DOCUMENTARY NARRATIVE OF HIROSHIMA
Narrative of Hiroshima
The atomic bomb, dropped on Hiroshima at exactly 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945. Without knowing its everlasting effects, America forever has the blood of over 140,000 people in its hands.
Nuclear fission was accidently discovered in Nazi Germany on the 21st of December in 1938, nine months before the commencement of World War II. German radio-chemist and physicist, Otto Hahn had stumbled upon the unearthing of how to split apart a uranium atom after forty years of the discovery of radioactivity. Although this breakthrough sparked many published accounts of their find, many scientists feared that the Nazis might attempt to manipulate such a technological advancement to further take over the nations of Europe. Leo Szilard, a Hungarian scientist, shared this belief and was convinced that he must act quickly. He was certain that once nuclear energy is released through fission, it could be harnessed to produce bombs that are capable of relentless obliteration. Szilard influenced world-renowned physicist, Albert Einstein, to sign a letter in which Leo drafted and wrote that was addressed to the President of America, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to announce the possible military implications of the German discovery and the urgent need for the advancement of nuclear fission for American research. Having read this letter, Roosevelt appointed the Briggs committee in October, 1939 to further investigate nuclear fission.
Nevertheless, the government gave diminutive priority to the development of an atomic bomb as it required a massive commitment of government funds, funds that would have to be diverted from the conventional prosecution of the war. The advancement of the atomic weaponry were judged on whether or not such weapons were inventible and whether the Allies were capable of producing the atomic weaponry before the Axis Powers could affect the outcome of the war. It depended critically on the trust of both the scientists and the government. Until 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbour. Ignited by the approved results from British scientists studying the achievability of atomic weaponry and the reports that the Nazis had already begun tests of their own, the government organised the intensive research of nuclear fission and atomic weaponry effort in the United States. With the distress of Pearl Harbour and the continued accomplishment of the Nazi military campaign in Europe, it served as reaffirmation that the American government must proceed at intense speed to discover and apply the advancements on atomic energy before the Axis Powers.
In June, 1942, the American War Department’s Army corps of engineers took charge of the advancement to develop an atomic bomb. This elite top-secret project was coded Manhattan. Even though research took place all over United States, an obscure lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico became the central site of the development of the atomic bomb. By 1944, both the United States and Great Britain realised that Germany no longer had any realistic chances of developing an atomic bomb. Yet, instead of slowing the research of the Manhattan Project, the government stressed the need for the continuation of the development of atomic weaponry as Japan’s reluctance to surrender signalled the threat of a long and costly battle in the Pacific. From then on, the government no longer viewed the bomb as a defensive weapon to protect the Allies from the Nazis, rather it signified as a way to save American lives, money and resources by shortening the war against Japan.
Over the course of six years, from 1939 to 1945, more than $2.2 billion was spent during the history of the Manhattan Project. Robert Oppenheimer was chief among the people who oversaw the project from commencement to completion. Harry Truman, who was appointed President after Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s death, received word of the testing of an atomic bomb, coded The Gadget in an New Mexico Desert. On July 16th in the basin of the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico, The Gadget exploded in a light of orange as the atomic fireball shot up at 109 metres per second, pulsating and reddening as it cooled. The mushroom explosion of radioactive vapour materialised at 9 kilometres and all that was left behind beneath the explosion was fragments of jade green radioactive glass created by the heat of the reaction. Robert Oppenheimer, having witnessed the explosion quoted the Bhagavad Gita, “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
What started as a table-top experiment on a laboratory bench in Germany became, in the United States, an instrument to shortened WWII and a tool of political manoeuvring that had majorly influenced the beginning of the cold war. Otto Hahn, the initial physicist that unearthed nuclear fission had seriously considered committing suicide when he heard of the probable military applications to his discovery.
President, Harry Truman, wanting to end the war, called for the unconditional surrender of Japan and it was the last chance for the country to avoid utter destruction. Truman during the Potsdam declaration said, “If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on Earth. Behind this air attack will follow by sea and land forces in such number and power as they have not yet seen, but with fighting skill of which they are already aware." Japan did not surrender.
