Related Information to Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombs

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombs - Page 4

First, a correction (in bold) I owe you for my previous post:
It should go as:
"What I was taught at school is that, Japan being during the WWII on the side of Germany, still presented a danger because didn't officially give up. So after Berlin had fallen, the war still was going on the East."

Kids and grandkids thing: have to admit, I can't provide a link to anything scientifically convincing or even detailed.

Of course, cases like this one:
"Within a few months of the nuclear explosions, leukemia began to appear among the survivors at an abnormally high rate. Some leukemia victims were fetuses within their mothers' wombs when exposed to radiation. One child who was born two days after the Hiroshima explosion eventually died of acute leukemia at the age of eighteen. The number of leukemia cases has declined with time, but the incidence of lung cancer, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, and cancers of other organs has increased among the survivors." - https://library.thinkquest.org/3471/radiati..._body_body.html

are widely available, but certainly "one child" case is not enough for serious conclusion.

Check ## 5 - 7 here: https://www.atomicbombmuseum.org/3_health.shtml

This article - https://www.atomsafe.ru/B5-6/pech3.htm (in Russian, sorry) - deals with genetic mutation caused by radiation, specifically with so-called frequency of mutations in mini-satellite sections of DNA (mini-satellite sections of DNA being short fragments of DNA, sort of "letters" that compose DNA) the increasing of which, as I understood, although is not lethal, leads to mutation in genes that is forwarded to new generations. The article does state that we have very little knowledge about it now and how exactly it could affect health of these future generations. All we know that far is that children born from women who suffered during Chernobyl, have a visible increase in that process.

Of course, Chernobyl differs from Hiroshima, not only because the former explosion was much stronger but also because it was earth-penetrating, and Hiroshima's bomb was blown in the air.
That is why Chernobyl is closed now, for IIRC, 70 years at least. The area is considered to be poisonous and will stay like that for quite a while.

The environmental pollution should be included into consequences of atomic explosions.
An atomic bomb does not just fall where it falls. The gas is taken away by the wind, pours with rain onto totally different place, miles away from the explosion gets absorbed by the soil, poisons it, the plants, gets in rivers, everywhere.
It's what I meant, too, by "kids and grandkids".
Who'd want to move their family to Chernobyl region, not even close to it, like a 100 km away from its sanitary border? If a bomb is blown above some city of A, city of B, 100 miles away from it, might be really lucky not to receive its share of radiation with rain.
It cannot be compared with fire bombs.

Speaking about fire bombs...
"How different is the explosion of one nuclear bomb in comparison to "conventional" fire-bombing?
The deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were on the order of 100,000 people in each city-both immediate deaths and deaths within the next few weeks. Bombing raids of a number of different cities in WWII produced death tolls of about 100,000 people or more, but that was produced by wave upon wave of continued bombing over the space of several days or weeks. You can produce equivalent damage using so-called conventional weapons (not nuclear), it just takes a little longer."
- https://www.satyamag.com/mar03/sidel.html

This might be of interest: https://bd.fom.ru/report/whatsnew/d053016

What Russian people know about Hiroshima. July 23 - 24, 2005. 1500 respondents.

1. Your first association with the word Hiroshima:

- Atomic bombing - 39 %
- Nightmare, danger of global catastrophe - 14%
- Consequences of nuclear bombing of Hiroshima - 11%
- War - 10%
- Nuclear war - 5%
- Japan, Japanese people, island - 4%
- General negative idea - 1%
- Usage of atomic weapon by Americans - 1%
- Unhuman crime - 1%
- The name of the city - 1%
- Creating of atomic weapon, it's testing - 1%
- Other - 2%
- No associations - 1%
- Don't know - 21%


2. Have you ever heard about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japanese cities on which atomic boms were dropped?

