Their only adversary in World War II was Japan, which was also soon to surrender. It was at this point 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.
On the morning of August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber "Enola Gay" dropped the atomic bomb "Kid" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, the "mushroom cloud" grew over the city of Nagasaki after the B-29 "Bockscar" bomber dropped the "Fat Man" bomb.
After the bombing, these cities turned into ruins, there was no stone unturned from them, local civilians were burned to death.
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 victims of 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 government 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.
Frame youtube.com / Helio YoshidaThe blast wave of Tsutomu Yamaguchi knocked out the eardrums, the incredibly bright white light blinded him for a while. He received severe burns, but 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 was again 3 kilometers from the epicenter. When he told his boss at 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.
Many years of rehabilitation, suffering and health problems followed. 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 took 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 bombings 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 off his bike to the ground and destroyed the nearby houses.
Photo: Hidankyo Shimbun
After the explosion, the teenager survived, but was seriously injured. The ripped skin hung in shreds from his hands, and there was none on his back. 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 sent to the hospital.
In 1946, an American photographer took the famous picture of Sumiteru Taniguchi with terrible 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. In total, Sumiteru Taniguchi underwent 10 operations.
The recovery was aggravated 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 whole life to the fight against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, became a famous activist and chairman of the Council of victims of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki.
Today, 84-year-old Sumiteru Taniguchi lectures around the world about the dire consequences of the use of nuclear weapons and why they should be abandoned.
Round orphan
For 16 year old Mikoso IwasaAugust 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, Mikoso Iwasa's family was not so lucky. The boy's mother was at that time in the house, she was covered 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 medicine 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.
The explosion of the Little Boy atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
Was it necessary to bomb Japan at all?
The debate about the expediency and ethical side of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki continues 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 with the 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 more of a political one - 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 senior military officials 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.
Image copyright AP Image caption Hiroshima a month after the explosion
70 years ago, on August 6, 1945, nuclear weapons were first used by the United States against the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On August 9, this happened for the second and hopefully the last time in history: an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
The role of the atomic bombings in Japan's surrender and their moral assessment are still controversial.
Manhattan Project
The possibility of using fission of uranium nuclei for military purposes became obvious to specialists at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1913, H.G. Wells wrote the science fiction novel The World Liberated, in which he described the nuclear bombing of Paris by the Germans with many reliable details and used the term "atomic bomb" for the first time.
In June 1939, scientists at the University of Birmingham, Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls, calculated that the critical mass of the charge should be at least 10 kg of enriched uranium-235.
At about the same time, European physicists who fled from the Nazis to the United States noticed that their German colleagues, who were engaged in relevant problems, had disappeared from the public field, and concluded that they were engaged in a secret military project. Hungarian Leo Szilard asked Albert Einstein to use his authority to influence Roosevelt.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Albert Einstein opened his eyes to the White HouseOn October 11, 1939, an appeal signed by Einstein, Szilard and the future "father of the hydrogen bomb" Edward Teller was read by the president. History has preserved his words: "It requires action." According to other sources, Roosevelt called the Secretary of War and said: "Make sure the Nazis don't blow us up."
Large-scale work began on December 6, 1941, coincidentally, on the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The project was codenamed "Manhattan". Brigadier General Leslie Groves, who knew nothing about physics and disliked "egg-headed" scientists, but had experience in organizing large-scale construction, was appointed head. In addition to "Manhattan", he is famous for the construction of the Pentagon, to this day the largest building in the world.
By June 1944, 129 thousand people were employed in the project. Its approximate cost was two billion then (about 24 billion today) dollars.
Russian historian that Germany did not acquire a bomb, not thanks to anti-fascist scientists or Soviet intelligence, but because the United States was the only country in the world that was economically capable of doing this in a war. Both in the Reich and in the USSR, all resources were spent on the current needs of the front.
"Frank's Report"
The progress of work in Los Alamos was closely monitored by Soviet intelligence. Her task was facilitated by the left-wing beliefs of many physicists.
Several years ago, the Russian television channel NTV made a film, according to which the scientific director of the "Manhattan project" Robert Oppenheimer, allegedly back in the late 1930s, suggested to Stalin to come to the USSR and create a bomb, but the Soviet leader preferred to do it for American money, and get the results in finished form.
This is a legend, Oppenheimer and other leading scientists were not agents in the generally accepted sense of the word, but they were frank in conversations on scientific topics, although they guessed that the information was going to Moscow, because they found it fair.
In June 1945, some of them, including Szilard, sent a report to Secretary of War Henry Stimson, known by the name of one of the authors, Nobel laureate James Frank. Scientists suggested that instead of bombing Japanese cities, conduct a demonstrative explosion in an uninhabited place, wrote about the impossibility of maintaining a monopoly and predicted a nuclear arms race.
Target selection
During Roosevelt's visit to London in September 1944, he and Churchill agreed to use nuclear weapons against Japan as soon as they were ready.
On April 12, 1945, the president died suddenly. After the first meeting of the administration, chaired by Harry Truman, who had previously not been privy to many secret affairs, Stimson stayed and informed the new leader that he would soon have a weapon of unprecedented strength in his hands.
The most important US contribution to the Soviet nuclear project was the successful test in the Alamogordo Desert. When it became clear that it was possible in principle to do this, no more information could have been obtained - we would have done it anyway Andrei Gagarinsky, Advisor to the Director of the Kurchatov Institute
On July 16, the Americans tested a 21 kiloton nuclear charge in the Alamogordo Desert. The result exceeded expectations.
