Use of Atomic Bomb

Use of Atomic Bomb

Introduction

At the time of World War II, the United States had attacked Hiroshima and Nagasaki by dropping atomic bombs, war was declared on Japan by the Soviet Union, and ultimately the Japanese government had to surrender to the United States and its allies. That was the time when the nuclear age got initiated with the start of military usage of weapons that were atomic. Along with the type of material that followed, the National Security Archive published the collection of documents which was the most comprehensive in nature and was responsible for declassifying documents of the United States government on the atomic bombs and the ending of war in the Pacific region (Freese, 2011).

The story of atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima on 6th of August, 1945, has majorly remained the subject of various articles and books since that time in history, and a lot of scientists and other people have written on it who had also participated and were responsible for the development of the atomic bombs which were the first in the world.

Background

It can be said that the development of the atomic bomb began to take place in the era of 1920s and during early 1930s. That was the time when numerous physicists, who were mostly based in Europe, began to originate theories about different ways that could be used to unlock the energies which they believed had existed in the atom. One of the most prominent physicists of the time was Leo Szilard, who had fled from Nazi Germany and gone to England in the year 1933. According to him, it was probably possible to set up nuclear chain reactions in certain circumstances. It was he who had urged the officials of Britain to start conducting research in order to study and then disapprove or prove his theory (Cirincione, 2008).

Tibbets, was a colonel who was in charge and was heading the 509th Composite Group. He was responsible for honing his unit which was named 15 B-29 Superfortresses towards one of the most efficient bombardment outfits of Air Force that were ever assembled. The operations were taking place from an Island called the Tinian Island which was located in the Marianas, and the location was considered to be the largest location of air base in the world at that time. Tibbets and his crew had put together a 2,900-mile flight which was completely picture-perfect, and then it dropped the uranium bomb which was also known as 'Little Boy' on the specific target area. The bomb was single and weighed about 8,900 pounds, had the power to wipe out approximately five square miles of the city Hiroshima, which was about 60 percent of the total city area (Freese, 2011). This bomb was the cause of killing of above 78,000 of the total population of city, out of 348,000, and caused approximately 51,000 to become critically injured.

The whole mission had been very exhausting for the team and had comprised of a whopping 12 ...