The Atomic Bomb
The year was 1945. The war in the Pacific had reached it's climax with the attack on Pearl Harbor, or so the world thought!
In 1943 a new era was just being discovered when Albert Einstein had uncovered a new way of destroying things. One so powerful it could wipe out entire cities in seconds. When Albert told the president of the U.S.A. he had no idea of what the army was going to do with that knowlege, the knowlege of Atomic Theory!
When the president of the United States of America heard of this new theory he decided to embark on a project that would change mankind forever. He decided to name this project the Manhatten Project. This project was headed by six of the worlds best scientists: Neils Bohr, Joseph Carter, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feyman, and Robert Oppenheimer, each with their own ideas of what it would take to construct such a weapon.
From left to right: Neils Borh, Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feyman, Enrico Fermi
The object of the project was to produce a practical military weapon in the form of a bomb in which the energy would be released by a fast neutron chain reaction in one or more of the materials known to show nuclear fission. That goal was to be completed in 1945 after the U.S.A. spent over 6.7 Billion Dollars on the test bomb named the "Trinity". I t was dropped on Alagormado in Texas on July 16th
1945.
When Albert Einstein heard about the "Trinity" he called the president directly and asked for a halt on all atomic bomb projects for he did not want to hurt anyone with his discovery. But when spies reported the Germans working on such a project the Manhatten project was continued.
The long nights there after were hell for the president while deciding to launch the soon to be completed "Little Boy" bomb.
Finally, the american troops were told to load "Little Boy" in the specifically designed plane Enola Gay. With Paul Tibbets and his crew of 12 strapped in the plane named after Paul's mother, the American president gave the order to fly to
Hiroshima.
They chose Hiroshima baecause it was a major industrial Japanese port which held many Japanese seacraft.
It was July 16 1945 at about 8:14 when Paul Tibbets got the order to open the hatch and arm the bomb. After released it took a little less than 1 minute for it to detonate. Over 40,000 innocent lives were taken with the blast and over
100,000 were taken in the next ten years from exposure to extreme radiation.
Physicists started to realize that stable nuclei can be converted to unstable nuclei. Through such process, they discovered that heavy nuclei can undergo nuclear fission. While testing, they added a neutron to an isotope of Uranium 235. This resulted Uranium 235 to become unstable and break down into Barium and Krypton, releasing two to three more neutrons. The breakdown of Uranium 235 is called “fission”.
Gailey, Harry. The War in the Pacific: From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay. Novato: Presidio, 1995.
weeks leading up to D-Day. The landing was to be any day between June 5 and 7.
Albert Einstein predicted that mass could be converted into energy early in the century and was confirmed experimentally by John D. Cockcroft and Ernest Walton in 1932. In 1939, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovered that neutrons striking the element uranium caused the atoms to split apart. Physicists found out that among the pieces of a split atom were newly produced neutrons. These might encounter other uranium nuclei, caused them to split, and start a chain reaction. If the chain reaction were limited to a moderate pace, a new source of energy could be the result. The chain reaction could release energy rapidly and with explosive force.
It all started with the “Hungarian conspiracy” it had everyone convinced that the creation of a nuclear bomb possible, but that the German government was already doing research in this field of study and on such a weapon. To the rest of the world, the thought of Adolf Hitler might be the first to gain control of a weapon this destructiveness would be terrifying to the United States. Right, then they decided that the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt must be warned about the dangers and that the United States must begin its research department.As the planned gave way, Einstein was to write a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the possibilities and dangers of the atomic weapons, and later was taken to the president.Einsteins appointment was easy to get in te late summer of 1939. Hitler had just invaded Poland .and the war had just begun in Europe.After speaking with the President, he gathered his cabinet. and wanted to speak with his chief aide, after talking with him a small committee was set up called ...
The Trinity Project was a project conducted to test the effects of a nuclear weapon. The Trinity nuclear device was detonated on a 100-foot tower on the Alamogordo Bombing Range in south-central New Mexico at 0530 hours on 16 July 1945. (Rohrer, 1995-2003). This project was organized by the Manhattan Engineer District (MED). This organization worked diligently planning and coordinating all of the logistics for the groundbreaking event. From 1945-1946 over 1000 personnel either worked or visited the test site. The United States was trying to gain nuclear proliferation throughout the world so this project was necessary for our enemies to see the devastation of a nuclear blast.
By studying these shadows scientists pinpointed the exact detonation point of the bomb. The second atomic bomb was dropped just three days later on Nagasaki, Japan. 1/3 of the city was destroyed and 66,000 people were reported killed or injured. A memorial now marks the spot where the bomb exploded.
