Consequence - Hiroshima And Nagasaki Flashcards
When did the bombing of Hiroshima take place?
6th of August 1945
When did the bombing of Nagasaki take place?
9th of August 1945
How many dead in Hiroshima
70,000 (death toll passed 100,000 by the end of the year)
How many dead in Nagasaki
35,000 - 40,000
How much of hiroshima was destroyed?
13 square kilometres
How much of Nagasaki was destroyed?
4.6 square kilometres
Why did the Japanese not immediately surrender after the bombing of Hiroshima
The Japanese thought that maybe the Americans only had one, and the people in Tokyo had not fully understood its effects
How far away could the mushroom cloud in Hiroshima be seen
640 kilometres
What did the Americans hope to achieve by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki
To force Japan to surrender
What did the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki stop and start
Stopped WW2, started the nuclear arms race
Where and when did the US do their first nuclear testing
16 July 1945, New Mexico
How long and how much did the bomb cost
3 years to develop and cost $2 billion
What was the manhatten project and when was it active from
1942 - 1945, The code name for the American-led effort to develop a function atomic bomb weapon during WW2
What was the original use of the atomic bomb?
For use against Nazi Germany
When was the war in europe over
By july 1945
What had the Americans tried before the nuclear bomb?
Fire bombing the Japanese into submition, and multiple cities were reduced to rubble
What were the expected casualties if the allies invaded Japan?
1 million casualities, and many more Japanese
What was the state of Japan’s power at the time
The Emperor Hirohito was head of state and considered a living god. Day to day power however rested on the special war direction council
What did the heads of Japan’s different opinions on ending the war
prime minister Kantarō Suzuki and foreign minister Shigenoru Tōjō were considering a negociated settlement but army minister General Korechika Anami was determined to fight on
What was Anami’s plan?
For an all out final battle, and that the people’s willingness to die for the Emperor would allow them to win as the Americans couldn’t stand the casualties
How was all of Japan’s population readied to stop the invaders?
- Ordinary soldiers and medical orderlies were trained to strap bombs to their bodies and throw themselves at the tanks
- The officers, but also all the soldiers, were resigned to the fact that when they would go to the front, they would not return
- school girls were trained to attack Americans with sharpened bamboo spears
What president authorised the bomb?
American President Harry Truman
What did Truman do before going ahead with the bomb?
The Potsdam Declaration of unconditional surrender of Japan (which had been seen as a threat to the Emperor by the japs) was changed to the uncondtional surrender of the armed forces of Japan
How did the Japanese take the altered terms?
They saw it as something had come up for them to force the war to end, and that if the Japanese held out a bit longer then they would yield before they did
What did the japanese prime minister Kantarō Suzuki announce after they altered the demand
That his government would ignore the new Potsdam declaration
What was the original atomic bomb test in new mexico called?
The trinity test
Where was the bomb shipped from
San Francisco to Tinian
What was Tinian?
The home of the biggest airforce base in the world
What was Hiroshima?
An important military base, the headquarters of the second general army and had a key role in defence against the expected invasion
Why did america refraine from fire bombing Hiroshima?
So that they would be able to measure the precise effects of the nuclear bomb
How far was the flash of the orginal test explosion seen
16 km
How many months was the bombing of hiroshima expected to shorten WW2 by?
At least 6 months
Who piloted the plane for hiroshima and what was it called?
Colonel Paul Tibbets and the plane was called Enola Gay, after his mother
Why is it thought that so many died?
People were let out of the airraid shelters after the weather plane left
How long was it from when the bomb left the air plane till it exploded?
43 seconds
Where did the flash of the bomb come from?
A giant fireball 300 meters wide
What were the temperatures directly underneath the fireball?
4,000 degrees celsius
What happened to anyone in the open air?
Vaporised or turned to carbon in an instant
What did the flash send out?
Powerful infrared raditon and gamma rays, which can penetrate walls and attack the cells in human bodies
What happened after the mushroom cloud formed?
A fraction of a second later came a powerful shock wave that moved at the speed of sound
Horrible things that happened to the japanese after the bomb fell
- bodies piled up all around
- people walking like corpses with skin hanging off of them
- horrible burn victims
- people jumping into water and accidentally drowning others in desperation
- thousands poisoned from the black rain
What happened when it rained?
Dark raindrops rained from the sky, which had been made black from sucking up the ash and smoke from the mushroom cloud, and were big enough to hurt when they hit your skin. It was also highly radioactive
What happened after the bombing?
Japan refused to surrender, to which Truman warned that if they did not then they would drop more atomic bombs, and he urged Japanese citizens to leave industrial cities immediately. He also said that he had used the bomb against them to shorten the war
What was the second bomb’s original target, and why was it changed?
Kokura, however they changed it because it was too cloudy
What were the conditions the crew were in when they dropped the second bomb?
They were desperately low on fuel, so they dropped it anyways despite it being also too cloudy
What happened because of the lack of accuracy in the second bomb’s drop
The bomb missed the aiming point and fell into a valley.
What were the results of the initial bombing, bomb wise?
There was no firestorm
Why did Japan eventually surrender?
The supreme war direction council met the same day as the Nagasaki bombing. By now, the Russians had declared war on Japan and then came the news from Nagasaki. They were also worried they may drop a bomb on Tokyo and kill the imperial family. Emperor Hirohito finally said that he wanted to end the war
When did Emperor Hirohito broadcast his official Surrender and what happened
15 August 1945 - General Anami killed himself in the time honoured tradition of seppuku to restore his honour.
What emerged 4 days later in the japanese hospitals?
The effects of radiation poisoning starting to kill off the people. Purple spots would break out across their bodies and they wouldn’t stop bleeding even if pressure was applied. They also vomited large amounts of brown liquid. This was necrosis, as they were rotting away due to having no white blood cells to fight infection. Their hair would fall out
What was the name of the Nagasaki bomb
Fat Man
What was the plane that dropped the Nagasaki bomb
Bock’s Car
What was the bomb dropped on Hiroshima called
Little Boy