On July 24, during Truman's time, as if casually told Stalin about the miracle weapon. He did not show interest in the topic.
Truman and Churchill decided that the old dictator did not understand the importance of what he heard. In fact, Stalin knew about the trial in great detail from agent Theodore Hall, who was recruited in 1944.
On May 10-11, the newly formed Targeting Committee met in Los Alamos and recommended four Japanese cities: Kyoto (historical imperial capital and major industrial center), Hiroshima (large military depots and the headquarters of the 2nd Army of Field Marshal Shunroku Hata), Kokuru (engineering enterprises and the largest arsenal) and Nagasaki (military shipyards, an important port).
Henry Stimson struck out Kyoto because of its cultural heritage and sacred role for the Japanese people. According to the American historian Edwin Reischauer, the minister "has known and loved Kyoto since his honeymoon there several decades ago."
Final stage
On July 26, the United States, Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration demanding Japan's unconditional surrender.
According to researchers, Emperor Hirohito, after the defeat of Germany, realized the futility of further struggle and wanted negotiations, but hoped that the USSR would act as a neutral mediator at them, and the Americans would be afraid of the big casualties in the storming of the Japanese islands, and thus it would Korea, avoid surrender and occupation.
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 an ultimatum was issued on July 26 in Potsdam. If they do not accept our terms now, let them expect a rain of destruction from the air, the likes of which has not yet been on this planet Statement by President Truman after the bombing of Hiroshima
On July 28, the Japanese government rejected the Potsdam Declaration. The military command began to prepare for the implementation of the "Jasper to smithereens" plan, which provided for the complete mobilization of the civilian population and its arming with bamboo spears.
At the end of May, the secret 509th air group was formed on the island of Tinian.
On July 25, Truman signed a directive to launch a nuclear strike "any day after August 3, as soon as weather conditions permit." On July 28, it was duplicated in a combat order by the chief of staff of the American army, George Marshall. The next day, the Commander-in-Chief of Strategic Aviation Karl Spaats flew to Tinian.
On July 26, the Indianapolis cruiser delivered an 18 kiloton atomic bomb "Little Boy" to the base. The components of a second bomb, code-named "Fat Man", with a capacity of 21 kilotons, were airlifted on 28 July and 2 August and assembled on site.
Judgment Day
On August 6, at 01:45 local time, the B-29 air fortress, piloted by the commander of the 509th air group, Colonel Paul Tibbets and named after his mother, "Enola Gay", rose from Tinian and reached its target six hours later.
On board was a Baby bomb, on which someone wrote: “For those killed on the Indianapolis.” The cruiser that delivered the charge to Tinian was sunk by a Japanese submarine on July 30. 883 sailors were killed, about half of whom were eaten by sharks.
The Enola Gay was escorted by five reconnaissance aircraft. Crews sent to Kokura and Nagasaki reported heavy cloud cover, and the sky was clear over Hiroshima.
The Japanese air defense announced an air raid, but canceled it after seeing that there was only one bomber.
At 08:15 local time, B-29 dropped the Malysh into the center of Hiroshima from a 9-kilometer height. The charge went off at an altitude of 600 meters.
About 20 minutes later, Tokyo noticed that all communications with the city had been cut off. Then a confusing message about some monstrous explosion came from a railway station 16 km from Hiroshima. The General Staff officer, sent by plane to find out what was the matter, saw the glow for 160 kilometers and with difficulty found a landing site in the vicinity.
The Japanese learned about what happened to them only 16 hours later from an official statement made in Washington.
Goal number 2
The bombing of Kokura was scheduled for August 11, but was brought closer by two days due to the long period of bad weather predicted by forecasters.
At 02:47 B-29, under the command of Major Charles Sweeney, with a bomb, the Fat Man took off from Tinian.
I was knocked to the ground from my bike, and for a while the ground shook. I clung to it so as not to be carried away by the blast. 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 had 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 down like tattered rags Sumiteru Taniguchi, a 16-year-old resident of Nagasaki
Kokura was saved for the second time by thick cloud cover. Arriving at the reserve target, Nagasaki, previously almost not subjected to even conventional raids, the crew saw that there, too, the sky was covered with clouds.
Since there was just barely enough fuel on the way back, Sweeney was about to drop the bomb at random, but then the gunner Captain Kermit Behan saw the city stadium in the gap between the clouds.
The explosion occurred at 11:02 local time at an altitude of about 500 meters.
If the first raid went smoothly from a technical point of view, Sweeney's crew had to fix the fuel pump all the time.
Returning to Tinian, the aviators saw that there was no one around the landing strip.
Exhausted by the hard long-term mission and annoyed that three days ago everyone was running around with Tibbets' crew as if they were a written sack, they turned on all the alarm signals at once: "We are going to an emergency landing"; "The plane is damaged"; "Killed and wounded on board." Ground personnel poured out of buildings, fire engines rushed to the landing site.
The bomber froze, Sweeney descended from the cockpit to the ground.
"Where are the killed and wounded?" they asked him. The major waved his hand in the direction from which he had just arrived: "They all stayed there."
Effects
After the explosion, one resident of Hiroshima went to visit relatives in Nagasaki, was hit by a second blow, and survived again. But not everyone was so lucky.
