History

History of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Early in the morning of August 6th 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped out of a B-29. Hooked on the the top of the B-29 was "Little Boy", a ten foot bomb. The co-pilot of the B-29 described what he saw, "The mushroom cloud itself was a spectacular sight, 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. . . ." The plane was on was only 1,900 feet above the city of Hiroshima. About 60,000 of the 90,000 buildings were completely destroyed in the city, all the metal and stone had melted. The goal of the bombing wasn't only just for the military but was to destroy an entire city. This explosion killed approximately 70,000 people; women, children and military men, also about another 70,000 died due to the radiation from 5 years.

Only three days later, on August 9th of 1945, a second bomb was dropped after hearing no surrendering of Japan. Another B-29 was ready to drop "Fat Boy" on Nagasaki which was the secondary target. This bomb did just as much damage and destroyed about 40% of the city of Nagasaki. The terrain of Nagasaki kept the stronger bomb from doing way more damage than "Little Boy". The city was still demolished and killed just as many innocent lives.