Nagasaki is the place where the bomb fell. The terrible consequences of the explosion of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively) are the only two examples of the military use of nuclear weapons in the history of mankind. Implemented by the US Armed Forces in the final stages of World War II with the aim of accelerating Japan's surrender in the Pacific theater of World War II.
On the morning of August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber "Enola Gay", named after the mother (Enola Gay Haggard) of the crew commander, Colonel Paul Tibbets, dropped the "Little Boy" atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, equivalent to 13 to 18 kilotons of TNT. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, the Fat Man atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki by pilot Charles Sweeney, commander of the B-29 Bockscar bomber. The total number of deaths ranged from 90 to 166 thousand people in Hiroshima and from 60 to 80 thousand people in Nagasaki.
The shock of the US atomic bombings had a profound effect on Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki and Japanese Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori, who were inclined to believe that the Japanese government should end the war.
On August 15, 1945, Japan announced its surrender. The act of surrender, which formally ended the Second World War, was signed on September 2, 1945.
The role of the atomic bombings in Japan's surrender and the ethical justification of the bombings themselves are still hotly debated.
Prerequisites
In September 1944, at a meeting between US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Hyde Park, an agreement was concluded, according to which the possibility of using atomic weapons against Japan was envisaged.
By the summer of 1945, the United States of America, with the support of Great Britain and Canada, within the framework of the Manhattan Project, completed preparatory work to create the first operational models of nuclear weapons.
After three and a half years of direct US participation in World War II, about 200,000 Americans were killed, about half of them in the war against Japan. In April-June 1945, during the operation to seize the Japanese island of Okinawa, more than 12 thousand American soldiers were killed, 39 thousand were wounded (Japanese losses ranged from 93 to 110 thousand soldiers and over 100 thousand civilians). The invasion of Japan itself was expected to result in losses many times greater than those of Okinawan.
Model of the bomb "Kid" (eng. Little boy), dropped on Hiroshima
May 1945: targeting
During its second meeting in Los Alamos (May 10-11, 1945), the Targeting Committee recommended Kyoto (the largest industrial center), Hiroshima (the center of the army warehouses and the military port), Yokohama (the center of the military industry), Kokuru (largest military arsenal) and Niigatu (military port and engineering center). The committee rejected the idea of using this weapon against a purely military target, as there was a chance to miss a small area, not surrounded by a large urban area.
Psychological factors were of great importance when choosing a target, such as:
achieving maximum psychological effect against Japan,
the first use of a weapon must be significant enough for international recognition of its importance. The committee pointed out that Kyoto was favored by the fact that its population had a higher level of education and thus were better able to appreciate the value of weapons. Hiroshima was of such a size and location that, given the focusing effect from the surrounding hills, the force of the explosion could be increased.
US Secretary of War Henry Stimson struck Kyoto off the list due to the city's cultural significance. According to Professor Edwin O. Reischauer, Stimson "has known and appreciated Kyoto since his honeymoon decades ago."
Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Japan map
On July 16, the world's first successful test of an atomic weapon was carried out at a test site in New Mexico. The power of the explosion was about 21 kilotons of TNT.
On July 24, during the Potsdam Conference, US President Harry Truman told Stalin that the US had a new weapon of unprecedented destructive power. Truman did not specify that he was referring precisely to atomic weapons. According to Truman's memoirs, Stalin showed little interest, noting only that he was glad and hoped that the US could effectively use him against the Japanese. Churchill, who closely watched Stalin's reaction, remained unconvinced that Stalin did not understand the true meaning of Truman's words and did not pay attention to him. At the same time, according to Zhukov's memoirs, Stalin understood everything perfectly, but did not show it and, in a conversation with Molotov after the meeting, noted that "We will need to talk with Kurchatov about speeding up our work." After declassifying the operation of the American special services "Venona", it became known that Soviet agents had long been reporting the development of nuclear weapons. According to some reports, agent Theodore Hall even announced the planned date of the first nuclear test a few days before the Potsdam conference. This may explain why Stalin took Truman's message calmly. Hall had been working for Soviet intelligence since 1944.
On July 25, Truman approved an order, beginning on August 3, to bomb one of the following targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata or Nagasaki as soon as weather permits, and in the future the following cities as bombs arrive.
On July 26, the governments of the United States, Great Britain and China signed the Potsdam Declaration, which set out the demand for Japan's unconditional surrender. The atomic bomb was not mentioned in the declaration.
The next day, Japanese newspapers reported that the declaration, which had been broadcast on the radio and scattered in airplane flyers, had been rejected. The Japanese government has expressed no desire to accept the ultimatum. On July 28, Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki said at a press conference that the Potsdam Declaration is nothing more than the old arguments of the Cairo Declaration in a new wrapper, and demanded that the government ignore it.
Emperor Hirohito, who was waiting for a Soviet response to the evasive diplomatic moves of the Japanese, did not change the government's decision. On July 31, in a conversation with Koichi Kido, he made it clear that the imperial power must be protected at all costs.
Preparing for the bombing
During May-June 1945, the American 509th mixed aviation group arrived on the island of Tinian. The area where the group was based on the island was several miles from the rest of the units and was closely guarded.
On July 28, the chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, George Marshall, signed an order for the military use of nuclear weapons. This order, drafted by the head of the Manhattan Project, Major General Leslie Groves, ordered a nuclear strike "on any day after August 3, as soon as weather conditions permit." On July 29, the commander of the US Strategic Air Force, General Karl Spaats, arrived at Tinian, delivering Marshall's orders to the island.
On July 28 and August 2, the components of the Fat Man atomic bomb were brought to Tinian by airplanes.