The population of Hiroshima was 245 thousand, Nagasaki 200 thousand people.
Both cities were built up mostly with wooden houses that burst into flames like paper. In Hiroshima, the blast was further amplified by the surrounding hills.
Three colors for me characterize the day 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 and fire. Brown was the color of the burnt skin of Akiko Takahura, who survived 300 meters from the epicenter of the explosion.
90% of people who were within a kilometer from the epicenters died instantly. Their bodies turned to charcoal, the light radiation leaving silhouettes of bodies on the walls.
Within a radius of two kilometers, everything that could burn flared up; windows were broken in houses within a radius of 20 kilometers.
The victims of the raid on Hiroshima were about 90 thousand people, Nagasaki - 60 thousand people. Another 156 thousand died in the next five years from diseases associated by doctors with the consequences of nuclear explosions.
A number of sources call the total figures of 200 thousand victims of Hiroshima and 140 thousand of Nagasaki.
The Japanese had no idea about radiation and did not take any precautions, and doctors at first considered vomiting a symptom of disinfection. For the first time, they started talking about the mysterious "radiation sickness" after the death of the popular actress Midori Naka, who lived in Hiroshima, on August 24 from leukemia.
According to official Japanese data as of March 31, 2013, 20,179 hibakusha lived in the country - people who survived the atomic bombings and their descendants. According to the same data, 286,818 "Hiroshima" and 162,083 "Nagasaki" Hibakusha died in 68 years, although decades later death could have been caused by natural causes.
Memory
Image copyright AP Image caption Every year on August 6, white doves are released in front of the Atomic DomeThe touching story of a girl from Hiroshima, Sadako Sasaki, who survived Hiroshima at the age of two, and fell ill with blood cancer at the age of 12, has gone around the world. According to Japanese belief, any human desire will be fulfilled if he makes a thousand paper cranes. Lying in the hospital, she folded 644 cranes and died in October 1955.
In Hiroshima, the reinforced concrete building of the Industrial Chamber, located just 160 meters from the epicenter, was built before the war by Czech architect Jan Letzel in anticipation of an earthquake, and is now known as the "Atomic Dome".
In 1996, UNESCO included it on the list of protected World Heritage Sites, despite objections from Beijing, who believed that honoring the victims of Hiroshima was an insult to the memory of the Chinese victims of Japanese aggression.
The American participants in the nuclear bombing subsequently commented on this episode of their biography in the spirit of: "War is war." The only exception was Major Claude Iserly, the commander of the reconnaissance plane, who reported that the sky was clear over Hiroshima. He subsequently suffered from depression and participated in the pacifist movement.
Was it necessary?
Soviet history textbooks unequivocally stated that "the use of atomic bombs was not caused by military necessity" and was dictated exclusively by the desire to intimidate the USSR.
The words attributed to Truman were quoted, allegedly said by him after Stimson's report: "If this thing explodes, I will have a good club against the Russians."
The debate about the appropriateness of the bombing will definitely continue Samuel Walker, American historian
At the same time, the former American ambassador to Moscow, Averell Harriman, argued that, at least in the summer of 1945, Truman and his entourage did not have such considerations.
"In Potsdam, no one had such an idea. The prevailing opinion was that Stalin should be treated like an ally, albeit a difficult one, in the hope that he would behave in the same way," the senior diplomat wrote in his memoirs.
The operation to seize one small island, Okinawa, lasted two months and claimed the lives of 12,000 Americans. According to military analysts, in the event of a landing on the main islands (Operation Downfall), the battles would last another year, and the number of US casualties could rise to a million.
The entry of the Soviet Union into the war, of course, was an important factor. But the defeat of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria practically did not weaken the defenses of the Japanese metropolis, since it would still be impossible to transfer troops there from the mainland due to the overwhelming superiority of the United States at sea and in the air.
Meanwhile, on August 12, at a meeting of the Supreme Council for the Leadership of the War, Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki decisively stated the impossibility of further struggle. One of the arguments voiced at the time was that in the event of a nuclear strike on Tokyo, not only subjects born to die selflessly for their fatherland and Mikado, but also the emperor's sacred person could suffer.
The threat was real. On August 10, Leslie Groves informed General Marshall that the next bomb would be ready for use on August 17-18.
At the disposal of the enemy is a new terrible weapon capable of taking many innocent lives and inflicting immeasurable material damage. 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 From the declaration of Emperor Hirohito of August 15, 1945
On August 15, Emperor Hirohito issued a surrender decree, and the Japanese began to surrender en masse. The corresponding act was signed on September 2 aboard the American battleship Missouri, which entered the Tokyo Bay.
According to historians, Stalin was dissatisfied with the fact that this happened so soon, and the Soviet troops did not manage to land on Hokkaido. Two divisions of the first echelon have already concentrated on Sakhalin, awaiting the signal to move.
It would be logical if the capitulation of Japan on behalf of the USSR was accepted by the commander-in-chief in the Far East, Marshal Vasilevsky, like Zhukov in Germany. But the leader, showing his disappointment, sent a minor person to the Missouri - Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko.
Subsequently, Moscow demanded that the Americans allocate Hokkaido to it as a zone of occupation. The claims were withdrawn and relations with Japan were normalized only in 1956, after the resignation of Stalin's Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.
