Hiroshima bombing

Cost of Manhattan Project

$2 billion

How many people died from Fat Man (Nagasaki)

74,000 people.

Operation Downfall

Allied plan for the invasion of Japan

1945 Battle of Okinawa

April - June 1945

Nature of air raids on Japan prior to Hiroshima

Attacks initially attempted to target industrial facilities using high-altitude daylight "precision" bombing - largely ineffective. From February 1945, the bombers switched to low-altitude night firebombing against urban areas as much of the manufacturing process was carried out in small workshops and private homes: this approach resulted in large-scale urban damage.

Island Hopping Campaign

Campaign to get closer to mainland Japan - series of amphibious landings by Allied forces in the Pacific in which the allied forces - combined land, sea and air - fought back, recaptured islands from Japanese forces or blocked their connection with home bases.

Why was Hiroshima chosen to be bombed?

It was the HQ of the 2nd Japanese army, and because of all the war-making industries present

Should the atomic bomb NOT have been dropped? (social and political reason)

Japan was ruined and starving - it could not have resisted much longer, and had been trying to negotiate a surrender for at least a year - a conditional one.

Kamikaze

Japanese suicide pilots

Should the atomic bomb have been dropped?

Many Americans were dissatisfied with the atomic bomb at the time. Truman was asked by American experts to let the Japanese see it first and surrender. Admiral William Leahy (1945) believed it reduced Americans to "barbarians." After the war, however, the atomic bomb was portrayed as a war-winning weapon, which had saved many American soldiers' lives. This is the traditional interpretation of Hiroshima, which many historians still believe.

When did Japan surrender?

On 14 August 1945, the Japanese surrendered.

When did the first bomb drop?

On 6 August 1945 the first atomic bomb, code named 'Little Boy', was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Aircraft flying from Allied aircraft carriers and islands such as Okinawa frequently struck targets in Japan during 1945 in preparation for the planned invasion Japan...

Operation Downfall scheduled for October 1945

Consequences/significance of the Hiroshima bombing on knowledge about impacts of radiation

Studies of the hibakusha have allowed doctors to understand radiation poisoning, and to set safety levels for the nuclear power industry.

Consequences/significance of the Hiroshima bombing on the hibakusha

Studies of the hibakusha have allowed doctors to understand radiation poisoning, and to set safety levels for the nuclear power industry.

Events on the 6th August

The American B29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb, codenamed 'Little Boy', on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. it exploded with the force of 20,000 tons of TNT the temperature at the centre of the explosion reached 3000ºC - 4000ºC - three times hotter than volcanic lava everything within a mile of the centre of the blast was flattened fires spread and around 67 per cent of Hiroshima's buildings were destroyed

9 August

The Americans dropped a second atomic bomb, codenamed 'Fat Man', on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

Consequences/significance of the Hiroshima bombing on its population.

The Americans estimate the number killed as 117,000. The Japanese put it at quarter of a million. Many more suffered horrific injuries. In the years that followed, many of the survivors, known as 'hibakusha', developed ill health.

26 July

The British, Chinese and Americans called on Japan to surrender unconditionally. This is known as the Potsdam Declaration. The Soviet Union did not agree - the Japanese had asked them to try to negotiate a peace treaty.

28 July

The Japanese refused to surrender unconditionally.

14 August

The Japanese surrendered unconditionally

Should the atomic bomb NOT have been dropped (social reason)

The atomic bomb was racist - dropped as revenge on a Japanese people the Americans felt were treacherous and sub-human.

How many people died via the Little Boy (Hiroshima)

The blast devastated an area of five square miles, destroying more than 60 per cent of the city's buildings and killing around 140,000 people over the next 4 days

How did Truman come to this decision?

The decision whether to drop it - almost as difficult as making the bomb - was taken by US President Harry S Truman. One reason Truman is said to have dropped the atomic bomb was to bring the war against Japan to a quick end. He said it was dropped to save American soldiers' lives.

When did the second bomb drop?

Three days later, on 9th August, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

21 July

Truman received the report which confirmed that the Trinity test had been successful, and America had an atomic bomb. Truman insisted that the Japanese should be given the opportunity to surrender before the bomb was used.

Should the atomic bomb NOT have been dropped? (Cold War reason)

Truman used the atomic bomb to frighten the Soviet Union, not to win the war

Battle of Midway

U.S. naval victory over the Japanese fleet in June 1942, in which the Japanese lost four of their best aircraft carriers. It marked a turning point in World War II.

Pacific War

War against Japan in WWII, characterized by island hopping and intense naval battles

Impact of bombs on world order

Whatever the intention, the USA had changed the nature of warfare, and for the remainder of the Cold War the threat of atomic weapons and nuclear war would be a constant theme. Stalin himself remarked that future wars were inevitable and the Soviet Union now stepped up its own programme of atomic research. American 'nuclear hegemony' would not last long.

Imperial Japan

When Japan becomes a highly militarized nation, becoming a large Empire (1930's when Japan began an aggressive military expansion throughout Asia.)

Manhattan Project

code name for the secret United States project set up in 1942 to develop atomic bombs for use in World War II

Hirohito

emperor of Japan who renounced his divinity and became a constitutional monarch after Japan surrendered at the end of World War II (1901-1989)

Hibakusha is a Japanese word meaning

explosion affected

Why was Nagasaki targeted?

industrial city

Tinian Island

island in the pacific where the atomic bombs were launched from

Japanese expansion in Asia

led by Emperor Hirohito; Japan conquered Manchuria for its iron and coal, and set up a puppet government in 1931; invaded the northern part of China, the remainder of China fell in 1937

Little Boy and Fat Man

two atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The bombing marked the beginning of the age of nuclear warfare

The 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima

was the costliest in the history of the United States Marines