The Atomic Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Jake PeterSonya

The Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was the

United State’s project created to design an atomic bomb to use to end the war before the axis; mainly the Germans, could create their own atomic bomb.

Important Dates 1941:

scientists persuaded the Government to support the research of the possible construction of an atomic bomb

June 1942: the army took over the nuclear program

fall of 1942: General Leslie R. Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer were

selected to head the Manhattan Project

summer of 1942: the site of Los Alamos was chosen

December 1944: information on the Germans progress on the atomic bomb

had been handed over to the war department

Security The security on the Manhattan

project was very strictMain method of stopping the

possible leak of information was:

compartmentalization

The Germans also had very effective security, from 1941 to late 1944 the United States was unable to find out what stage of the creation of an atomic bomb Germans were at

The race against the Germans is found to be nonexistent

During the D-Day invasion, the Alsos contingent had the mission of discovering the progress of Germany’s atomic research

Much information was gathered and handed over to the war department by December 1944

The Bomb 2 bombs were created little boy and

fat man

Little boy was a gun type uranium bomb

Fat man was an implosion type bomb

Little Boy

Fat Man

Testing the Bomb

The uranium bomb was not tested as it was thought that it would obviously be successful

Scientists were unsure of the plutonium bomb, as it was a more complicated design

Therefore a plutonium bomb was tested on

July 16th 1945

After the test the bomb was deemed to be very successful, with an explosion the size of that of 20000 tons of TNT.

Before The Bombing…

Potsdam Declaration- outlined the terms of surrender for Japan

Winston Churchill, Harry S Truman, and Soviet Josef Stalin met to end the war

stated that if Japan didn’t surrender,

then  it would face "prompt and utter destruction"

July 29, 1945--the Japanese rejected the Potsdam Declaration  

Support for Bombing

It would save lives (approx. hundreds of thousands)

b/c dropping the bomb would avoid

an invasion Would also avoid another year of

fighting Bombing = quick solution

Support Continued…

Was necessary to end WWII liberate about 200,000 Dutch and

400,000 Indonesians from Japanese concentration camps

Japanese atrocities against millions of Chinese, would end

Opposition Towards Bombing

Some historians believe that Japan would’ve surrendered even without its use

Also, some think that President Truman’s decision was influenced by the Soviets wanted to intimidate them

Wanted to avoid the declaration of war on Japan by the Soviets

Consequences Colonel Paul Tibbets dropped the

bomb at approximately 8:15 A.M. - Hiroshima time

Nicknamed Little bomb- the 9,700 uranium bomb was dropped over the city and lit the morning sky 1,900 feet above the city

Victory- Japan Day August 6, 1945 6 am

A B-29 bomber –Hiroshima had a civilian population of 300,000

An important military center, and 43,000 soldiers

The bomb instantly killed

located on the deltas of southwestern Honshu Island facing the Inland Sea Hiroshima had a civilian population of almost 300,000 and was an important military center, containing about 43,000 soldiers

Aftermath of Atomic Bomb

The power of Japan Islands shall be limited to Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine

Lastly there shall be war reparations in which Japan pays back our four countries

Current Nuclear Proliferation

The U.N. called for an end to Proliferation of atomic weapons for all countries besides Iran and North Korea

President Obama and the rest of the United Nations was unable to come to a decision on how to punish North Korea for sending a rocket over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean

Current Nuclear Disarmament

The Non Proliferation Treaties’ (NPT) objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and technology, while to promote the uses of nuclear energy and achieve complete disarmament

The United States, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, France, and China all have signed the NPT and are obligated to not transfer nuclear weapons.