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The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II
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What was the name of the project that developed the atomic bomb?
1945. For four years, Japan has been fighting the Allies in Asia and the Pacific. At first, they seemed unbeatable and they conquered area after area. The United States and its allies didn’t give up. They retaliated and recaptured occupied territories.
The Japanese have lost much of their fleet and their best fighter pilots. Now, the Japanese begin targeting the Americans through suicide attacks - kamikaze attacks. Partly because they are desperate, but also to show the United States that they will never give up. Kamikaze pilots fly their planes into American warships, sinking 34 ships and killing 10,000 soldiers. But they do not stop the Allies.
The Americans have taken back the Mariana Islands. From there, bombers can reach Japan. The Americans bomb industries, roads, and big cities to force Japan to surrender. On March 9, 1945, 334 bombers leave the Marianas. They drop almost 500 000 firebombs over Tokyo, killing over 100,000 people and leaving 1.5 million people homeless.
The bombing, is one of the deadliest of World War II. Japan now begins to worry that the Americans will invade the Japanese islands. At a meeting, the Japanese Ministry of War discusses whether to continue the war or surrender. They decide: The Japanese people will never surrender. Rather, they shall fight until they are exterminated.
The Americans know that Japan has an army of almost 2 million men, and 9000 fighter planes. Invading Japan could cost the lives of half a million American soldiers. The new American president Harry S. Truman wants to protect American lives. He has a plan.
In the American desert, Physicist Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves have been leading a secret project, the Manhattan Project. Their team of physicists has developed a new kind of bomb, the atomic bomb. In July, the first test bomb is completed. The US intends to use this new weapon against Japan. Soon, two atomic bombs are shipped to the Marianas.
August 6. 02:45 A B-29 bomber with the nickname Enola Gay, departs the small Pacific island of Tinian. On board is the atomic bomb "Little Boy". Pilot Paul Tibbets orders his crew to be silent. No one is allowed to use the radio system.
The navigator Theodore van Kirk plots the route to Hiroshima. They expect to arrive in six hours. At 08:15 the crew of the Enola Gay drops the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. One minute later it explodes at an altitude of 600 meters. The plane shakes from the blast, and a large mushroom-shaped cloud rises over Hiroshima.
In Hiroshima, a firestorm rages at 1,200 kilometers per hour. It kills everything in its path. In less than a second, at least 80,000 people, but probably tens of thousands more, are killed. More than a hundred thousand are seriously injured. Despite the devastation, the Japanese do not contact the Americans.
The United States had expected a surrender. They decide to bomb another city, Nagasaki. On August 9, the atomic bomb "Fat Man" is dropped over Nagasaki. The bomb is not as deadly as Little Boy, but it kills at least 35,000 people. On August 15, Japan surrenders.
The documents are signed on September 2 on the battleship USS Missouri, in Tokyo Bay. World War II is over. In addition to the thousands who died directly from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hundreds of thousands of people got cancer from the radiation from the bombs. Many of them died soon after. In Japanese there is a word - Hibakusha which means: Someone who has survived an atomic bomb.
After 1945, nuclear weapons were never used in war again.