Should the atomic bombs have been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
HISTORICAL EMPATHY
The atomic bombs were triggered to explode about 600 metres above the ground. There was intense heat from the explosions. People directly below the bomb were immediately evaporated, leaving just their shadows burnt into the ground. Others further away became burnt corpses. Many of those that survived were badly burnt.
LSource 1
LSource 2 A victim of the Hiroshima explosion
Hiroshima after the atomic explosion, August 1945
LSource 3 The total strength of the Japanese army was estimated at about 5 million men. The air force or Kamikaze, or suicide attacks had already caused serious damage to our seagoing forces. There was a very strong possibility that the Japanese government might decide on resistance to the end. The Allies would have been faced with the enormous task of destroying an armed force of five million men and five thousand suicide aircraft. We estimated that if we were forced to carry this plan to its conclusion, the major fighting would not end until the latter part of 1946 at the earliest. (Henry Stimson, the US Secretary of State for War in 1945, writing in 1947)
LSource 4 The Americans dropped atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Officially the USA ‘claimed’ that the bombings were aimed at bringing the end of the war nearer and avoiding unnecessary casualties. But they had entirely different reasons. The purpose of the bombings was to intimidate other countries, above all the Soviet Union. (Vadim Nekrasov, The Roots of European Security (1984), a Russian history book)