Atomic Bomb The use of the atomic bombs on Japan was necessary for the revenge of the Americans. These bombs took years to make due to a problematic equation. The impact of the bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people and the radiation is still killing people today. People today still wonder why the bombs were dropped. If these bombs weren’t dropped on the Japanese the history of the world would have been changed forever. The Atomic bomb took 6 years to develop (1939-1945) for scientists to work on a equation to make the U-235 into a bomb. The most complicated process in this was trying to produce enough uranium to sustain a chain reaction. The bombs used on the cities cost about $2 billion to develop, this also making the U.S. wanting to use them against Japan. “Hiroshima was a major military target and we have spent 2 billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history- and won.” (3) The bomb dropped on Hiroshima weighted 4.5 tons and the bomb used on Nagasaki weighted 10 kilotons. On July 16, 1945, the first ever atomic bomb was tested in the Jamez Mountains in Northern New Mexico, code named “Gadget.” The single weapon ultimately dropped on Hiroshima, nicknamed “Little Boy,” produced the amount of approximately twenty- thousand tons of TNT, which is roughly seven times greater than all of the bombs dropped by all the allies on all of Germany in 1942. The first Japanese City bomb was Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. An American B-29 bomber, named Enola Gay, flown by the pilot Paul W. Tibbets, dropped the “Little Boy” uranium atomic bomb. Three days later a second bomb named ”Fat Boy,” made of plutonium was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. After being released, it took approximately one minute for Little Boy to reach the point of explosion, which was about 2,000 feet. The impact of the bombs on the cities and people was massive. Black rain containing large amounts of nuclear fallout fell as much as 30km from the original blast site. A mushroom cloud rose to twenty thousand feet in the air, and sixty percent of the city was destroyed. The shock wave and its reverse effect reached speeds close to those of the speed of sound. The wind generated by the bombs destroyed most of the houses and buildings within a 1.
World War II was a time of heightened tension. The entire world watched as fascism and dictatorships battled against democracy and freedom in the European theater. The United States looked on, wishing to remain neutral and distant from the war. On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, officially drawing the U.S. into the war. Thousands of young sailors died in the attack and several U.S. Navy vessels were sunk. The attack marked the beginning of the United States’ involvement in World War II as well as the beginning of the persecution of Japanese Americans in the U.S. Hysteria and outrage increased across the country and largely contributed to the authority’s decision to act against the Japanese. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, allowing the military to place anyone of Japanese lineage in restri...
As World War 2, came to a close, The United States unleashed a secret atomic weapon upon the enemy nation of Japan that was quickly recognized as the most powerful wartime weapon in human history. They completely destroyed the entire Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and essentially vaporized countless innocent Japanese lives. Some historians believe that it was a foolish, brutal decision to use the atomic bomb on a weakened Japan, and that the civilians of the country did not deserve that kind of mass-annihilation. On the opposite side, other historians assert that dropping the bomb saved countless American and Japanese lives by ending the war faster than a regular invasion would have. What is undisputed is that this sad event dramatically changed the course of human history.
When the first bomb was made a site in Alamogordo, New Mexico was chosen as the testing ground. In order for the bomb to explode, all the nuclei of the several grams of Uranium would have to be split. A sphere of Uranium the size of a baseball would cause an explosion that equaled the strength of 15,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT. When the bomb had exploded there was a tower and the explosion had turned the asphalt around the tower into green sand, the sky was extremely bright and seconds after the explosion came a huge blast that sent unbelievable heat across the desert. Also, there was a huge mushroom cloud that reached the sub-stratosphere that was at an elevation of 41,000 feet. 10,000 feet away a soldier was of right off his feet by the force of the shock wave and another soldier stationed five miles away was temporarily blinded. The explosion was able to be herd 50 miles away.
In 1945, the United States was facing severe causalities in the war in the Pacific. Over 12,000 soldiers had already lost their lives, including 7,000 Army and Marine soldiers and 5,000 sailors (32). The United States was eager to end the war against Japan, and to prevent more American causalities (92). An invasion of Japan could result in hundreds of thousands killed, wounded and missing soldiers, and there was still no clear path to an unconditional surrender. President Truman sought advice from his cabinet members over how to approach the war in the Pacific. Although there were alternatives to the use of atomic weapons, the evidence, or lack thereof, shows that the bombs were created for the purpose of use in the war against Japan. Both the political members, such as Henry L. Stimson and James F. Byrnes, and military advisors George C. Marshall and George F. Kennan showed little objection to completely wiping out these Japanese cities with atomic weapons (92-97). The alternatives to this tactic included invading Japanese c...
Although WW II ended over 50 years ago there is still much discussion as to the events which ended the War in the Pacific. The primary event which historians attribute to this end are the use of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although the bombing of these cities did force the Japanese to surrender, many people today ask “Was the use of the atomic bomb necessary to end the war?” and more importantly “Why was the decision to use the bomb made?” Ronald Takaki examines these questions in his book Hiroshima.
There are many people who oppose the use of the atomic bombs; though there are some that believe it was a necessity in ending the war. President Truman realized the tragic significance of the atomic bomb and made his decision to use it to shorten the agony of young Americans (“Was the Atomic Bombing”). The president knew of the way the Japanese fought. They fought to the death and they were brutal to prisoners of war. They used woman and children as soldiers to surprise bomb the enemy. They made lethal weapons and were taught to sacr...
Williams, John. "Chapter 8." World Atlas of Weapons & War. London: Aldus, 1976. 96-111. Print.