- Yes, I know - 71% (see question 3, 4)
- I heard something - 20%
- Hear now for the first time - 7%
- Can't answer - 2%


3. For those who answered YES to the 2nd question.
In what year did it happen?

- 1945 - 45%
- gave wrong answer - 20%
- couldn't answer - 26%

4. For those who answered YES to the 2nd question.
What country did it?

- USA - 77%
- gave wrong answer - 2%
- couldn't answer - 11%


5. In your opinion, why USA blew atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

- To demonstrate their power, to intimidate - 36%
- Testing atomic weapon on people - 18%
- To get a victory over Japan - 13%
- Avenge for Pearl Harbour - 5%
- Mass murdering of people - 3%
- To provoque military race, to start a war - 1%
- It's politics - 1%
- Other - 1%
- Can't answer - 29%


6. If USA hadn't used bombs on Japan...
- the war with Japan would have gone for a long time - agreed 12%
- the war with Japan would have ended soon in any case - agreed - 57%
- don't know - 31%

7. Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- could be justified - 7%
- by no means could be justified - 79%
- don't know - 14%


8. Do you think the USA were aware of the consequences of the atomic bombing?
- yes - 62%
- no - 20%
- don't know - 18%

Edited: Klausse on 8th Mar, 2006 - 2:50pm

Bombs Nagasaki Hiroshima

This has been an informative discussion. Thank you Klause. One final point 100,000 people died in one night during the fire bombing of Tokyo. As far as the birth defects I had expected them to be wide spread and prevalent. I was suprised to learn different. Sincerely, pockettape.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombs History & Civil Business Politics

I was reading this thread and would like to add a few more things to it that may be of interest.

First of all, Nagasaki was not the initial target of the 2nd bomb. That town was actually Kokura. The four choices for bombing were to be Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. Kokura was of interest as it was the main arsenal of Japan at that time. Bockscar flew over Kokura for several minutes but could not see the ground due to thick cloud cover. The plane was then turned and headed towards Nagasaki. Once at Nagasaki, the plane again circled for several minutes as cloud cover blanketed the site. However a opening in the clouds appeared just before the decision to go back was made and a site was identified and the bomb dropped. For those that know what at B29 looks like, Bockscar landed back in Okinawa with only about 35 gallons of fuel left. Nagasaki's selection was due to the harbor that was used for ship building and other significant military infastructure. Each site was also had significant civilian population that was looked at as key to achieving a surrender.

Kyoto and Yokohama were also suggested as targets in the initial recommendation from the strategist. It was thought that the destruction of Kyoto, the religious center of Japan, would only strengthen the resolve even in the face of certain defeat of the Japanese people as well as the military. It was also thought that the religious leaders and scholars would be needed after the bomb to help Japan recover. Yokohama, which is very close to Tokyo, brought about its own issues as a target and was dropped from the final listing.

As for the reason to use the bomb, we have always heard of the amount of estimated US soldiers that woud die in taking over Japan would be about 500,000. This number is debated greatly, but it is fair to say there would have been some fatalities. McArthur believed that the Japanese would take a surrender immediately if they were allowed to maintain their Emporer Hirohito in position as ruler. Not only McArthur, but Eisenhower, Nimitz and Leahy among several other high ranking military leaders saw the bombing as unnecessary in bringing the Japanese to surrender. What appears to be the key and was discussed earlier in the thread was Russia. Russia had destroyed the Japanese with ease in Manchuria and were massing troops for an invasion starting at northern Japan. It would appear that Russia would be able to pull off a land invasion potentially sooner than the US had there been no bomb. Many believe that the thought of fighting against Germany, Italy and Japan only to see the majority of the world become communist that the end of the war was enough that Truman wanted an immediate end to the war and a message sent to Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombin...gasaki#_note-47
https://www.freenewmexican.com/news/31196.html

Wikipedia does have a nice writeup with plenty of documentation regarding the Russian issue. However, much of it is speculative as to what would have happened. But what cannot be denied is that Russia was massing troops for an invasion and the US certainly did not want to see East Asia become communist.

