Hiroshima :: essays research papers

Hiroshima   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Would you be afraid of an atomic bomb dropping on your city? In August 1945, World War II was finally dying down. The United States, including her allies, had already defeated Germany by this time and had reclaimed land that had been taken over by Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Now that the United States and her allies had defeated the Nazis all the attention was pointed towards Japan. Japan was a city that would fight to the very end, and if needed fight to the very last man. The people of Japan did not believe in surrendering to anyone. Do you think that the people of Japan were afraid of the bomb that the United States’ best physicists had created? (Claypool 1)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The people of Japan did not know the power of the atomic bomb and so they were not afraid of the United States. An hour before the United States dropped the bomb, Japan had detected the approach of some American aircraft heading towards the southern part of Japan. (The Manhattan Engineer District) The Japanese were in fear of a huge B-29 raid that could occur. At 8:00 a.m. the radar operator in Hiroshima determined that the number of planes coming was only a couple and probably not more than three. Basically, the Japanese were pretty clueless of what was coming. What was coming? There were a total of 7 B-29s flying towards the city of Hiroshima. One plane was a stand-by plane; three of them were weather planes, two of the planes carried scientific equipment and observers. The final B-29, the â€Å"Enola Gay,† carried the first atomic bomb Nelson 2 that would be dropped on Hiroshima. In less than three hours, sixty percent of Hiroshima would be erased. (Hersey 35) Hiroshima was located on a flat delta off the Ota River. The Ota River had 7 channels that divide the city into 6 islands. The city of Hiroshima was slightly above sea level and was almost entirely flat. It consisted of 26 square miles, and out of the 26, only 6 square miles were built-up. Seventy-five percent of the people had lived in the center of Hiroshima. (The Manhattan Engineer District)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There was no separation between commercial, industrial, and residential zones. The houses and industrial buildings were made of wood. Also, the outskirts of the center of the city had an area of close small wooden workshops that were scattered between the Japanese houses.