Hiroshima during World War II
Hiroshima was located on a flat area, slightly above sea level at the mouth of the Ota River, on 6 islands connected by 81 bridges. The population of the city before the war was over 340 thousand people, which made Hiroshima the seventh largest city in Japan. The city was the headquarters of the Fifth Division and the Second Main Army of Field Marshal Shunroku Hata, who commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. Hiroshima was an important supply base for the Japanese army.
In Hiroshima (as well as in Nagasaki), most of the development consisted of one- and two-story wooden buildings with tiled roofs. Factories were located on the outskirts of the city. Outdated fire fighting equipment and inadequate training of personnel created a high fire hazard even in peacetime.
The population of Hiroshima peaked at 380,000 during the war, but before the bombing, the population gradually declined due to systematic evacuations ordered by the Japanese government. At the time of the attack, the population was about 245 thousand people.
Bombardment
The main target of the first American nuclear bombing was Hiroshima (Kokura and Nagasaki were the spare). Although the order given by Truman called for an atomic bombing from August 3, until August 6, cloudiness over the target prevented this.
On August 6 at 1:45 am, an American B-29 bomber under the command of Colonel Paul Tibbets, commander of the 509th Mixed Aviation Regiment, carrying the "Kid" atomic bomb, took off from Tinian Island, which was about 6 hours of flight from Hiroshima. Tibbets' plane ("Enola Gay") flew as part of a formation that included six other aircraft: a reserve aircraft ("Top Secret"), two controllers and three reconnaissance aircraft ("Jebit III", "Full House" and "Street Flash"). Reconnaissance aircraft commanders sent to Nagasaki and Kokura reported significant cloud cover over these cities. The pilot of the third reconnaissance aircraft, Major Iserli, found out that the sky over Hiroshima was clear and sent the signal "Bomb the first target."
Around 7 a.m., a network of Japanese early warning radars detected the approach of several American aircraft heading for southern Japan. An air raid was announced and radio broadcasts were stopped in many cities, including Hiroshima. At approximately 08:00, a radar operator in Hiroshima determined that the number of approaching aircraft was very small - perhaps no more than three - and the air raid was canceled. Small groups of American bombers, in order to save fuel and aircraft, the Japanese did not intercept. A standard message was broadcast over the radio that it would be wise to go to the bomb shelters if the B-29s were indeed sighted, and that no raid was expected, but just some form of reconnaissance.
At 08:15 local time, B-29, being at an altitude of over 9 km, dropped an atomic bomb on the center of Hiroshima.
The first public announcement of the event came from Washington, sixteen hours after the atomic attack on a Japanese city.
The shadow of a man who was sitting on the steps of the stairs in front of the entrance to the bank at the moment of the explosion, 250 meters from the epicenter
Explosion effect
Those who were closest to the epicenter of the explosion died instantly, their bodies turned into coal. Birds flying by were burnt in the air, and dry, flammable materials such as paper ignited up to 2 km from the epicenter. The light radiation burned the dark pattern of clothing into the skin and left the silhouettes of human bodies on the walls. People outside their homes described a blinding flash of light, accompanied by a wave of suffocating heat. The blast wave, for everyone near the epicenter, followed almost immediately, often knocking them off their feet. Those inside the buildings tended to avoid exposure to light from the explosion, but not the blast wave — glass fragments hit most rooms, and all but the most durable buildings collapsed. One teenager was thrown from his house across the street by a blast, while the house collapsed behind him. Within a few minutes, 90% of people who were 800 meters or less from the epicenter died.
The blast wave shattered the windows at a distance of up to 19 km. For those in the buildings, a typical first reaction was the thought of a direct hit from an aerial bomb.
Numerous small fires, which simultaneously broke out in the city, soon merged into one large fire tornado, which created a strong wind (speed 50-60 km / h) directed towards the epicenter. The fire tornado captured over 11 km² of the city, killing everyone who did not manage to get out within the first few minutes after the explosion.
According to the memoirs of Akiko Takakura, one of the few survivors who were at the time of the explosion at a distance of 300 m from the epicenter,
Three colors for me characterize the day when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima: black, red and brown. Black because the explosion cut off the sunlight and plunged the world into darkness. Red was the color of blood flowing from wounded and broken people. He was also the color of the fires that burned everything in the city. Brown was the color of burnt skin that fell off the body, exposed to light from the explosion.
A few days after the explosion, doctors began to notice the first symptoms of radiation among the survivors. Soon, the death toll among survivors began to rise again, as patients who appeared to be recovering began to suffer from this strange new disease. Deaths from radiation sickness peaked 3-4 weeks after the explosion and only began to decline after 7-8 weeks. Japanese doctors considered vomiting and diarrhea characteristic of radiation sickness to be symptoms of dysentery. Long-term health effects associated with radiation, such as an increased risk of cancer, plagued survivors for the rest of their lives, as did the psychological shock of the explosion.
The first person in the world whose cause of death was officially indicated as a disease caused by the consequences of a nuclear explosion (radiation poisoning) was the actress Midori Naka, who survived the Hiroshima explosion, but died on August 24, 1945. Journalist Robert Jung believes that it is Midori's disease and its popularity among ordinary people allowed people to know the truth about the emerging "new disease." Until the death of Midori, no one attached importance to the mysterious deaths of people who survived the explosion and died under circumstances unknown to the then science. Jung believes that the death of Midori was the impetus for accelerating research in nuclear physics and medicine, which soon managed to save the lives of many people from radiation exposure.
