Who did it?

Judene hurlbet did it all!

Works Cited

Killen, S. (2012). A&e television networks. Retrieved from http://www.history.com/topics/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki


Carrie Rossenfeld. (1998). The atomic bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki. Retrieved from http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/MED/med_chp10.shtml


Thomas G. Paterson. (1978, may). Contemporary japan: A teaching workbook. Retrieved from http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/japan/japanworkbook/modernhist/atomicbomb.html


Hammel, E. (2006, June 12). Historynet.com. Retrieved from http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-okinawa-operation-iceberg.htm


Tomosawa, F. M. (n.d.). World war ii remembered. Retrieved from http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/wwii/interview/trans.htm


Yamazaki, D. J. (2007, October 10). Children of the atomic bomb. Retrieved from http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/cab/200708230009.html

Photo Gallery

PHOTOS:

This is the huge mushroom cloud resulting from the atomic bomb dropped over hiroshima, which was the first atomic bomb ever dropped. 

This is a man who suffered severe burns from the detonation of one of the atomic bombs. there were over 100,000 Japanese citizens that suffered this pain and agony from the U.S decision to drop the atomic bombs.

Many children like this one were left abandoned in the streets with no parents to go back to, no family and no where to go. Most likely left to die in the streets.


This is the first atomic bomb ever dropped nicknamed "little boy".

VIDEOS:

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/videos#manhattan-project
This video depicts the making of the bomb and questions its morality

http://www.history.com/videos/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
This video shows the actual bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and how absolutely devastating they were to Japan.

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Movies/humaneffects3.shtml
This video shows the immense and disgusting human effects of the horrifying effects of the atomic bombs dropped.

Evidence

Francis Mitsuo Tomosawa, a survivor of the attack on Hiroshima, says, "  I saw everyone helping each other. Though right after the bomb exploded, during the confusion and pain and suffering and dying, people's instincts told them to save themselves. People under the buildings would ask for help and the passersby couldn't hear the cry for help or they didn't stop for help. So, many people died by fire because nobody would help them. But after that, after 30 minutes or an hour, people came in from outside the city to help — all day and all night. I guess this showed the good part of human beings. Many people didn't eat or drink. Everyone tried to help each other within the city. This helping continued for weeks and months and years — until the city was rebuilt enough so that people could get on with their normal lives. Even by the time I left three years later, I still saw many people helping each other. But because of the radiation and the lack of medical supplies, people continued to die and we couldn't do anything to help them. Even the doctors couldn't do anything. We did our best, but it was still very frustrating.". He saw people die and suffer radiation poinson and nothing could be done about it. The United States had no right to put the Japanese people through experiences such as this one. To hear more of this survivors story: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/wwii/interview/trans.htm

Also to hear a devestating story from a man who witness the bomb being dropped on Hiroshima: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/movies/siemes3.mov

Kayoko Iwanaga says, "My young father remembers that his mother screamed and cried every day because of the terrible pain of the burning. He also told me that there were many fleas and worms all over her body." Kayoko's description of her family's pain and anguish shows the insensitive torture of innocent civilians.  The U.S. referred to the Japanese civilians as "collateral damage". The U.S. benefited from the bombing by observing and studying  the short and long term effects that each bomb had on the civilians.  In other words the Japanese were treated like "lab rats" in an experiment.  This is uncivilized and immoral human behavior. 
Click here for more on Kayoko's family's experience:http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/august/9/newsid_4720000/4720807.stm 

Hiroshi Sawachika was a 28 year old doctor who gives a testimony with his view as a doctor the day that the bomb was dropped:

http://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/hiroshi.html

This chart shows the massive amounts of deaths caused by the decision to drop the atomic bomb.



Japan was covered with horrifying scenes such as this one after the atomic bombs.

History

The United States began the Manhattan Project before World War 2 even began, other allied forces including the Soviet Union were all desiring to have the superiority in nuclear warfare. There was a race to create the first atomic bomb. 


Germany was beginning to be defeated so the war with them was slowly coming to an end. The United States was still at war with Japan. The Allied forces discussed how to win the ongoing war in the pacific, they decided that they could drop the atomic bomb on japan in order to make them surrender. 

The Battle of Okinawa was a huge turning point in the decision whether to drop the atomic on japan or not, this battle was named Operation Iceberg. It took place from April to June of 1945, and To those Japanese who thought the war was winnable, Okinawa was the last chance. The Japanese felt so much shame from the thought of loosing these attacks that they had large amounts of suicide and kamikaze attacks. Since the United States knew that the Japanese would rather commit suicide then face defeat the U.S. thought that they needed to do even more damage. The Japanese already suffered over 100,000 casualties from the battle of Okinawa, so why did we need to kill even more Japanese civilians? Let alone killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese citizens the dropping of the first atomic bomb changed the world of warfare negatively forever. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as the targets of the two atomic bombs not only because of their population but because they had high military strategic value and they had never before been bombed. 

The two bombs that were dropped were known as "little boy" and "fat man". "little boy" is the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th. The Army Air force Colonel Paul W.Tibbets flew the B-29 bomber nicknamed Enola Gay that dropped "little boy" over Hiroshima. Only three days later the second bomb "fat man" was dropped over Nagasaki by Major Charles W. Sweeny. Then on September 2nd Japan unconditionally surrendered. 

"little boy"

Enola Gay

Thesis and Intro

In 1945 Truman had to deal with one of the hardest decisions he had to make in his life, whether or not to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. over 200,000 Japanese citizens were killed from the dropping of this bomb. Due to such a high casualty rate of innocent civilians I believe that the United States was not justified in dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because no matter the motives over 100,000 innocent lost their lives immediately or from the after effects of the atomic bombs. 

At 8:15 am on August 6th 1945, the ten foot atomic bomb named "little foot" was dropped on Hiroshima. Staff sergeant George  Caron described what he saw as "a bubbling mass of purple-gray smoke and you could see it had a red core in it and everything was burning inside. . . . It looked like lava or molasses covering a whole city. . . .". This is the explosion that immediately vaporized over 70,000 and 100,000 more deaths resulted in a matter of days after the dropping of the bomb. Only three days later the U.S dropped a second atomic bomb named "fat man" on Nagasaki. In total there were over 200,000 casualties resulting from the decision to drop the atomic bombs. This is why I believe that Truman was unjust in his decision to do so. 200,000 innocent people lost their lives for our selfish needs to save ourselves.