Hiroshima was the prime target of the first atomic bomb mission. The city had remained largely untouched by bombing raids and the bomb’s effects could clearly be measured. Harry Truman had hoped purely for a military target but advisors of the president believed that bombing an urban area would rupture the nationalism and fighting will of the Japanese residents. Hiroshima was a major port which inhabited lots of military headquarters and was therefore also a strategic target. As Hiroshima was not a primary target by bombing raids, photographs could present a clear and concise picture of the bomb’s damage.
Before the atomic bomb that was ordered to drop on Hiroshima that was coded, Little Boy- in reference to the late United State’s President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Leo Szilard, the scientist that wrote to Roosevelt in the name of Albert Einstein to research atomic values and weaponry had petitioned against President Truman for the bombing of Japan. With 88 signatures on the petition, the appeal was quashed by researcher of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer. When a general, Leslie Groves learned about the petition, he surveyed the scientists at New Mexico and only 15% wanted the bomb to be used in the most effective military manner whilst 46% selected for the military demonstration in Japan to be reorganised by a new opportunity for surrender before the use of the weapon. However the figures were manipulated and it suggested that 87% of the scientists voted that the weaponry use to be applied in the most effective military manner.
On August 6th, 1945, at 2:00 a.m. a B-29 Superfortress bomber plane named the Enola Gay departed from the island of Tinian for Hiroshima. The pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets named the bomber after his mother. The Enola Gay was followed by six other planes. Four engine planes and two observation planes that were carrying cameras and scientific measurements. Little Boy measured to be over three metres long, seventy-five centimetres across and weighed just under five tonnes, with the explosive force of 18,000 tonnes of TNT.
The weather of Hiroshima was perfect, the crew and equipment functioned smoothly, the attack was carried out according to plan, and the bomb, the bomb performed exactly as expected. About an hour before the bomb was dropped, the Japanese warning radar net detected the approach of some American aircraft headed for the Southern part of Japan. An alert had been authorised to be given on radio broadcasting that stopped the urbanisation in many cities, among them, Hiroshima. At nearly 8:00 a.m. the radar operator lifted the alert as the determined number of planes were very small. Little Boy exploded at exactly 8:15 a.m., instantly killing 80,000 to 140,000 lives. The atomic bomb exploded with a blinding flash in the sky, over an Industrial Promotional Hall, now known as the Atomic Bomb Dome. The first blast was followed by crashed of falling buildings and intense fires springing out of nowhere, a great cloud of dust and smoke casted a pall of darkness of the city. It is estimated that the burst of temperature was estimated to reach over a million degrees Celsius; this ignited the surrounding air and produced a fireball of 256 metres in diameters. Eyewitnesses more than 8 kilometres away said that its brightness exceeded the sun tenfold.
In less than one second, the fireball of an explosion had expanded to 274 metres and the following blast wave shattered windows from a distance of 16 kilometres and trembles of the explosion was felt more than 60 kilometres. Over two-thirds of Hiroshima’s buildings had collapsed and the hundreds of fires had combined by thermal pulse to produce a firestorm. The co-pilot of the Enola Gay when flying away from Hiroshima muttered “My God, what have we done?". About 30 minutes after the explosion, rain began to fall in the northwest of the city, it was black rain. Filled with dirt, dust, soot and highly radioactive particles that was vacuumed up into the air had contaminated even the remote areas of Japan.
Radio stations and main line telegraphs had stopped working in the northern region of Hiroshima. Chaotic reports of the horrific explosion came several railway stops close to the city and were transmitted to the Headquarters of the Japanese General Staff. Military headquarters had tried to contact the Army Control Station in Hiroshima but were met with complete silence. Confusion set as they knew that no large enemy raid could have occurred. From descriptions of the city’s destructions, the Japanese finally began to realise that it was the result from an atomic bomb. Tokyo’s first acknowledgement of what really caused the disaster came from the White House announcement in Washington, sixteen hours after Hiroshima had been hit by the atomic bomb, Little Boy.
Survivors of the atomic bomb known as hibakusha had sought relief for their injuries. However over 90% of all medical employees were killed or disabled and the remaining medical supplies rapidly ran out. Many of the survivors began to notice the effects of the atomic bomb’s radiation and the symptoms ranged from nausea, bleeding, loss of hair, flash burns, leukaemia, cataracts and malignant tumours to death.