Japanese awareness of the consequences of the attack
The Tokyo operator of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation noticed that the Hiroshima station had stopped broadcasting. He tried to re-establish the broadcast using a different telephone line, but this also failed. About twenty minutes later, the Tokyo Rail Telegraph Control Center realized that the main telegraph line had ceased to operate just north of Hiroshima. From a stopover 16 km from Hiroshima, unofficial and confusing reports of a terrible explosion came. All these messages were forwarded to the headquarters of the Japanese General Staff.
Military bases have repeatedly tried to call the Hiroshima Command and Control Center. Complete silence from there puzzled the General Staff, because they knew that there was no large enemy raid in Hiroshima and there was no significant storage of explosives. The young headquarters officer was instructed to immediately fly to Hiroshima, land, assess the damage, and return to Tokyo with reliable information. The headquarters generally believed that nothing serious was happening there, and the messages were explained by rumors.
The officer from the headquarters went to the airport, from where he flew to the southwest. After a three-hour flight, while still 160 km from Hiroshima, he and his pilot noticed a large cloud of smoke from the bomb. It was a bright day and the ruins of Hiroshima were burning. Their plane soon reached the city, around which they circled in disbelief. Only a zone of continuous destruction remained from the city, still burning and covered with a thick cloud of smoke. They landed south of the city, and the officer, reporting the incident in Tokyo, immediately set about organizing rescue measures.
The first real Japanese understanding of what really caused the disaster came from a public announcement from Washington, sixteen hours after the atomic attack on Hiroshima.
Hiroshima after the atomic explosion
Loss and destruction
The death toll from the direct impact of the explosion ranged from 70 to 80 thousand people. By the end of 1945, due to the effects of radioactive contamination and other post-effects of the explosion, the total number of deaths ranged from 90 to 166 thousand people. After 5 years, the total death toll, taking into account deaths from cancer and other long-term effects of the explosion, could reach or even exceed 200 thousand people.
According to official Japanese data, as of March 31, 2013, there were 201,779 "hibakusha" survivors - people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This number includes children born to women who were exposed to radiation from the explosions (predominantly living in Japan at the time of the calculation). Of these, 1%, according to the Japanese government, had serious cancer caused by radiation exposure after the bombing. The number of deaths as of August 31, 2013 is about 450 thousand: 286 818 in Hiroshima and 162 083 in Nagasaki.
Nuclear pollution
The concept of "radioactive contamination" did not exist in those years, and therefore this issue was not even raised at that time. People continued to live and rebuild destroyed buildings in the same place where they were before. Even the high mortality rate of the population in subsequent years, as well as diseases and genetic abnormalities in children born after the bombings, were not initially associated with exposure to radiation. The evacuation of the population from the contaminated areas was not carried out, since no one knew about the very presence of radioactive contamination.
It is rather difficult to give an accurate estimate of the degree of this contamination due to lack of information, however, since technically the first atomic bombs were relatively weak and imperfect (the Malysh bomb, for example, contained 64 kg of uranium, of which only about 700 g of the reaction took place division), the level of pollution of the area could not be significant, although it posed a serious danger to the population. For comparison: at the time of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the reactor core contained several tons of fission products and transuranic elements - various radioactive isotopes accumulated during the operation of the reactor.
Comparative preservation of some buildings
Some of the reinforced concrete buildings in Hiroshima were very resilient (due to the risk of earthquakes) and their frame did not collapse despite being quite close to the center of the destruction in the city (the epicenter of the explosion). So the brick building of the Hiroshima Chamber of Commerce (now commonly known as the Gembaku Dome or Atomic Dome), designed and built by the Czech architect Jan Letzel (English), which was only 160 meters from the epicenter of the explosion (at the height of the bomb 600 m above the surface). The ruins became the most famous exhibit of the atomic explosion in Hiroshima and were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996, despite objections from the US and Chinese governments.
On August 6, after receiving news of the successful atomic bombing of Hiroshima, US President Truman announced that
We are now ready to destroy, even faster and more completely than before, all Japanese land-based production facilities in any city. We will destroy their docks, their factories and their communications. Let there be no misunderstanding - we will completely destroy Japan's ability to wage war.
It was with the aim of preventing the destruction of Japan that the ultimatum was issued on July 26 in Potsdam. Their leadership immediately rejected his terms. If they do not accept our conditions now, let them expect a rain of destruction from the air, the likes of which has not yet been on this planet.
After receiving news of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the Japanese government met to discuss its reaction. Beginning in June, the emperor advocated peace negotiations, but the Minister of Defense and the leadership of the army and navy believed that Japan should wait to see if attempts at peace negotiations through the Soviet Union would yield better results than unconditional surrender. The military leadership also believed that if they managed to hold out until the invasion of the Japanese islands, it would be possible to inflict such losses on the Allied forces that Japan could win peace terms other than unconditional surrender.
On August 9, the USSR declared war on Japan and Soviet troops launched an invasion of Manchuria. Hopes for Soviet mediation in the negotiations were dashed. The top leadership of the Japanese army began preparations for the declaration of martial law in order to prevent any attempts at peace negotiations.
The second atomic bombing (Kokura) was scheduled for August 11, but was postponed 2 days earlier to avoid a five-day period of bad weather, which was predicted to start on August 10.
Nagasaki during World War II
Nagasaki in 1945 was located in two valleys, through which two rivers flowed. A mountain ridge divided the districts of the city.
The development was chaotic: out of the total area of the city of 90 km², 12 were built up with residential quarters.
During the Second World War, the city, which was a major seaport, acquired particular importance as an industrial center, in which steel production and the Mitsubishi shipyard, and the Mitsubishi-Urakami torpedo production were concentrated. The city produced guns, ships and other military equipment.
