel and aircraft, the Japanese had decided not to intercept small formations. The normal radio broadcast warning was given to the people that it might be advisable to go to air-raid shelters if B-29s were actually sighted, but no raid was expected. August 6 was chosen for the bombing of Hiroshima because there had previously been cloud over the target. The release at 08:15 (Hiroshima time) was uneventful, and the gravity bomb "Little Boy", took 57 seconds to fall from the aircraft to the predetermined detonation height about 600 meters above the city. It created a blast equivalent to about 13 kilotons of TNT. The radius of total destruction was about 1.6 km, with resulting fires across 11.4 km². Infrastructure damage was estimated at 90 percent of Hiroshima's buildings being either damaged or completely destroyed. As a result of the blast an estimated minimum 90,000 people died within two months. Included in this number were about 2,000 Japanese Americans and another 800-1,000 who lived on as 'hibakusha', a Japanese term meaning, "explosion-affected people".
After the Hiroshima bombing, President Harry S. Truman announced, "If they do not 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." The Japanese government still did not react to the Potsdam Declaration. Emperor Hirohito, the government and the war council were considering four conditions for surrender, the preservation of the kokutai (Imperial institution and national polity), assumption by the Imperial Headquarters of responsibility for disarmament and demobilisation, no occupation and delegation to the Japanese government of the punishment of war criminals. The Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov informed Tokyo of the Soviet Union's unilateral abrogation of the Soviet - Japanese Neutrality Pact on April 5th. At two minutes past midnight on August 9th, soviet infantry, armour, and air forces launched an invasion of Manchuria. Four hours later, word reached Tokyo that the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan. The senior leadership of the Japanese Army began preparations to impose martial law on the nation, with the support of Minister of War Korechicka Anami, in order to stop anyone attempting to make peace.
The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials. In contrast to many modern aspects of Hiroshima, the bulk of the residences were of old-fashioned Japanese construction, consisting of wood or wood-frame buildings, with wood walls (with or without plaster), and tile roofs. Many of the smaller industries and business establishments were also housed in buildings of wood or other materials not designed to withstand explosions. Nagasaki had never been subjected to large-scale bombing prior to the explosion of a nuclear weapon there. On August 1 1945 however, a number of conventional high-explosive bombs were dropped on the city. A few hit in the shipyards and dock areas in the southwest portion of the city, several hit the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works and six bombs landed at the Nagasaki Medical School and Hospital, with three direct hits on buildings there. While the damage from these bombs was relatively small, it created considerable concern in Nagasaki and many people, principally school children were evacuated to rural areas for safety, thus reducing the population in the city at the time of the nuclear attack. To the north of Nagasaki there was a camp holding British Commonwealth prisoners of war, some of whom were working in the coal mines and only found out about the bombing when they came to the surface. At least eight known prisoners of war died from the bombing.
On the morning of August 9 1945, the U.S. B-29 Super fortress, carried the nuclear bomb "Fat Man", with Kokura as the primary target and Nagasaki the secondary target. The mission plan for the second attack was nearly identical to that of the Hiroshima mission, with two B-29's flying an hour ahead as weather scouts and two additional B-29's in Sweeney's flight for instrumentation and photographic support of the mission. Sweeney took off with his weapon already armed but with the electrical safety plugs still engaged. By the time they reached Kokura a half hour later, a 7/10 cloud cover had obscured the city, prohibiting the visual attack required by orders. After three runs over the city due to bad weather, and with fuel running low because a transfer pump on a reserve tank had failed before take-off, they headed for their secondary target, Nagasaki. At about 07:50 Japanese time, an air raid alert was sounded in Nagasaki, but the "all clear" signal was given at 08:30. When only two B-29 Super fortresses were sighted at 10:53, the Japanese apparently assumed that the planes were only on reconnaissance and no further alarm was given. At 11:01, a last minute break in the clouds over Nagasaki allowed them to visually sight the target as ordered. The "Fat Man" weapon, was dropped over the city's industrial valley. 43 seconds later it exploded 469 meters above the ground exactly halfway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works (Torpedo Works) in the north. This was nearly 3 kilometres northwest of the planned hypocenter; the blast was confined to the Urakami Vally and a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills.
The resulting explosion had a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT. The explosion generated heat estimated at 7000 degrees Fahrenheit and winds that were estimated at 624 mph. According to some estimates, about 70,000 of Nagasaki's 240,000 residents were killed instantly, and up to 60,000 were injured. The radius of total destruction was about 1.6 km, followed by fires across the northern portion of the city to 3.2 km south of the bomb. The total number of residents killed may have been as many as 80,000, including the few who died from radiation poisoning in the following months. An unknown number of survivors from the Hiroshima bombing made their way to Nagasaki and were bombed again.
The United States expected to have another atomic bomb ready for use in the third week of August, with three more in September and a further three in October. There was already discussion in the War Department about conserving the bombs in production until Operation Downfall, the projected invasion of Japan had begun. Operation Downfall was the overall Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War 2. The operation was cancelled when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan. Operation Downfall consisted of two parts - Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. Set to begin in November 1945, Operation Olympic was intended to capture the southern third of the southernmost main Japanese island of Kyushu, with the recently captured island of Okinawa to be used as a staging area. Later, in the spring of 1946, Operation Coronet was the planned invasion of the Kanto plain near Tokyo on the Japanese island of Honshu. Airbases on Kyushu captured in Operation Olympic would allow land-based air support for Operation Coronet. Casualty predictions varied widely but were extremely high for both sides, depending on the degree to which Japanese civilians resisted the invasion, estimates ran into the millions for American casualties and the tens of millions for Japanese casualties.
I am in favour of the decision to drop the bombs generally because asserts the fact that the bombings ended the war months sooner than would otherwise have been the case, thus saving many lives. If the bombings didn't take place, there would have been massive casualties on both sides in the impending Operation Downfall invasion of Japan, and that even if Operation Downfall was postponed, the conventional bombings and the Japanese occupations in Asia will cause a tremendous loss of life. It was almost impossible to for Japan to end the war and therefore, the bombings would have forced them to surrender due to international pressure. Waiting for the Japanese to surrender was not a cost-free option, as a result of the war, noncombatants were dying throughout Asia at a rate of about 200,000 per month. Fire bombing had killed well over 100,000 people in Japan since February of 1945, directly and indirectly. That intensive conventional bombing would have continued prior to an invasion. The atomic bomb hastened the end of the war, liberating millions in occupied areas, including thousands of civilians and prisoners of war from Japanese camps.
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