Introduction
On the quiet morning of August 6, 1945, the United States shocked the world by dropping an atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Hiroshima was a main industrial city with that had a projected population that was somewhere around 400,000 individuals. On a bright day, A B-29 bomber was loaded with the Atomic Bomb and shipped out of the air base at 2:45 a.m. local time and the next thing people knew, an entire city went up in smoke at exactly 8:15 a.m. This essay will examine the atomic bomb and the devastating effect it had on the Japanese people in the aftermath.
The Bomb
Many are unaware the bomb was ignited about a minute upon its release. They even gave it a cut little name called the "Little Boy", this “Little Boy” was released above a hospital where it exploded and caused the most human destruction in war history. The mushroom cloud rose all the way to about an altitude of five hundred and twenty meters directly over the Central part of Hiroshima. The atomic bomb took out something like three-fifths of the city in a matter of seconds. An uranium-235 given off from the atomic bomb was equivalent in power to about 15 kilotons of TNT gunpowder. The fireball that resulted from the detonation produced a penetrating thermal heat, which produced stark burns and loss of vision. A lot of the individuals showed to thermal rays had died on the spot. In addition, the impact of the bomb landing on the ground created an enormous shock wave which carefully shadowed a rapid growth of air. The outcome was the immediate death of 75,000 people..
The Long Term Effects
The bomb had long-term effects of that were devastating destroying an environment and almost wiping out an entire population. The Atomic blasts did cause numerous of injuries that lasted a long time for instance, leukemia, cataracts, keloids, and other cancers. The bomb death count was very high weighing in at 140,000. This is saying that more people were killed in the long-term effects as were killed in the actual explosion.
Many believe that dropping the bomb was the right thing to do and that it was the one event that brought the war to an end. Americans had the notion of believing that the Japanese were not going to give ups that easy. They believe that they would have fought forever.
The motive behind the United States dropping the atomic bomb was so that they could force the unconditional surrender of Japan. Many who did not support the bomb theory believe that there could have been another way. Many believe that the dropping the bomb was not necessary and that it was an inhumane act against human beings. They believed that there were other ways to get Japan to surrender.
A lot of innocent people perished because of tension among the two governments. The biggest reason for some to think that dropping the atomic-bombing of Hiroshima was erroneous was that it targeted people who had nothing to do with the war; they were not soldiers but innocent people. Of course in every war civilians are killed but a lot of people argue the fact that those individuals killed in the blast had no say so in the matter they were just everyday people.
Was it Ethical?
Was dropping the bomb the right thing to do? Was it really worth it? Many would say it was because on December 7th, 1945, Pearl Harbor was almost destroyed by the Japanese. This was a tragedy for the United States and President Roosevelt made an interesting statement on December 7th that the sleeping giant had been awaken. The United States would soon hit back by using the atomic bomb to destroy Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945 by leveling the city. Many mention that Pearl Harbor was the perfect motive for the U.S. to drop the atomic bomb over Hiroshima for revenge. The United States later made the statement that it was necessary for the reason that that was the only way they could save lives. However some would argue how could they be saving lives if numerous war officials and experts believe that the war was long over?
"It is my estimation that the use of this cruel armament at Nagasaki and Hiroshima was of no physical help in our war against Japan. The Japanese were by now beaten and ready to capitulate since of the active sea barrier and the effective bombing with unoriginal weapons." (Leahy) He stood by his statement believing that the bomb was not a smart move. He believed that there were other routes to take such as waiting it out. Others agree that Pearl Harbor was the motive why the United States went ahead with their plan, however even to this day; many argue that it was the wrong move. Expert’s state there is no way to prove dropping the atomic bomb would actually save lives. Others believed that even if they were trying to save lives, it appeared that they would be taking thousands of other while doing it.
Effects on Japan
The dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima have an abundant amounts of outcomes on the civilization of Japan, the administration of Japan, and the setting of Japan. Even today, many Japanese are still haunting by the horrific affect.
The radiation produced by the bomb produced long-standing difficulties to those affected. Numerous individuals died during the first few months and a lot more in following years for the reason of radiation exposure. The Japanese had genetic difficulties, which sometimes stemmed in having misshapen babies or being made barren.
Radiation exposure causes numerous long-term effects for the Japanese. Many kinds of cancer, counting leukemia, is the most significant late consequence of radiation contact perceived among the survivors of the atomic bomb. An extra risk of leukemia was one of the first deferred consequences of radiation exposure grasped in the victims of the atomic bombs which were released on Hiroshima in August 1945. Over 50 years after the bombs, this left-over is extensively understood as the most apparent long-term consequence of radiation. For the Japanese, death from leukemia is a main representation of the sorrow of the survivors involved in Hiroshima. It is clear that even today that there are some Japanese people that carry a gene inside of them that passes on down to their children. It is a cancerous type of gene that occurs because of the atomic bomb.
Scientist and Radiation
Scientists discovered that the over-contact to radiation from the atomic bombs enlarges the incidence of malignant tumors of numerous organs in the body. This illness is hardly deadly and the indications are very mild. A scientist also discovered cholesterol has been concerned in diseases which were cause by the arteries becoming hard. Experts make the fact that the stroke is predisposed to when the cholesterol level is very low and that coronary heart diseases are disposed to what happen when it is elevated. Over a thirty-year era, cholesterol level has displayed that is has gone up remarkably with age among the Japanese people.