Nagasaki was not subjected to large-scale bombing until the explosion of the atomic bomb, but as early as August 1, 1945, several high-explosive bombs were dropped on the city, damaging shipyards and docks in the southwestern part of the city. The bombs also hit the Mitsubishi steel and gun works. The raid on August 1 resulted in a partial evacuation of the population, especially schoolchildren. Nevertheless, at the time of the bombing, the population of the city was still about 200 thousand people.
Nagasaki before and after the atomic explosion
Bombardment
The main target of the second American nuclear bombing was Kokura, the spare was Nagasaki.
At 2:47 a.m. on August 9, an American B-29 bomber under the command of Major Charles Sweeney, carrying the Fat Man atomic bomb, took off from Tinian Island.
Unlike the first bombing, the second was fraught with numerous technical problems. Even before takeoff, a malfunction of the fuel pump was discovered in one of the spare fuel tanks. Despite this, the crew made a decision to carry out the flight as planned.
At about 7:50 am, an air raid alert was announced in Nagasaki, which was canceled at 8:30 am.
At 8:10, after reaching the rendezvous point with the other B-29s participating in the sortie, one of them was found missing. For 40 minutes, B-29 Sweeney circled around the rendezvous point, but did not wait for the missing aircraft to appear. At the same time, reconnaissance aircraft reported that cloudiness over Kokura and Nagasaki, although present, still allows bombing under visual control.
At 8:50 B-29, carrying an atomic bomb, headed for Kokura, where he arrived at 9:20. By this time, however, 70% cloudiness was already observed over the city, which did not allow visual bombing. After three unsuccessful approaches to the target, at 10:32 B-29 headed for Nagasaki. At this point, due to a malfunction of the fuel pump, there was only enough fuel for one pass over Nagasaki.
At 10:53, two B-29s came into view of the air defense, the Japanese mistook them for reconnaissance and did not issue a new alarm.
At 10:56 B-29 arrived at Nagasaki, which, as it turned out, was also covered by clouds. Sweeney reluctantly approved a much less accurate radar approach. At the last moment, however, the bombardier-gunner Captain Kermit Behan in the gap between the clouds noticed the silhouette of the city stadium, focusing on which, he dropped the atomic bomb.
The explosion occurred at 11:02 local time at an altitude of about 500 meters. The explosion power was about 21 kilotons.
Explosion effect
Japanese boy whose upper body was not covered during the explosion
The hastily targeted bomb exploded almost halfway between the two main targets in Nagasaki, Mitsubishi's steel and weapons factories in the south and the Mitsubishi-Urakami torpedo factory in the north. If the bomb were dropped further south, between the business and residential areas, the damage would be much greater.
In general, although the power of the atomic explosion in Nagasaki was greater than in Hiroshima, the destructive effect of the explosion was less. This was facilitated by a combination of factors - the presence of hills in Nagasaki, as well as the fact that the epicenter of the explosion was above the industrial zone - all this helped to protect some areas of the city from the effects of the explosion.
From the memoirs of Sumiteru Taniguchi, who was 16 years old at the time of the explosion:
I was knocked to the ground (off my bike) and the ground shook for a while. I clung to it so as not to be carried away by the blast wave. When I looked up, the house I had just passed was destroyed ... I also saw the child being carried away by the blast. Large stones flew in the air, one hit me and then flew up into the sky again ...
When everything seemed to have calmed down, I tried to get up and found that on my left hand the skin, from the shoulder to the tips of the fingers, hung like tattered rags.
Loss and destruction
The atomic explosion over Nagasaki affected an area of approximately 110 km², of which 22 are on the water surface and 84 were only partially populated.
According to a report from Nagasaki Prefecture, "people and animals died almost instantly" at a distance of up to 1 km from the epicenter. Nearly all houses within a 2 km radius were destroyed, and dry, flammable materials such as paper ignited up to 3 km from the epicenter. Of the 52,000 buildings in Nagasaki, 14,000 were destroyed and another 5,400 severely damaged. Only 12% of buildings remained intact. Although there was no firestorm in the city, numerous local fires were observed.
The death toll by the end of 1945 ranged from 60 to 80 thousand people. After 5 years, the total death toll, taking into account deaths from cancer and other long-term effects of the explosion, could reach or even exceed 140 thousand people.
Plans for the subsequent atomic bombings of Japan
The US government expected another atomic bomb to be ready for use in mid-August, and three more each in September and October. On August 10, Leslie Groves, military director of the Manhattan Project, sent a memo to George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the US Army, in which he wrote that "the next bomb ... should be ready for use after August 17-18." On the same day, Marshall signed a memorandum with the comment that "it should not be used against Japan until the direct approval of the President is obtained." At the same time, the US Department of Defense has already begun discussions on the feasibility of postponing the use of bombs until the start of Operation Downfall - the expected invasion of the Japanese islands.
The problem we are facing now is whether, assuming that the Japanese do not surrender, continue to drop bombs as they are made, or stockpile them in order to then drop everything in a short period of time. Not all in one day, but within a fairly short time. This is also related to the question of what goals we are pursuing. In other words, shouldn't we be focusing on the targets hitting which will most help the invasion, rather than on industry, troop morale, psychology, etc.? Mostly tactical goals, and not some others.
Japan's surrender and subsequent occupation
Until August 9, the war cabinet continued to insist on 4 terms of surrender. On August 9, news came about the declaration of war by the Soviet Union in the late evening of August 8 and about the atomic bombing of Nagasaki at 11 o'clock in the afternoon. At the meeting of the "Big Six", which took place on the night of August 10, the votes on the surrender issue were divided equally (3 "for", 3 "against"), after which the emperor intervened in the discussion, speaking out in favor of surrender. On August 10, 1945, Japan handed over to the Allies a surrender proposal, the only condition of which was to keep the emperor as a nominal head of state.