The atomic bomb, dropped on Hiroshima at exactly 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945. Without knowing its everlasting effects, America forever has the blood of over 140,000 people in its hands.
Nuclear fission was accidently discovered in Nazi Germany on the 21st of December in 1938, nine months before the commencement of World War II. German radio-chemist and physicist, Otto Hahn had stumbled upon the unearthing of how to split apart a uranium atom after forty years of the discovery of radioactivity. Although this breakthrough sparked many published accounts of their find, many scientists feared that the Nazis might attempt to manipulate such a technological advancement to further take over the nations of Europe. Leo Szilard, a Hungarian scientist, shared this belief and was convinced that he must act quickly. He was certain that once nuclear energy is released through fission, it could be harnessed to produce bombs that are capable of relentless obliteration. Szilard influenced world-renowned physicist, Albert Einstein, to sign a letter in which Leo drafted and wrote that was addressed to the President of America, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to announce the possible military implications of the German discovery and the urgent need for the advancement of nuclear fission for American research. Having read this letter, Roosevelt appointed the Briggs committee in October, 1939 to further investigate nuclear fission.
Nevertheless, the government gave diminutive priority to the development of an atomic bomb as it required a massive commitment of government funds, funds that would have to be diverted from the conventional prosecution of the war. The advancement of the atomic weaponry were judged on whether or not such weapons were inventible and whether the Allies were capable of producing the atomic weaponry before the Axis Powers could affect the outcome of the war. It depended critically on the trust of both the scientists and the government. Until 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbour. Ignited by the approved results from British scientists studying the achievability of atomic weaponry and the reports that the Nazis had already begun tests of their own, the government organised the intensive research of nuclear fission and atomic weaponry effort in the United States. With the distress of Pearl Harbour and the continued accomplishment of the Nazi military campaign in Europe, it served as reaffirmation that the American government must proceed at intense speed to discover and apply the advancements on atomic energy before the Axis Powers.
In June, 1942, the American War Department’s Army corps of engineers took charge of the advancement to develop an atomic bomb. This elite top-secret project was coded Manhattan. Even though research took place all over United States, an obscure lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico became the central site of the development of the atomic bomb. By 1944, both the United States and Great Britain realised that Germany no longer had any realistic chances of developing an atomic bomb. Yet, instead of slowing the research of the Manhattan Project, the government stressed the need for the continuation of the development of atomic weaponry as Japan’s reluctance to surrender signalled the threat of a long and costly battle in the Pacific. From then on, the government no longer viewed the bomb as a defensive weapon to protect the Allies from the Nazis, rather it signified as a way to save American lives, money and resources by shortening the war against Japan.
Over the course of six years, from 1939 to 1945, more than $2.2 billion was spent during the history of the Manhattan Project. Robert Oppenheimer was chief among the people who oversaw the project from commencement to completion. Harry Truman, who was appointed President after Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s death, received word of the testing of an atomic bomb, coded The Gadget in an New Mexico Desert. On July 16th in the basin of the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico, The Gadget exploded in a light of orange as the atomic fireball shot up at 109 metres per second, pulsating and reddening as it cooled. The mushroom explosion of radioactive vapour materialised at 9 kilometres and all that was left behind beneath the explosion was fragments of jade green radioactive glass created by the heat of the reaction. Robert Oppenheimer, having witnessed the explosion quoted the Bhagavad Gita, “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
What started as a table-top experiment on a laboratory bench in Germany became, in the United States, an instrument to shortened WWII and a tool of political manoeuvring that had majorly influenced the beginning of the cold war. Otto Hahn, the initial physicist that unearthed nuclear fission had seriously considered committing suicide when he heard of the probable military applications to his discovery.
President, Harry Truman, wanting to end the war, called for the unconditional surrender of Japan and it was the last chance for the country to avoid utter destruction. Truman during the Potsdam declaration said, “If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on Earth. Behind this air attack will follow by sea and land forces in such number and power as they have not yet seen, but with fighting skill of which they are already aware." Japan did not surrender.
