Little Boy was a gun type Uranium Bomb. It was dropped on Hiroshima on August the 6th 1945. Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima. It had an explosive force of about the same as 15,000 tons of TNT.
The City of Hiroshima had about 43,000 soldiers and 300,000 civilians. There were also America prisoners of war. Estimates of the number of people killed vary. Perhaps 70,000 Japanese and 20 Americans were killed by the initial effects. There were long term effects and possibly as many as 200,000 people were dead from the effects of this bomb by the end of five years.
Fat Man was an implosion type of plutonium bomb. It was dropped on Nagasaki on August the 9th 1945. Although it was about 40% more powerful than Little Boy the casualties were somewhat less although still enormous.
DECISIONS
Developing the Bombs
The development of atomic weapons had been ordered by President Roosevelt about six years before at the urging on Albert Einstein. It was developed as a counter to the atomic weapons being developed by Nazi Germany.
Dropping the Bombs
President Roosevelt died on April the 12th 1945 from a cerebral Hemorrhage. The use of these weapons was ordered by President Truman. It is the job of the president to make hard decisions. I think this was a very hard decision to make. On July the 25th 1945, Japan rejected the Potsdam Declaration, and President Truman ordered that nuclear attacks against Japan should start.
The Japanese had a large and powerful army in Manchuria, but on August the 8th 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and attacked the Japanese Manchurian army with an attack the made even the Blitzkrieg of Hitler seem tame.
Surrender
Even before the Bombs were dropped the Japanese were looking at a way of ending the war, but not surrender, rather some sort of negotiated settlement. A few were thinking of unconditional surrender.
Japan was controlled by its military leaders. In their Code, they could not surrender. Another absolute was that they would obey the Emperor.
The Emperor had been urging the war council since June 1945 to find some way to end the war. After the atomic bombing of Hiroshima the Japanese war council met, but still wanted to see if some form of settlement less than surrender could still be worked out.
On the night of August the 9th 1945, the Japanese war council met again. They knew about both the bombing of Nagasaki and the attack on their Manchurian Army. The council voted on offering to surrender. The vote was tied, three all.
For the last generation the absolute power of the Emperor had not been used. This time, Emperor Hirohito broke the tie by ordering an immediate surrender.
Suicide
The Japanese minister of war, General Anami Korechika, was in an impossible position, under his code of conduct he had to obey the Emperor. The Emperor had ordered surrender, but the general’s code did not allow surrender. He took the only honorable course allowed under his code and killed himself. In the Western way of thinking, suicide in these circumstances is the coward’s way out. The Japanese thought differently.
I think that for a ruler to inflict enormous suffering on their people because of their principles is evil. However, this is just my opinion.
Not all the opponents of surrender acted the same as the General, and there was even an attempt to steal the Emperor’s recorded speech to His People telling them about the surrender. In fact this was broadcast on schedule.
Continued Nuclear Attacks
Japan had not yet actually offered to surrender, and some American war leaders wanted to continue dropping atomic bombs on Japan. President Truman ordered a halt to these attacks. According the diary of his Secretary of commerce, Henry Wallace, the president did not want to continue killing the children he knew must have been killed in the attacks. (This was before the longer term affects of fallout were even known.)
Japanformally surrendered on September the 2nd 1945.
Sources
I have tried to present the facts, but some bias is inescapable. All my sources were American ones. Where an opinion is given, I have tried to make it clear that it is an opinion. The estimates given, by their nature may not be accurate, and certainly they have been argued about.
The Technical things about the bombs come from http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Med/Lbfm.html, the things about the presidents come from The White House Official Site , many of the rest of the facts come from http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/hiroshima.htm.
