August 6 has become a day to remember the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bombing happened in 1945. The bombings are commonly thought to have played a major part in convincing Japan to surrender and ending World War Two, albeit this is a contentious claim.
On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, an American B-29 bomber, detonated an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It was the first time a nuclear weapon was used in combat, and the blast instantly killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more would perish as a result of radiation exposure.
Three days later, another atomic bomb was unleashed on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing 40,000 people instantaneously. Again, the number of fatalities climbed significantly over time as the world witnessed the catastrophic effects of nuclear fallout.
5 facts regarding the World War II bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- Nagasaki was not one of the five Japanese cities on the US’s initial bombing list.
Kokura, Hiroshima, Yokohama, Niigata, and Kyoto were among the cities on the list. Kyoto was reportedly spared because US Secretary of War Henry Stimson adored the ancient Japanese metropolis, having spent his honeymoon there decades before. Instead, Nagasaki took its place. On July 25, 1945, the United Kingdom authorized the bombing of four cities: Kokura, Niigata, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
- The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were designed extremely differently.
The “Little Boy” bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima, was made of highly enriched uranium-235, whereas the “Fat Man” bomb, which was dropped on Nagasaki, was composed of plutonium. The Nagasaki bomb was thought to be the more complicated design.
- At least one of the bombs’ codenames was inspired by the film noir classic The Maltese Falcon.
The codenames for the bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, were chosen by their developer, Robert Serber, who drew inspiration from John Huston’s 1941 film The Maltese Falcon. Fat Man is a nickname for Sydney Greenstreet’s character, Kasper Gutman, in the film, while Little Boy is claimed to be derived from an epithet used by Humphrey Bogart’s character, Spade, for another character named Wilmer. This has subsequently been debunked, as Spade only ever refers to Wilmer as “boy,” never “little boy.”
Read also : True Story Behind “Oppenheimer” Christopher Nolan’s New Movie
- Prior to the atomic bombs, the United States Air Force dropped pamphlets across Japan.
It is frequently believed that this was a warning to the Japanese people, however these leaflets did not directly warn of a nuclear strike on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. They instead simply predicted “prompt and utter destruction” and pushed citizens to escape.
- When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, it left haunting shadows in the earth.
The Hiroshima bomb blast was so powerful that it permanently seared the shadows of people and things into the earth. These were dubbed “Hiroshima shadows.”
Source:
historyhit.com