Hiroshima was the prime target of the first atomic bomb mission. The city had remained largely untouched by bombing raids and the bomb’s effects could clearly be measured. Harry Truman had hoped purely for a military target but advisors of the president believed that bombing an urban area would rupture the nationalism and fighting will of the Japanese residents. Hiroshima was a major port which inhabited lots of military headquarters and was therefore also a strategic target. As Hiroshima was not a primary target by bombing raids, photographs could present a clear and concise picture of the bomb’s damage.
Before the atomic bomb that was ordered to drop on Hiroshima that was coded, Little Boy- in reference to the late United State’s President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Leo Szilard, the scientist that wrote to Roosevelt in the name of Albert Einstein to research atomic values and weaponry had petitioned against President Truman for the bombing of Japan. With 88 signatures on the petition, the appeal was quashed by researcher of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer. When a general, Leslie Groves learned about the petition, he surveyed the scientists at New Mexico and only 15% wanted the bomb to be used in the most effective military manner whilst 46% selected for the military demonstration in Japan to be reorganised by a new opportunity for surrender before the use of the weapon. However the figures were manipulated and it suggested that 87% of the scientists voted that the weaponry use to be applied in the most effective military manner.
On August 6th, 1945, at 2:00 a.m. a B-29 Superfortress bomber plane named the Enola Gay departed from the island of Tinian for Hiroshima. The pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets named the bomber after his mother. The Enola Gay was followed by six other planes. Four engine planes and two observation planes that were carrying cameras and scientific measurements. Little Boy measured to be over three metres long, seventy-five centimetres across and weighed just under five tonnes, with the explosive force of 18,000 tonnes of TNT.
The weather of Hiroshima was perfect, the crew and equipment functioned smoothly, the attack was carried out according to plan, and the bomb, the bomb performed exactly as expected. About an hour before the bomb was dropped, the Japanese warning radar net detected the approach of some American aircraft headed for the Southern part of Japan. An alert had been authorised to be given on radio broadcasting that stopped the urbanisation in many cities, among them, Hiroshima. At nearly 8:00 a.m. the radar operator lifted the alert as the determined number of planes were very small. Little Boy exploded at exactly 8:15 a.m., instantly killing 80,000 to 140,000 lives. The atomic bomb exploded with a blinding flash in the sky, over an Industrial Promotional Hall, now known as the Atomic Bomb Dome. The first blast was followed by crashed of falling buildings and intense fires springing out of nowhere, a great cloud of dust and smoke casted a pall of darkness of the city. It is estimated that the burst of temperature was estimated to reach over a million degrees Celsius; this ignited the surrounding air and produced a fireball of 256 metres in diameters. Eyewitnesses more than 8 kilometres away said that its brightness exceeded the sun tenfold.
In less than one second, the fireball of an explosion had expanded to 274 metres and the following blast wave shattered windows from a distance of 16 kilometres and trembles of the explosion was felt more than 60 kilometres. Over two-thirds of Hiroshima’s buildings had collapsed and the hundreds of fires had combined by thermal pulse to produce a firestorm. The co-pilot of the Enola Gay when flying away from Hiroshima muttered “My God, what have we done?". About 30 minutes after the explosion, rain began to fall in the northwest of the city, it was black rain. Filled with dirt, dust, soot and highly radioactive particles that was vacuumed up into the air had contaminated even the remote areas of Japan.
Radio stations and main line telegraphs had stopped working in the northern region of Hiroshima. Chaotic reports of the horrific explosion came several railway stops close to the city and were transmitted to the Headquarters of the Japanese General Staff. Military headquarters had tried to contact the Army Control Station in Hiroshima but were met with complete silence. Confusion set as they knew that no large enemy raid could have occurred. From descriptions of the city’s destructions, the Japanese finally began to realise that it was the result from an atomic bomb. Tokyo’s first acknowledgement of what really caused the disaster came from the White House announcement in Washington, sixteen hours after Hiroshima had been hit by the atomic bomb, Little Boy.
Survivors of the atomic bomb known as hibakusha had sought relief for their injuries. However over 90% of all medical employees were killed or disabled and the remaining medical supplies rapidly ran out. Many of the survivors began to notice the effects of the atomic bomb’s radiation and the symptoms ranged from nausea, bleeding, loss of hair, flash burns, leukaemia, cataracts and malignant tumours to death.