Ultimate weapon
At first, both American and Soviet strategists viewed atomic bombs as conventional weapons, only of increased power.
In the USSR in 1956, a large-scale exercise was held at the Totsk test site to break through the fortified enemy defenses with the real use of nuclear weapons. US Strategic Air Force Commander Thomas Powell at about the same time ridiculed scientists who warned about the effects of radiation: "Who said that two heads are worse than one?"
But over time, especially after the appearance in 1954, capable of killing not tens of thousands, but tens of millions, the point of view of Albert Einstein prevailed: "If in world war number three will be fought with atomic bombs, then in world war number four will be fought with clubs." ...
Stalin's successor Georgy Malenkov at the end of 1954 published in Pravda in the event of a nuclear war and the need for peaceful coexistence.
Atomic war is madness. There will be no winners Albert Schweitzer, doctor, philanthropist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
John F. Kennedy, after the mandatory briefing for the new president with the Secretary of Defense, bitterly exclaimed: "And we still call ourselves a human race?"
In both the West and the East, the nuclear threat has been relegated to the background in the mass consciousness according to the principle: "If this has not happened so far, then it will not happen further." The problem has shifted into the mainstream of years of sluggish negotiations on reduction and control.
In fact, the atomic bomb turned out to be the "absolute weapon" that philosophers have been talking about for centuries, one that would make impossible, if not war at all, then their most dangerous and bloody variety: total conflicts between the great powers.
The buildup of military power according to the Hegelian law of denial of denial turned out to be its opposite.
During World War II, at 8.15am on August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan by a US B-29 Enola Gay bomber. About 140,000 people died in the explosion and died over the following months. Three days later, when the United States dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, about 80,000 people were killed. On August 15, Japan surrendered, thus ending World War II. Until now, this bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains the only case of the use of nuclear weapons in the history of mankind. The US government decided to drop bombs, believing that this would hasten the end of the war and that there would be no need for prolonged bloody battles on the main island of Japan. Japan was trying hard to control two islands, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, when the allies approached.
1. This wristwatch, found among the ruins, stopped at 8.15 am on August 6, 1945 - during the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
2. Flying fortress "Enola Gay" lands on August 6, 1945 at the base on the island of Tinian after the bombing of Hiroshima.
3. This photo, released in 1960 by the US government, shows the Little Boy atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The bomb measures 73 cm in diameter and 3.2 m in length. It weighed 4 tons, and the explosion power reached 20,000 tons in TNT equivalent.
4. In this image provided by the US Air Force, the main team of the B-29 bomber "Enola Gay", which dropped the "Kid" nuclear bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Pilot Colonel Paul W. Tibbets stands in the center. Photo taken in the Mariana Islands. This was the first time nuclear weapons were used during military operations in human history.
5. Smoke rising 20,000 feet above Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 after an atomic bomb was dropped on it during hostilities.
6. This photograph, taken on August 6, 1945, from the city of Yoshiura, on the other side of the mountains north of Hiroshima, shows the smoke rising from the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The picture was taken by an Australian engineer from Kure, Japan. The spots left on the negative by radiation almost destroyed the image.
7. Survivors after the explosion of the atomic bomb, first used during hostilities on August 6, 1945, await medical assistance in Hiroshima, Japan. The explosion killed 60,000 people at the same time, tens of thousands later died due to radiation.
8.August 6, 1945 In the photo: military medics provide first aid to the surviving residents of Hiroshima shortly after the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, used in hostilities for the first time in history.
9. After the explosion of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, only ruins remained in Hiroshima. Nuclear weapons were used to hasten Japan's surrender and end World War II, for which US President Harry Truman ordered the use of nuclear weapons with a capacity of 20,000 tons of TNT. The surrender of Japan took place on August 14, 1945.
10.On August 7, 1945, the day after the explosion of the atomic bomb, smoke spreads over the ruins in Hiroshima, Japan.
11. President Harry Truman (pictured left) at his desk in the White House next to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson after returning from the Potsdam Conference. They discuss the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
13. The survivors of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, people among the ruins, against the background of raging fire in the background, August 9, 1945.
14. The crew of the B-29 bomber "The Great Artiste", which dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, surrounded Major Charles W. Swinney in North Quincy, Massachusetts. All crew members took part in the historic bombing. Left to right: Sergeant R. Gallagher, Chicago; Staff Sergeant A. M. Spitzer, Bronx, New York; Captain S. D. Albury, Miami, Florida; Captain J.F. Van Pelt Jr., Oak Hill, West Virginia; Lieutenant F.J. Olivi, Chicago; Staff Sergeant E.K. Buckley, Lisbon, Ohio; Sergeant A. T. Degart, Plainview, TX; and Sergeant Sergeant J. D. Kukharek, Columbus, Nebraska.
15. This photograph of the atomic bomb that exploded over Nagasaki, Japan during World War II was released by the Atomic Energy Commission and the US Department of Defense in Washington on December 6, 1960. The "Fat Man" bomb was 3.25 meters long and 1.54 meters in diameter, and weighed 4.6 tons. The explosion power reached about 20 kilotons in TNT equivalent.
16. A huge column of smoke rises into the air after the explosion of the second atomic bomb in the port city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. As a result of the explosion of a bomb dropped by a bomber of the US Air Force B-29 Bockscar, more than 70 thousand people immediately died, tens of thousands more died later as a result of radiation.