Since the terms of surrender allowed for the preservation of imperial power in Japan, on August 14, Hirohito wrote down his declaration of surrender, which was circulated by the Japanese media the next day, despite an attempted military coup by opponents of surrender.
Hirohito mentioned the atomic bombings in his announcement:
... in addition, the enemy has at his disposal a terrible new weapon capable of taking many innocent lives and inflicting immeasurable material damage. If we continue to fight, this will not only lead to the collapse and destruction of the Japanese nation, but also to the complete disappearance of human civilization.
In such a situation, how can we save millions of our subjects or justify ourselves before the sacred spirit of our ancestors? For this reason, we ordered to accept the terms of the joint declaration of our opponents.
Within a year after the end of the bombing, 40,000 American troops were stationed in Hiroshima, and 27,000 in Nagasaki.
Commission for the Study of the Consequences of Atomic Explosions
In the spring of 1948, Truman established the Atomic Explosion Consequences Commission at the US National Academy of Sciences to study the long-term effects of radiation on survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many non-war casualties were found among the victims of the bombing, including prisoners of war, forcibly mobilized Koreans and Chinese, students from British Malaya, and some 3,200 US citizens of Japanese descent.
In 1975, the Commission was disbanded, its functions were transferred to the newly created Institute for the Study of the Effects of Radiation (Eng. Radiation Effects Research Foundation).
Discussion on the feasibility of atomic bombings
The role of atomic bombings in Japan's surrender and their ethical validity are still the subject of scientific and public debate. In a 2005 review of historiography devoted to this issue, American historian Samuel Walker wrote that "the debate about the appropriateness of the bombing will definitely continue." Walker also noted that "a fundamental question that has been debated for more than 40 years is whether these atomic bombings were necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on conditions acceptable to the United States."
Supporters of the bombing usually claim that it was the reason for Japan's surrender and, therefore, prevented significant losses on both sides (both the United States and Japan) in the planned invasion of Japan; that the rapid end of the war saved many lives in other Asian countries (primarily in China); that Japan was waging an all-out war in which the distinction between the military and the civilian population was blurred; and that the Japanese leadership refused to surrender, and the bombing helped to shift the balance of opinion within the government towards peace. Opponents of the bombing argue that they were simply an addition to an ongoing conventional bombing campaign and thus had no military necessity, that they were fundamentally immoral, a war crime or a manifestation of state terrorism (despite the fact that in 1945 it was not there were international agreements or treaties that directly or indirectly prohibited the use of nuclear weapons as a means of warfare).
A number of researchers are of the opinion that the main purpose of the atomic bombings was to influence the USSR before it entered the war with Japan in the Far East and to demonstrate the atomic power of the United States.
Influence on culture
In the 1950s, the story of a Japanese girl from Hiroshima, Sadako Sasaki, who died in 1955 from the effects of radiation (leukemia), became widely known. Already in the hospital, Sadako learned about the legend, according to which a person who has folded a thousand paper cranes can make a wish that will surely come true. Wanting to recover, Sadako began to fold the cranes from any pieces of paper that fell into her hands. According to the book "Sadako and a Thousand Paper Cranes" by Canadian children's writer Eleanor Coer, Sadako managed to fold only 644 cranes, after which, in October 1955, she died. Her friends finished the rest of the figurines. According to Sadako's book 4,675 Days of Life, Sadako folded a thousand cranes and continued to fold, but later died. Several books have been written based on her story.
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, using nuclear weapons for the first time in history. There is still debate over whether this action was justified, because Japan was then close to surrender. One way or another, on August 6, 1945, a new era began in the history of mankind.
1. A Japanese soldier walks through the desert in Hiroshima in September 1945, just a month after the bombing. This series of photographs depicting human suffering and ruin was submitted by the US Navy. (U.S. Department of Navy)
3. Data from the US Air Force - a map of Hiroshima before the bombing, on which you can observe the epicenter area, which instantly disappeared from the face of the earth. (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)
4. A bomb codenamed "Kid" over the airlock of the B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay" bomber at the base of the 509th consolidated group in the Mariana Islands in 1945. "Baby" was 3 meters long and weighed 4000 kg, but contained only 64 kg of uranium, which was used to provoke a chain of atomic reactions and the subsequent explosion. (U.S. National Archives)
5. A photo taken from one of two American bombers from the 509th Consolidated Group, shortly after 8:15 am on August 5, 1945, shows smoke rising from the explosion over the city of Hiroshima. By the time of shooting, a flash of light and heat from a fireball with a diameter of 370 m had already occurred, and the blast wave quickly dissipated, already causing major damage to buildings and people within a radius of 3.2 km. (U.S. National Archives)
6. A growing nuclear "mushroom" over Hiroshima shortly after 8:15, August 5, 1945. When a portion of uranium in the bomb went through the fission stage, it instantly turned into energy of 15 kilotons of TNT, heating a massive fireball to a temperature of 3980 degrees Celsius. The air, heated to the limit, quickly rose in the atmosphere like a huge bubble, raising a column of smoke behind it. By the time this photo was taken, smog had risen to a height of 6,096 meters above Hiroshima, and the smoke from the explosion of the first atomic bomb spread 3,048 meters at the base of the column. (U.S. National Archives)
7. View of the epicenter of Hiroshima in the fall of 1945 - complete destruction after the first atomic bomb was dropped. The photo shows the hypocenter (center point of the explosion) - approximately above the Y-junction in the center on the left. (U.S. National Archives)
8. Bridge over the Ota River, 880 meters from the hypocenter of the explosion over Hiroshima. Notice how the road burned down, and ghost prints are visible to the left where concrete pillars once protected the surface. (U.S. National Archives)
9. Color photograph of the destroyed Hiroshima in March 1946. (U.S. National Archives)
10. An explosion destroyed the Okita plant in Hiroshima, Japan. November 7, 1945. (U.S. National Archives)
11. Keloid scars on the back and shoulders of the victim of the explosion in Hiroshima. Scars formed where the victim's skin was not protected from direct radiation. (U.S. National Archives)
12. This patient (photo taken by the Japanese military on October 3, 1945) was approximately 1981.2 m from the epicenter when the radiation rays overtook him from the left. The cap protected part of the head from burns. (U.S. National Archives)
13. Gnarled iron beams are all that remains of the theater building, located about 800 meters from the epicenter. (U.S. National Archives)
