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Although Hiroshima contained some military-related industrial facilities-an army headquarters and troop-loading docks-the vibrant city of over a quarter of a million men, women and children was hardly “a military base.” Indeed, less than 10 percent of the individuals killed on Aug. 9, 1945, that “the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base … because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.” Truman argued, in other words, that Hiroshima was a military target. The first myth was started by President Harry Truman when he announced on Aug. Our analysis exposes two other common myths about Hiroshima. What role did law play in the decision in 1945, and would such an attack be legal today? In our recent article, “ Why the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima Would Be Illegal Today ” in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, we focus on a slightly different set of questions. deaths in the 1945 military records was significantly lower than the mythical half a million figure. But the serious historians studying this issue come to a different conclusion, finding that the range of estimates of U.S. Winston Churchill, in his memoirs, claimed instead that the invasion would have produced one million American fatalities and an additional 500,000 thousand allied fatalities. The Hopkins claim was the most recent inflation of estimates building on what Rufus Miles called the “myth of half a million American lives saved.” Secretary of War Henry Stimson originally claimed in his famous 1947 Harper’s article that an invasion was expected to produce “over a million American casualties to American forces alone” (emphasis added).
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Hopkins, who claimed that the bombing saved an estimated 5-10 million Japanese civilians and 400,000-800,000 American soldiers who could have died in an invasion and was therefore “the lesser of two evils.” The Wall Street Journal, in contrast, published an op-ed by former Los Alamos laboratory official John C. Claude Eatherly, the pilot of the reconnaissance plane for the Enola Gay, who spent the rest of his life haunted by his role in what he considered an immoral attack. The New York Times published Anne Harrington’s moving story about Maj. Earlier this month, the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, was no exception. There is no reason to fear that unconditional surrender means obliteration of the Japanese people or bondage.Every year, in early August, new articles appear that debate whether the dropping of the atomic bombs in 1945 was justified. Present hardships and sickness will be stopped forever. Families who love their sons who are fighting uselessly in the front lines will see them return quickly to their old jobs. The power of the military group which has resulted in the present chaos will be destroyed. In short, it means the ending of the war.
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This unconditional surrender includes Japanese civilians too. Our forces demand unconditional surrender from your military abandoning of hostilities and laying down of weapons.
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The production of munitions which support Japanese operations, transportation, and manpower is obviously declining, and continuing the war not only increases the hardships of the people of Japan tremendously, but also is of no avail. "If your political and military leaders continue the war, our forces will overwhelm your's more and more, expanding our movements and increasing our attacks. These two photographs show the Atomic mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and aim point.īy Senior Photo Editor Radhika Chalasani Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced his country's unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945, describing the devastating power of "a new and most cruel bomb." Their destructive power was unprecedented, incinerating buildings and people, and leaving lifelong scars on survivors, both physical and psychological, and on the cities themselves.ĭays later, World War II was over. Tens of thousands died later in both cities from the effects of the nuclear bombs. dropped a second bomb, "Fat Boy," on Nagasaki killing an estimated 40,000 on August 9. The bomb wiped out 90 percent of the city and instantly killed an estimated 80,000 people. More than seventy years ago, the world changed forever when an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped the first atomic bomb, "Little Boy," over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, during World War II, on August 6, 1945.