17. A huge mushroom cloud over Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945, after a US bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the city. The nuclear explosion over Nagasaki came three days after the United States dropped the first ever atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
18. A boy carries his burned brother on his back on August 10, 1945 in Nagasaki, Japan. Such photos were not released by the Japanese side, but after the end of the war they were shown to the world media by the UN staff.
19. The arrow was installed at the site of the fall of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki on August 10, 1945. Most of the affected area is still empty, the trees remained charred and disfigured, and almost no reconstruction was carried out.
20. Japanese workers clear debris in the affected area in Nagasaki, an industrial city located in the southwest of Kyushu island, after the atomic bomb was dropped on it on August 9. A chimney and a lonely building are visible in the background, and ruins in the foreground. Photo taken from the archives of the Japanese news agency Domei.
22. As you can see in this photo, which was taken on September 5, 1945, several concrete and steel buildings and bridges remained intact after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II.
23. A month after the first atomic bomb exploded on August 6, 1945, a journalist inspects the ruins in Hiroshima, Japan.
24. The victim of the explosion of the first atomic bomb in the ward of the first military hospital in Ujina in September 1945. The thermal radiation from the explosion burned the pattern from the kimono fabric on the woman's back.
25. Most of the territory of Hiroshima was razed to the ground by the explosion of the atomic bomb. This is the first aerial photograph after the explosion, taken on September 1, 1945.
26. The area around Sanyo Shorai Kan (Trade Facilitation Center) in Hiroshima was reduced to rubble after an atomic bomb exploded 100 meters away in 1945.
27. A reporter stands amid the ruins in front of the skeleton of a building that was a city theater, in Hiroshima on September 8, 1945, a month after the first atomic bomb was dropped by the United States to hasten Japan's surrender.
28. Ruins and a lonely building frame after the explosion of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima. Photo taken on September 8, 1945.
29. Very few buildings remain in the devastated Hiroshima, a Japanese city that was destroyed to the ground by an atomic bomb, as seen in this September 8, 1945 photograph. (AP Photo)
30 September 8, 1945 People walk along the cleared road among the ruins formed after the explosion of the first atomic bomb in Hiroshima on August 6 of the same year.
31. A Japanese man discovered the wreckage of a children's tricycle among the ruins in Nagasaki, September 17, 1945. A nuclear bomb dropped on the city on August 9 wiped out almost everything within a radius of 6 kilometers and took the lives of thousands of civilians.
32. This photo, provided by the Association of the Photographers of the Atomic (Bomb) Destruction of Hiroshima, shows a victim of an atomic explosion. A man is quarantined on Ninoshima Island in Hiroshima, Japan, 9 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion, the day after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city.
33. A tram (top center) and its dead passengers after a bomb blast over Nagasaki on August 9. Photo taken on September 1, 1945.
34. People pass a tram lying on the tracks at the Kamiyasho intersection in Hiroshima, some time after the atomic bomb was dropped on the city.
35. This photograph, provided by the Association of the Photographers of the Atomic (Bomb) Destruction of Hiroshima, shows the victims of an atomic explosion in the tent relief center of the 2nd Military Hospital in Hiroshima, located on the banks of the Ota River, 1150 meters from the epicenter of the explosion, August 7, 1945. The photo was taken the day after the United States dropped the first ever atomic bomb on the city.
36. View of Khachobori Street in Hiroshima shortly after a bomb was dropped on a Japanese city.
37. Urakami Catholic Cathedral in Nagasaki, photographed on September 13, 1945, was destroyed by an atomic bomb.
38. A Japanese soldier wanders among the ruins in search of recyclable materials in Nagasaki on September 13, 1945, just over a month after the atomic bomb exploded over the city.
39. A man with a loaded bicycle on a road cleared of ruins in Nagasaki September 13, 1945, a month after the explosion of the atomic bomb.
40.September 14, 1945, the Japanese try to drive down a ruined street on the outskirts of the city of Nagasaki, over which a nuclear bomb exploded.
41. This area of \u200b\u200bNagasaki was once built up with industrial buildings and small residential buildings. In the background are the ruins of the Mitsubishi factory and the concrete school building at the foot of the hill.
42. The top image shows the bustling city of Nagasaki before the explosion, and the bottom one shows the wasteland after the atomic bomb. The circles measure the distance from the blast point.
43. A Japanese family eats rice in a hut built from the rubble left in the place where their home was once in Nagasaki, September 14, 1945.
44. These huts, photographed on September 14, 1945, were built from the rubble of buildings that were destroyed by the explosion of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
45. In the Ginza area of \u200b\u200bNagasaki, which was analogous to New York's Fifth Avenue, owners of shops destroyed by a nuclear bomb blast sell their goods on the sidewalks, September 30, 1945.
46. \u200b\u200bThe sacred Torii gate at the entrance to a completely destroyed Shinto shrine in Nagasaki in October 1945.
47. Service in the Protestant Church of Nagarekawa after the atomic bomb destroyed a church in Hiroshima, 1945.
48. A young man injured after the explosion of the second atomic bomb in the city of Nagasaki.
49. Major Thomas Fereby, left, from Moskvil, and Captain Kermit Behan, right, from Houston, talking in a hotel in Washington, February 6, 1946. Ferebi is the person who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, and his interlocutor dropped the bomb on Nagasaki.