14. The girl who went blind after a nuclear explosion.
15. Color photograph of the ruins of Central Hiroshima in the fall of 1945. (U.S. National Archives)
The mushrooms rising from the atomic bombings of Japanese cities have long become the main symbols of the power and destructiveness of modern weapons, the personification of the beginning of the nuclear age. There is no doubt that nuclear bombs, first tested on humans in August 1945, and thermonuclear bombs obtained by the USSR and the United States a few years later remain the most powerful and destructive weapon to this day, while serving as a means of military deterrence. However, the true consequences of nuclear strikes on the health of the inhabitants of Japanese cities and their offspring are very different from the stereotypes living in society. This conclusion was reached on the anniversary of the bombing by a group of scientists from the University of Aix-Marseille in France in an article published in the journal GENETICS .
In their work, they showed that for all the destructive power of these two strikes, which led to the documented and numerous casualties among civilians and destruction in cities, the health of many Japanese who were in the bombing zone was almost unaffected, as was believed for many years.
It is known that two uranium bombs were dropped by the United States and exploded at an altitude of 600 m above Hiroshima and 500 m above Nagasaki. As a result of these explosions, a huge amount of heat was released and a powerful shock wave was created, accompanied by powerful gamma radiation.
People who were within a radius of 1.5 km from the epicenter of the explosion died instantly, many of those who were further away died in the following days due to burns and the received dose of radiation. However, the prevailing idea of the incidence of cancer and genetic deformities in children of those who survived the bombing turns out to be too exaggerated if the real consequences are scrupulously evaluated, scientists say.
“Most people, including many scientists, are under the impression that the survivors were exposed to debilitating effects and an increased incidence of cancer, and that their children were at high risk for genetic diseases,” said Bertrand Jordan, author of the study. -
There is a huge difference between people's perceptions and what was actually revealed by scientists. "
The article by scientists does not contain new data, but summarizes the results of more than 60 years of medical research, which assessed the health of survivors of the bombing of the Japanese and their children, and includes reasoning about the nature of existing misconceptions.
Studies have shown that exposure to radiation does increase the risk of cancer, but life expectancy is reduced by only a few months compared to control groups. At the same time, there were no statistically significant cases of harm to health in children who survived the stroke.
It has been established that approximately 200 thousand people became victims of the direct blow, who died mainly from the action of the shock wave, the resulting fires and radiation.
About half of those who survived were followed up by doctors for the rest of their lives. These observations began in 1947 and are still carried out by a special organization - the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) in Hiroshima, funded by the Japanese and American governments.
In total, 100 thousand survivors of the bombing of the Japanese, 77 thousand of their children and 20 thousand people who were not exposed to radiation took part in the research. The amount of data obtained, as cynical as it may sound, "was uniquely useful in assessing radiation threats, since the bombs were a single, well-studied source of radiation, and the dose received by each person could be reliably estimated by knowing its distance from the explosion site." , the scientists write in the release accompanying the article.
These data subsequently proved invaluable for establishing the permissible doses for workers in the nuclear industry and the population.
An analysis of scientific studies showed that the incidence of cancer among the victims was higher than among those who were outside the city at the time of the explosion. It was found that the relative risk to an individual increased depending on the proximity to the epicenter, age (young people were more exposed) and gender (the consequences were more serious in women).
However, most of the survivors did not develop cancer.
Among 44,635 surveyed survivors, the increase in cancer incidence in 1958-1998 was 10% (additional 848 cases), scientists calculated. Moreover, most of the survivors received moderate doses of radiation. In contrast, those who were closer to the explosion and received a dose of more than 1 gray (about a thousand times higher than the existing allowable doses) had a 44% increased risk of cancer. In such severe cases, considering all causes of death, the high impact dose reduced life expectancy by 1.3 years on average.
Meanwhile, scientists cautiously warn: if exposure to radiation has not yet led to scientifically recorded consequences in children of survivors, such traces may appear in the future, possibly with more detailed sequencing of their genome.
Scientists believe that the discrepancy between existing ideas about the medical consequences of the bombing with real data is due to several factors, including the historical context. “People are more often afraid of the new danger than they are used to,” says Jordan. “For example, people tend to underestimate the dangers of coal, including those who mine it and those who are exposed to atmospheric pollution. Radiation is much easier to detect than many chemical contaminants. With a simple Geiger counter, you can catch tiny levels of radiation that pose no threat at all. " Scientists believe that their research should not be used as an excuse to downplay the dangers of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.
Their only adversary in World War II was Japan, which was also soon to surrender. It was at this moment that the United States decided to show its military power. On August 6 and 9, they dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after which Japan finally surrendered. AiF.ru recalls the stories of people who managed to survive this nightmare.