Page 4 Bombs Nagasaki Hiroshima

It was probably the sense of the world at the time that it was Japan that needed to be stopped.

The bombings were quite well-received in the US. Japan had done some horrific things (not just Pearl Harbor) and few people sympathized with them. And people were relieved that they had finally been stopped.

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The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki definitely broke the rule against indiscriminate bombing near concentrations of civilians. But that doesn't mean that every use of a nuke would break the rules.

Not exactly. Hiroshima held tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers, and held the military headquarters in charge of repelling any invasion in the southern half of Japan.

The outskirts of Nagasaki were home to some major arms-production industry. The Nagasaki bomb hit the outskirts of the city, over one of the industrial zones.


The reason Hiroshima was bombed so late was because it was being specifically held in reserve as an A-bomb target, not because it wasn't important.

The reason Nagasaki was not bombed earlier is because it was difficult to locate using radar guidance, which made it an unlikely target for the large incendiary raids.

If we were so bent on removing the Emperor, why didn't we do it?

The problem with the Japanese willingness to surrender is that their military was insisting on unacceptable surrender terms, which lead to a deadlock with the peace faction, and that deadlock caused them to not actually act on their desire to surrender.

This did not change until the Emperor ordered the military to accept our terms, and he did not give those orders until Nagasaki had already been bombed.

Edited: Oralloy on 22nd Apr, 2007 - 4:37am

Bombs Nagasaki Hiroshima

Oralloy said:

That's just speculation really. A lot of times countries choose not get involved based on a lot of different factors.

Nevertheless, the reality is that MOST of the people who were killed or injured were not soldiers but innocent civilians.

I still think these two bombs were the greatest atrocities the United States of America have ever committed in its history.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombs

Even among those countries who chose not to get involved, I can't believe that they weren't hoping that Japan would be stopped.

True. I was just objecting to the notion that we were only bombing the city in order to kill civilians.

That could be. The genocide of the Native Americans might give it some competition though.

Hiroshima Nagasaki Bombs - Page 4

Actually, they were looking for military targets with a significant population around them to bomb. The goal was to crush the military capability and demoralize the citizens if the bomb was to be dropped. They wanted the war to come to a quick stop because as I said earlier the Russians were coming. The way in which the Russians easily dispatched the Japanese in Manchuria told them that there was land for grabs if they could get there and they were massing troops. The US didn't want to fight in this war only to see it all become communist as the lines were already being drawn in backrooms.

It was a ugly war from start to finish. It was the first time that the tactic of fire bombing of large cities was used. The idea was to again demoralize the people. England, Germany and Japan had massive casualties due to fire bombing of cities. I may be incorrect, but the number of deaths from the bomb were actually less than from the fire bombing of Tokyo.

If you read more about the Japanese military, you will find that the war would have continued for quite a while, but they would have ultimately lost in the end. It is easy to imagine a north and south Japan.

I have often put myself in the situation mentally as to which I would rather try to live through. One massive nuclear blast or constant nightly firebombing of my city. To be honest, the thought of a nightly raid and the sound of those bombs over and over and over again would eventually get to me. However, if you were not immediately killed in the atomic blast, life would have been horrible as well unless you lived far enough away from the drop site.

I also wonder if we had the chance to ask the soldiers that stormed Normandy's beaches if they would have rather just dropped a bomb instead of trying the landing.

War is an ugly business.

Hiroshima Nagasaki Bombs Politics Business Civil & History - Page 4

I'm sure that given a choice between "the Soviets sharing Japan" and "the Soviets not having any of Japan" we would have definitely preferred to keep the Soviets out, as the Soviets had already demonstrated that they were a threat to world freedom.

But if Japan had absolutely not surrendered and an invasion been necessary, the staggering number of casualties that would likely occur was an ever greater concern for Truman, so he kept pushing the Soviets to hold to their promise to enter the war against Japan.


I know there were a lot of civilians in the area too. I was just pointing out that it was not a purely civilian target.