52. Ikimi Kikkawa reveals his keloid scars from the treatment of burns sustained in the Hiroshima atomic bomb at the end of World War II. Photo taken at the Red Cross Hospital on June 5, 1947.
53. Akira Yamaguchi reveals her scars from the treatment of burns sustained in the Hiroshima nuclear bomb.
54. The body of Jinpe Terawama, who survived the explosion of the first-ever atomic bomb, left numerous burn scars, Hiroshima, June 1947.
55. Pilot Colonel Paul W. Tibbets waves from the cockpit of his bomber at a base on Tinian Island on August 6, 1945, before taking off to drop the first ever atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The day before, Tibbets had named the B-29 flying fortress "Enola Gay" after his mother.
The Second World War was remembered in history not only for catastrophic destruction, ideas of a crazy fanatic and many deaths, but also on August 6, 1945 - the beginning of a new era in world history. The fact is that it was then that the first and currently the last use of atomic weapons for military purposes was carried out. The power of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb has remained for centuries. In the USSR there was one that frightened the population of the whole world, see the top of the most powerful nuclear bombs and and to
There are not so many people who survived this attack, as well as the surviving buildings. We, in turn, decided to collect all the existing information about the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, structure the data of this impact and support the story with the words of eyewitnesses, officers from the headquarters.
Was the atomic bomb needed
Almost everyone living on earth knows that America dropped nuclear bombs on Japan, although the country experienced this test alone. In view of the political situation of that time, in the United States and the control center, they celebrated victory while people were massively killed on the other side of the world. This topic still resonates with pain in the hearts of tens of thousands of Japanese people, and for good reason. On the one hand, it was a necessity, because it was not possible to end the war in another way. On the other hand, many people think that the Americans simply wanted to test a new deadly "toy".
Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist for whom science has always been in the first place in life, did not even think that his invention would cause such huge damage. Although he did not work alone, he is called the father of the nuclear bomb. Yes, in the process of creating a warhead, he knew about the possible harm, although he did not understand that it would be inflicted on civilians who had no direct relation to the war. As he later said, "We did all the work for the devil." But this phrase was uttered afterwards. And at that time he was not distinguished by foresight, since he did not know what would happen tomorrow and how the Second World War would turn out.
Three full-fledged warheads were ready in American "bins" before 1945:
- Trinity;
- Kid;
- Fat man.
The first was blown up in the process of testing, and the last two went down in history. The drop of a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was predicted to end the war. After all, the Japanese government did not accept the terms of surrender. And without it, the other allied countries will have neither military support nor a reserve of human resources. And so it happened. On August 15, as a consequence of the shock experienced, the government signed documents on unconditional surrender. This date is now called the official end of the war.
Historians, politicians and ordinary people cannot agree on whether the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was needed to this day. What's done is done, we can't change anything. But it was this action against Japan that marked the turning point in history. The threat of new atomic bomb explosions hangs over the planet from day to day. Although most countries have abandoned atomic weapons, some have retained this status. The nuclear warheads of Russia and the United States are safely hidden, but conflicts at the political level are not diminishing. And the possibility is not excluded that someday more similar "actions" will be held.
In our native history, we can meet the concept of the "Cold War", when during the Second World War and after its end, two superpowers - the Soviet Union and the United States - could not come to an agreement. This period began just after Japan's surrender. And everyone knew that if the countries did not find a common language, nuclear weapons would be used again, only now, not in concert with each other, but mutually. This would be the beginning of the end and would again make the Earth a blank slate, unfit for existence - without people, living organisms, buildings, only with a huge level of radiation and a bunch of corpses all over the world. As the famous scientist said, in the Fourth World, people will fight with sticks and stones, since only a few will survive the Third. After this small lyrical digression, let's return to the historical facts and how the warhead was dropped on the city.
Prerequisites for the attack on Japan
The drop of a nuclear bomb on Japan was conceived long before the explosion. The 20th century is generally distinguished by the rapid development of nuclear physics. Significant discoveries in this industry were made almost daily. World scientists realized that a nuclear chain reaction would make a warhead. Here's how they behaved in the opponent countries:
- Germany... In 1938, German nuclear physicists were able to split the uranium nucleus. Then they turned to the government and talked about the possibility of creating a fundamentally new weapon. At the same time, they launched the world's first rocket launcher. This was probably what spurred Hitler to start a war. Although the research was classified, some of it is now known. Research centers have created a reactor to generate enough uranium. But scientists had to choose between substances that could slow down the reaction. It could be water or graphite. By choosing water, they, without knowing it, deprived themselves of the possibility of creating atomic weapons. It became clear to Hitler that he would not be released until the end of the war, and he cut funding for the project. But the rest of the world did not know about it. Therefore, they feared German studies, especially with such brilliant initial results.
- USA... The first patent for a nuclear weapon was obtained in 1939. All such studies took place in fierce competition with Germany. The process was spurred on by a letter to the US President from the most progressive scientists of the time that a bomb could be created in Europe earlier. And if you do not have time, then the consequences will be unpredictable. Since the age of 43, America has been assisted in development by Canadian, European and British scientists. The project was named "Manhattan". For the first time, the weapon was tested on July 16 at a test site in New Mexico and the result was considered successful.