According to various sources, from the explosion itself and in the first weeks after it, from 90 to 166 thousand people died in Hiroshima, and from 60 to 80 thousand in Nagasaki. However, there were those who managed to stay alive.
In Japan, such people are called hibakusha or hibakusha. This category includes not only the survivors themselves, but also the second generation - children born to women affected by the explosions.
In March 2012, there were 210 thousand people officially recognized by the government as hibakusha, and more than 400 thousand did not survive until that moment.
Most of the remaining Hibakusha live in Japan. They receive some state support, but in Japanese society there is a prejudice against them, bordering on discrimination. For example, they and their children may not be hired, so sometimes they deliberately hide their status.
Miraculous salvation
An extraordinary story happened to the Japanese Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who survived both bombings. In the summer of 1945 young engineer Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who worked for Mitsubishi, went on a business trip to Hiroshima. When the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on the city, it was only 3 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion.
The blast wave knocked out Tsutomu Yamaguchi's eardrums, and the incredibly bright white light blinded him for a while. He received severe burns, however, he still survived. Yamaguchi reached the station, found his wounded colleagues and went home with them to Nagasaki, where he fell victim to the second bombing.
In a wicked twist of fate, Tsutomu Yamaguchi again found himself 3 kilometers from the epicenter. When he told his boss in the company office about what had happened to him in Hiroshima, the same white light suddenly flooded the room. Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived this explosion as well.
Two days later, he received another large dose of radiation, when he almost came close to the epicenter of the explosion, not knowing about the danger.
This was followed by years of rehabilitation, suffering and health problems. Tsutomu Yamaguchi's wife also suffered from the bombing - she fell under the black radioactive rain. Their children did not escape the consequences of radiation sickness, some of them died of cancer. Despite all this, Tsutomu Yamaguchi got a job again after the war, lived like everyone else and supported his family. Until old age, he tried not to attract special attention to himself.
In 2010, Tsutomu Yamaguchi passed away from cancer at the age of 93. He became the only person who was officially recognized by the Japanese government as a victim of the bombing in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Life is like a struggle
When the bomb fell on Nagasaki, a 16-year-old Sumiteru Taniguchi delivered mail on a bicycle. According to his own words, he saw something that looked like a rainbow, then the blast wave threw him from his bicycle to the ground and destroyed the nearby houses.
After the explosion, the teenager survived, but was seriously injured. The ripped skin hung in shreds from his hands, and on his back there was none at all. At the same time, according to Sumiteru Taniguchi, he did not feel pain, but his strength left him.
With difficulty he found other victims, but most of them died the next night after the explosion. Three days later, Sumiteru Taniguchi was rescued and taken to the hospital.
In 1946, an American photographer took the famous picture of Sumiteru Taniguchi with horrific burns on his back. The young man's body was mutilated for life
For several years after the war, Sumiteru Taniguchi could only lie on his stomach. He was discharged from the hospital in 1949, but his wounds were not properly treated until 1960. Sumiteru Taniguchi underwent 10 operations in total.
The recovery was compounded by the fact that then people first encountered radiation sickness and did not yet know how to treat it.
This tragedy had a huge impact on Sumiteru Taniguchi. He devoted his entire life to the fight against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, became a famous activist and chairman of the Council of Victims of the Nagasaki nuclear bombing.
Today, 84-year-old Sumiteru Taniguchi lectures around the world about the dire consequences of the use of nuclear weapons and why they must be abandoned.
Round orphan
For 16 year old Mikoso Iwasa August 6th was an ordinary hot summer day. He was in the courtyard of his house when the neighboring children suddenly saw a plane in the sky. Then an explosion followed. Despite the fact that the teenager was less than one and a half kilometers from the epicenter, the wall of the house protected him from the heat and the blast wave.
However, the relatives of Mikoso Iwasa were not so lucky. The boy's mother was at that time in the house, she was piled with debris, and she could not get out. He lost his father even before the explosion, but his sister was never found. So Mikoso Iwasa became an orphan.
And although Mikoso Iwasa miraculously escaped severe burns, he still received a huge dose of radiation. Due to radiation sickness, he lost his hair, his body was covered with a rash, his nose and gums began to bleed. He was diagnosed with cancer three times.
His life, like the lives of many other Hibakusha, turned into suffering. He was forced to live with this pain, with this invisible disease, for which there is no cure and which is slowly killing a person.
Among the Hibakusha, it is customary to remain silent about this, but Mikoso Iwasa did not remain silent. Instead, he took up the fight against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and helped other Hibakusha.
Today, Mikiso Iwasa is one of the three chairmen of the Japan Confederation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Victims' Organizations.
Was it necessary to bomb Japan at all?
The debate about the expediency and ethical side of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has not ceased to this day.
Initially, the American authorities insisted that they were necessary to force Japan to surrender as soon as possible and thereby prevent losses among its own soldiers, which would have been possible during a US invasion of the Japanese islands.
However, according to many historians, the surrender of Japan even before the bombing was a decided matter. It was only a matter of time.
The decision to drop bombs on Japanese cities turned out to be rather political - the United States wanted to scare the Japanese and demonstrate its military power to the whole world.
It is also important to mention that not all American officials and high-ranking military personnel supported this decision. Among those who considered the bombing unnecessary were General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, who later became the president of the United States.
Hibakusha's attitude to explosions is unequivocal. They believe that the tragedy they experienced should never be repeated in the history of mankind. And that is why some of them have dedicated their lives to the fight for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
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On August 6, at 8:15 am 69 years ago, the US Armed Forces, on the personal order of US President Harry Truman, dropped an atomic bomb "Little Boy" with the equivalent of 13 to 18 kilotons of TNT on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Babr prepared the story of this terrible event through the eyes of one of the participants in the bombing
On July 28, 2014, a week before the 69th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the last member of the crew of the Enola Gay plane, from which the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, died. Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk died in a Georgia nursing home at the age of 93.