Studies
Various studies have put out some information that indicates people died from other diseases besides cancer. About 40% of Hiroshima's population had died aviation-related diseases or by the blast itself. Circulatory diseases accounted for approximately 50% of the deaths. Studies that were done between the years of 1950 and 2000 show that 18, 000 deaths had occurred because of other diseases. Likewise digestive diseases, which involve respiratory diseases, and liver disease, each gave an account for about 12% of the entire. There are studies that show that among 140 and 500 deaths had occurred form radiation exposure by itself. Survivors displayed a better-than-normal occurrence of leukemia at the beginning, and an ever-cumulative degree of other kinds of cancers as time goes on, much bigger than normal. Children that were still in their mother’s womb when the bomb was released had huge risk of becoming or suffering from mental retardation, but providentially children considered after the explosion by survivors have not exposed any kind of genetic possessions. Radiation in nearby land has also risen by 2% which is saying that individuals now can even get much sicker.
It has been researched and is a fact that radiation kills the DNA in cells. Scientists when a person is exposed to radiation their genes can get misplaced or can get retorted to other genes throughout mending of DNA breaks. These outcomes in disfiguring and mutations. Numerous mutations are still discovered in erythrocytes from those that survived the bomb some 50 years later. The reason for this is due to the mutations that stay in the genes of the bone marrow cells that generate erythrocytes. Research that has been done by scientists utilizing current molecular biology methods is showing that human cancers are produced by the mutation of the genes.
The immune system discards unwelcome substances, for example parasites and bacteria, which come in the body. Individuals who were unprotected to heavy atomic bomb radiation, the blood stem cells misplaced the ability to create immune cells, as well as B and T-lymphocytes. The B and T-lymphocytes are what gets rid of what the body does not desire. Numerous people that were exposed died because of contagious and other illnesses for the reason that their bodies were not able to kill bacteria that was intruding. It is clear that even those that are still alive today carry around this misshapen gene and it is something that stays with them for the rest of their lives.
Sickness
Directly following radiation exposure, those that were atomic-bomb survivors were going through a time of great stress that was brought about by the struggling times. There was no food and the water was all contaminated so times were very hard and many of them committed suicide. It was a lot for them to handle especially when there was not enough doctors and nurses on hand to give them the proper help they needed mentally to deal with everything. These people suffered from social, physical, and psychological factors. The start of small radiation indications followed injuries and Burns for instance epilation, (causes hair loss), diarrhea and bleeding. This illness is even seen in those who seem not to be disturbed by the atomic-bombing. The family members deaths of and the general obliteration of their lives in addition to reports of an augmented occurrence of cancer as a late effect of radiation exposure heightened survivors' fears and anxiety. Likely belongings on the aging procedure have been knotted to Hiroshima being bombed.
When the weakening of the way a person purposes in breathing vision, capacity, and aptitude to emphasis the vision, compassion to pulsation, and skin bounciness happens with age, nonetheless no exact result of radiation exposure has been detected. Grasp hearing and strength aptitude appear to be extremely pretentious in some survivors, but the result is not unavoidably drawn to the radiation dose, nonetheless is haggard by the bombing.
The notorious atomic bomb cataract happened among the survivors among many several years and months after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It is acknowledged that its opaqueness grows around the outside pole of the lens in a lot of the situations. The studies that were done involving the Radiation Effects Research Foundation on Japanese babies who were exposed by the atomic bomb, shows that there are severe mental retardation among them. This disorder was seen typically among the children who had been open to radiation at 8-15 weeks of development.
There are a lot of survivors that had to deal with purport, which is a disorder where the person actually starts to bleed beneath the skin, because of the radiation. This produced a lot of them to have big blotches which appeared to be all over their body, looking like a bruise, but it does not appear to go away.
One victim says the following about the aftermath of the bomb.
"I was depressed and bleeding all over. My sister skin was hanging off her body and at nighttime there were maggots in her stomach. She would ask me to pick them out but I told her just to wait until the morning, the next morning she went looking for our mother and we found her scorched body by the railroad track. When my sister saw that my mother was dead, she looked at train that was coming down the railroad track. She immediately jumped in front of the train and killed herself" (
Conclusion
It is clear that the atomic bomb had a devastating effect on the Japanese people then and now. Almost 60 years later, people are still having the side effects that they had when the bomb first hit. The argument however over the years has been that the bomb was not really necessary especially since it caused the death of innocent people. A lot of people are saying that this could have gone a different direction and that the bomb was really not necessary.
Works Cited
Hersey, John. Hiroshima. New York: Milestone Editions; First Edition edition, 1946.
Straume, T., et al. "Measuring Fast Neutrons in Hiroshima at Distances Relevant to Atomic-Bomb Survivors." Nature 424.6948 (2003): 539-42.
Tonda, Tetsuji, et al. "Investigation on Circular Asymmetry of Geographical Distribution in Cancer Mortality of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivors Based on Risk Maps: Analysis of Spatial Survival Data." Radiation and environmental biophysics 51.2 (2012): 133-41.
Yamada, Michiko, and Shizue Izumi. "Psychiatric Sequelae in Atomic Bomb Survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki Two Decades After the Explosions." Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology 37.9 (2002):