In 1944, the heads of the United States and England decided that if the war did not end, they would have to use a warhead. Already in early 1945, when Germany surrendered, the Japanese government decided not to admit defeat. The Japanese continued to repel attacks in the Pacific and to advance. It was already clear then that the war was lost. But the morale of the "samurai" was not broken. The battle for Okinawa was a prime example of this. The Americans suffered huge losses in it, but they are incomparable with the invasion of Japan itself. Although the US bombed Japanese cities, the fury of the army's resistance continued. Therefore, the question of the use of nuclear weapons was raised again. The targets for the attack were chosen by a specially created committee.
Why Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The Targeting Commission met twice. For the first time, the Hiroshima Nagasaki nuclear bomb release date was approved. For the second time, specific weapon targets were selected against the Japanese. It happened on May 10, 45. They wanted to drop the bomb on:
- Kyoto;
- Hiroshima;
- Yokohama;
- Niigata;
- Kokuru.
Kyoto was the largest industrial center in the country, Hiroshima was home to a huge military port and army depots, Yokohama was the center of the military industry, Kokuru was the repository of a large arsenal of weapons, and Niigata was the center of military equipment construction, as well as a port. It was decided not to use the bomb on military installations. After all, small targets without an urban area around it could not be hit accurately and there was a chance to miss. Kyoto was immediately rejected. The population in this city was distinguished by a high level of education. They could appreciate the significance of the bomb and influence the country's surrender. Some requirements were put forward for other objects. They must be large and significant economic centers, and the very process of dropping the bomb must resonate in the world. Objects damaged by air strikes did not fit. After all, the assessment of the consequences after the explosion of an atomic warhead from the General Staff had to be accurate.
Two cities were chosen as the main ones - Hiroshima and Kokura. For each of them, a so-called safety net was identified. Nagasaki became one of them. Hiroshima attracted with its location and size. The power of the bomb must be increased by the nearby hills and mountains. Significance was also attached to psychological factors that could have a special impact on the population of the country and its leadership. Also, the bomb's performance must be significant to be recognized throughout the world.
Bombing history
The nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima was supposed to explode on August 3. She had already been delivered by a cruiser to the island of Tinian and collected. It was separated by only 2500 km from Hiroshima. But bad weather pushed the terrible date by 3 days. Therefore, the event occurred on August 6, 1945. Despite the fact that there were hostilities near Hiroshima and the city was often bombed, no one was afraid anymore. In some schools, studies continued, people worked according to their usual schedule. Most of the residents were on the street, eliminating the consequences of the bombing. Even small children dismantled the rubble. 340 (245 according to other sources) thousand people lived in Hiroshima.
Numerous T-shaped bridges linking six parts of the city were chosen as the place to drop the bomb. They were perfectly visible from the air and cut the river up and down. From here, both the industrial center and the residential sector, consisting of small wooden buildings, were visible. At 7 o'clock in the morning, an air raid signal sounded. All immediately ran for cover. But already at 7:30 the alarm was canceled, as the operator saw on the radar that no more than three planes were approaching. Whole squadrons flew in to bomb Hiroshima, so the conclusion was made about reconnaissance operations. Most of the people, mostly children, ran out of cover to watch the planes. But they flew too high.
The day before, Oppenheimer had given the crew members clear instructions on how to drop the bomb. It should not have exploded high above the city, otherwise it would not be possible to achieve the planned destruction. The target should be clearly visible from the air. The pilots of the American b-29 bomber dropped the warhead at the exact time of the explosion - 8:15 am. A bomb "Little Boy" exploded at a height of 600 meters from the ground.
Explosion consequences
The power of the Hiroshima Nagasaki nuclear bomb is estimated at 13 to 20 kilotons. It was filled with uranium. It exploded over the modern Sima hospital. People who were a few meters from the epicenter burned down immediately, since the temperature here was around 3-4 thousand degrees Celsius. Some of them left only black shadows on the ground, on the steps. About 70 thousand people died in a second, hundreds of thousands more were terribly injured. The mushroom cloud rose 16 kilometers above the ground.
According to eyewitnesses, at the moment of the explosion, the sky turned orange, then a fiery tornado appeared, which blinded, then a sound passed. Most of those who were within a radius of 2-5 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion lost consciousness. People flew 10 meters away and looked like wax dolls, the remains of houses circled in the air. After the survivors came to their senses, they rushed en masse into the shelter, fearing the next combat use and a second explosion. No one yet knew what an atomic bomb was and did not anticipate the possible dire consequences. Whole clothes are left on the units. Most were in rags that did not have time to burn out. Based on the words of eyewitnesses, we can conclude that they were scalded with boiling water, the skin ached and itched. In places where there were chains, earrings, rings, a scar remained for life.
But the worst thing started later. The faces of the people were burned beyond recognition. It was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman. The skin began to peel off from many and reached the ground, holding only on the nails. Hiroshima was like a parade of the living dead. Residents walked with their arms outstretched in front of them and asked for water. But they could only drink from the canals by the road, which they did. Those who reached the river threw themselves into it to ease the pain and died there. The corpses flowed away with the stream, accumulating near the dam. People with babies in the buildings hugged them and died like that. Most of their names have never been identified.
Within a few minutes, a black rain with radioactive contamination began. There is a scientific explanation for this. The nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki increased the air temperature several times. With such an anomaly, a lot of liquid evaporated, it very quickly fell onto the city. The water mixed with soot, ash and radiation. Therefore, even if a person was not severely affected by the explosion, he became infected by drinking this rain. He penetrated the channels, onto the products, infecting them with radioactive substances.