Van Kirk fought in the US military during World War II. He has dozens of missions in Europe and North Africa. Nevertheless, he will be remembered as a participant in one of the most horrific acts of human history.
In December 2013, Theodore Van Kirk was interviewed by British director Leslie Woodhead for his documentary on the 70th anniversary of the 2015 atomic bombing of Hiroshima. This is what Kirk recalled about the day:
“I remember well what it was like on August 6, 1945. Enola Gay take off from the South Pacific from Tinian Island at 2:45 am. After a sleepless night. I have never seen such a beautiful sunrise in my life. The weather was beautiful. While flying at an altitude of 10,000 feet, I saw the wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean. It was a peaceful scene, but we had a tense atmosphere on the plane because the crew didn't know if the bomb would go off. After six hours of flight, Enola Gay approached Hiroshima. "
“When the bomb fell, the first thought was: 'God, how glad I am that it went off ...'
Nuclear mushroom over Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right)
“We made a 180-degree turn and flew away from the shock waves. Then they turned around to see the damage. We saw nothing but a bright flash. Then we saw a white mushroom cloud hanging over the city. Under the cloud, the city was completely engulfed in smoke and resembled a cauldron of black boiling tar. And on the outskirts of the cities, fire was visible. When the bomb fell, the first thought was: "God, how glad I am that it worked ... second thought:" How good that this war will end. "
"I am a supporter of peace ..."
Model of the bomb "Kid" dropped on Hiroshima
Van Kirk has given many interviews in his life. In conversations with young people, he often urged them not to get involved in another war and even called himself a "supporter of peace." Once "The Dutchman" told reporters that the sight of what one atomic bomb had done made him unwilling to see something like that again. But at the same time, the navigator did not feel much remorse and defended the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese, calling it a lesser evil in comparison with the continuation of the aerial bombardment of Japan and the possible American invasion.
"I have never apologized for what we did in Hiroshima and never will ..."
Japanese boy injured by explosion
When asked frequently, “Does he feel remorse for participating in the bombing that killed about 150,000 Japanese people?” He replied:
“I have never apologized for what we did in Hiroshima and never will,” he said in an interview. - Our mission was to put an end to the Second World War, that's all. If we had not dropped this bomb, it would have been impossible to force the Japanese to surrender ... "
"This bomb saved lives, despite the huge number of victims in Hiroshima ..."
Hiroshima after the atomic explosion
“This bomb really saved lives despite the huge number of casualties in Hiroshima, because otherwise the scale of casualties in Japan and the United States would have been appalling.” said Van Kirk once.
According to him, it was not about dropping a bomb on the city and killing people: “Military facilities in the city of Hiroshima were destroyed,” the American justified, “the most important of which was the army headquarters responsible for defending Japan in the event of an invasion. She had to be destroyed. "
Three days after the bombing of Hiroshima - on August 9, 1945 - the Americans dropped another Fat Man atomic bomb, with a capacity of up to 21 kilotons of TNT, on another Japanese city - Nagasaki. From 60 to 80 thousand people died there.
The officially declared aim of the bombing was to hasten Japan's surrender within the Pacific theater of World War II. But the role of the atomic bombings in Japan's surrender and the ethical justification of the bombings themselves still cause heated debate.
"The use of atomic weapons was necessary"
The Enola Gay crew
One day at the end of his life, Theodore Van Kirk visited the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, where the Enola Gay is on display. a museum worker asked Van Kirk if he would like to sit on the plane, which the latter refused. "I have too many memories of the guys I flew with."- he explained his refusal.
Most of the pilots who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not show public activity, but at the same time did not express regret for what they had done. In 2005, on the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, the three remaining crew members of the Enola Gay plane - Tibbets, Van Kirk and Jeppson - said they had no regrets. "The use of atomic weapons was necessary" They said.
Van Kirk's funeral took place in his hometown of Northumberland, Pennsylvania on August 5, the day before the 69th anniversary of the American nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, where he was buried next to his wife, who died in 1975.
Several historical photographs about the tragic events of August 6 and 9, 1945:
This wristwatch, found among the ruins, stopped at 8.15 a.m. on August 6, 1945 -
during the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
The shadow of a man who was sitting on the steps of the stairs in front of the entrance to the bank at the moment of the explosion, 250 meters from the epicenter
Atomic explosion victim
A Japanese man discovered among the ruins the wreckage of a children's tricycle
bicycle in Nagasaki, September 17, 1945.
Very few buildings remained in the devastated Hiroshima, a Japanese city that was razed to the ground
by the explosion of an atomic bomb, as seen in this photograph taken on September 8, 1945.
The victims of the atomic explosion, who are in the tent relief center of the 2nd Military Hospital of Hiroshima,
located on the banks of the Ota River, 1150 meters from the epicenter of the explosion, on August 7, 1945.
A tram (top center) and its dead passengers after a bomb blast over Nagasaki on August 9.
Photo taken on September 1, 1945.
Akira Yamaguchi shows off her burn scars
receivedduring the explosion of a nuclearbombs in Hiroshima.
Smoke 20,000 feet high rises over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 after
how an atomic bomb was dropped on it during hostilities.
Survivors of the atomic bomb, first used in hostilities on August 6, 1945, await medical attention in Hiroshima, Japan. As a result of the explosion, 60,000 people died at the same time, tens of thousands died later due to radiation.
