The Destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Directions As you look at the following pictures you will answer these three questions: How does it make you feel? What can you conclude from what you see? What is going on in the photo? Why do you think it was taken? What does this picture show about the use of nuclear weapons? (Justified or not) You will use these notes to write a paragraph at the end of class. Was the United States justified in using atomic weapons against Japan?

"Little Boy" unit rests on a trailer cradle in a pit below the open bomb bay doors of the B-29 Superfortress bomber "Enola Gay" on the 509th Composite Group base at Tinian Island in the Marianas Islands in 1945. Little Boy was 3 m (10 ft) long, and weighed 4,000 kg (8,900 lb), but only carried contained 64 kg (141 lbs) of uranium which would be used to create a nuclear chain reaction, and resulting explosion.

Photo by US Army The huge atomic cloud 6 August, 1945 Photo by US Army The huge atomic cloud 6 August, 1945. A Uranium bomb, the first nuclear weapon in the world, was dropped in Hiroshima City. It was estimated that its energy was equivalent to 15 kilotons of TNT. Aerial photograph from the 80 kilometers away of the Inland Sea, taken about 1 hour after the dropping.

Utter destruction of Hiroshima by 6 August 1945 bombing with a single atomic weapon. Written note is from Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr. 

Color photograph of the ruins of central Hiroshima in autumn of 1945

The foreground shows the ruins of the Hiroshima Gas Company Building (800 feet from the hypocenter). In the center are the ruins of the Honkawa Elementary School.

Bridge across the Ota river, 880 meters from the hypocenter of the bomb burst above Hiroshima. Note where roadway is burned and the ghostly shadow imprints left where the surface was shielded by cement pillars.

A man looks over the expanse of ruins left by the explosion of the atomic bomb on in Hiroshima, Japan

A trolley car completely destroyed by the explosion A trolley car completely destroyed by the explosion. Note that the trolley car is no longer on its tracks.

Twisted iron girders are all that remain of this theatre building located about 800 meters from ground zero.

On August 6,1945 Hiroshima, Japan was bombed by the B-29 bomber called Enola Gay and its crew. America dropped the bomb on this city and 3 days later they dropped another bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. The aftermath showed the power of nuclear war. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of Hiroshima and 120,000 people were killed in total.

This patient (photographed by Japanese forces on October 2nd, 1945) was about 6,500 feet from ground zero when the rays struck him from the left. His cap was sufficient to protect the top of his head against flash burns.

The burns are in a pattern corresponding to the dark portions of the kimono she was wearing at the time of the explosion.

Casualty from the Atomic Bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.

A victim of the bombing in Hiroshima lies in a makeshift hospital located in one of the remaining in bank buildings in September of 1945. 

Keloids form on the legs of a solider exposed to the radiation 2,950 feet (900 meters) from the hypocenter.

Severe keloids, or scarring, caused by thermal radiation.

Hair loss caused by exposure to radiation.

Bibliography Boston.com – Hiroshima, 64 years ago http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/08/hiroshima_64_years_ago.html Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered http://www.hiroshima-remembered.com/photos/index.html

DATA from BOMB Prewar population Hiroshima - 255,000 to 300,000 Nagasaki - 195,000 Atomic bomb deaths – injured Hiroshima - 66,000 dead 69,000 injured Nagasaki – 39,000 dead 25,000 injured Estimated Total Casualties** Hiroshima - 135,000 casualties Nagasaki – 64,000 casualties

DBQ Paragraph Instructions Using your previous knowledge about the war in the Pacific (Pacific War Story, Bataan Death March Video Questions, Manhattan Project Reading) and the information you learned today (Atomic Bomb Photo Analysis) you will write an paragraph to answer the following question: Was the United States justified in using atomic weapons against Japan? Your paragraph must include: An introduction sentence Three body sentences A Conclusion sentence