The dropped atomic bomb destroyed hospitals, buildings, there were no medicines. The day after, the survivors were taken to hospitals about 20 kilometers from Hiroshima. Burns were treated there with flour and vinegar. People were wrapped in bandages like mummies and released home.
Not far from Hiroshima, the residents of Nagasaki did not even suspect about the exact same attack on them, being prepared on August 9, 1945. Meanwhile, the US government congratulated Oppenheimer ...
On August 6, 1945, the United States of America deployed its most powerful weapon of mass destruction to date. It was an atomic bomb equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT. The city of Hiroshima was completely destroyed, tens of thousands of civilians were killed. While Japan was moving away from this devastation, three days later, the United States again launched a second nuclear strike on Nagasaki, under the guise of a desire to achieve the surrender of Japan.
The bombing of Hiroshima
On Monday at 2:45 am Boeing B-29 Enola Gay took off from Tinian, one of the islands in the North Pacific Ocean, 1,500 kilometers from Japan. A team of 12 specialists was on board to see how smoothly the mission would go. The crew was commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets, who named the aircraft "Enola Gay". That was the name of his own mother. Just before takeoff, the name of the plane was written on board.
The Enola Gay was a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber (aircraft 44-86292) as part of a special air group. In order to carry out the delivery of such a heavy cargo as a nuclear bomb, "Enola Gay" was modernized: the latest screws, engines, and quickly opening bomb compartment doors were installed. This upgrade was carried out only on a few B-29s. Despite the Boeing's modernization, he had to drive the entire runway to pick up the speed needed for takeoff.
A couple more bombers flew alongside the Enola Gay. Three more planes took off earlier to find out the weather conditions over possible targets. Suspended from the ceiling of the aircraft was a ten feet (over 3 meters) long "Baby" nuclear bomb. In the "Manhattan Project" (for the development of US nuclear weapons), Navy Captain William Parsons took an important part in the appearance of the atomic bomb. On the Enola Gay plane, he joined the crew as the bomb specialist. To avoid a possible bomb explosion during takeoff, it was decided to put a warhead on it right in flight. Already in the air, Parsons changed the bomb plugs for warheads in 15 minutes. As he later recalled: "At the moment when I put the charge, I knew that" Kid "will bring the Japanese, but I did not feel much emotion about it."
Bomb "Kid" was created on the basis of uranium-235. It was the result of a $ 2 billion research study that was never tested. Not a single nuclear bomb has yet been dropped from an airplane. For the bombing of the United States, 4 Japanese cities were selected:
- Hiroshima;
- Kokura;
- Nagasaki;
- Niigata.
First there was Kyoto, but later it was struck off the list. These cities were the centers of the military industry, arsenals, and military ports. The first bomb was to be dropped to advertise the full power and more impressive importance of the weapon, to attract international attention and hasten Japan's surrender.
First bombing target
On August 6, 1945, the clouds cleared over Hiroshima. At 8:15 am (local time) the hatch of the Enola Gay flew open and the Kid flew into the city. The fuse was set 600 meters above the ground, and the device detonated at 1,900 feet. Shooter George Caron described the sight he saw through the rear window: “The cloud was in the shape of a mushroom of a seething mass of purple-ash smoke, with a fiery core inside. It looked like lava flows sweeping the entire city. "
The cloud was estimated to have risen to 40,000 feet. Robert Lewis recalled: "Where we clearly observed the city a couple of minutes ago, we could already see only smoke and fire creeping up the sides of the mountain." Almost all of Hiroshima was razed to the ground. Even within three miles of the explosion, 60,000 of 90,000 buildings were destroyed. The metal and stone just melted, the clay tiles melted. Unlike many previous bombings, the target of this raid was not a single military target, but an entire city. The atomic bomb, apart from the military, mostly killed civilians. The population of Hiroshima was 350,000, of which 70,000 died instantly directly from the explosion and another 70,000 died from radioactive contamination over the next five years.
A witness who survived the atomic explosion described: “The skin of the people turned black from burns, they were completely bald, since their hair was burnt, it was not clear whether it was a face or the back of the head. The skin on the hands, faces and bodies hung down. If there were one or two such people, there would be less shock. But wherever I went, I saw just such people around, many died right on the road - I still remember them as walking ghosts. "
Atomic bombing of Nagasaki
When the people of Japan tried to comprehend the destruction of Hiroshima, the United States was planning a second nuclear strike. He was not detained so that Japan could surrender, but was inflicted immediately three days after the bombing of Hiroshima. On August 9, 1945, another B-29 "Bockcar" ("Bock car") took off from Tinian at 3:49 am. The initial target for the second bombing was supposed to be the city of Kokura, but it was covered with dense clouds. The backup target was Nagasaki. At 11:02 am, a second atomic bomb was detonated 1,650 feet above the city.
Fuji Urata Matsumoto, who miraculously survived, recounted the eerie scene: “The field with pumpkins was completely destroyed by the explosion. Nothing was left of the entire crop mass. Instead of a pumpkin, a woman's head lay in the garden. I tried to examine her, maybe I knew her. The head was of a woman of about forty, I have never seen it here, maybe it was brought from another part of the city. A golden tooth gleamed in my mouth, singed hair hung down, eyeballs burned out and black holes remained. "