As the United States and Britain closed in on the island of Japan, a land invasion of the island seemed inevitable. However, Churchill predicted that a full scale assault would cost 1 million American lives, and half a million British lives. Unwilling to pay such a price, President Truman decided to swiftly end the war by using a devastating new weapon- the atomic bomb.
The bomb was created through the Manhattan Project, led by General Leslie Groves and head scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer. It was a very tightly kept secret: even though over 600,000 people were involved, very few knew the true purpose. The first test of this secret atomic bomb occurred on the morning of July 16, 1945 in a desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The test was successful. Just 9 days following the test, on the 25th, Truman decided to utilize the weapon to end the war with Japan.
Only 3 weeks after the first test, on August 6th the B-29 bomber "Enola Gay" dropped the first bomb nicknamed "little boy" on the city of Hiroshima. 3 days later, another bomb, "Fat Man", was dropped on Nagasaki. By the end of the year, over 200,000 people had died as a result of injuries and radiation poisoning. These two devastating attacks crushed Emperor Hirohito's will to fight, because he refused to let more innocent civilians perish in the war. He formally surrendered on September 2nd, aboard the U.S. Battleship Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. This declaration ended World War II. The bomb destroyed thousands of lives, however, the fighting had ended.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This has a very good flow to it and does not sound mechanical at all. Excellent presentation of the facts in a conversational tone. I never knew there was a bomb called "Fat Man"! This was a very interesting article, good job! (papa)
ReplyDeleteAgain, debatable whether it was really required or not. But well written and effectively tells the tale of the dropping of the atomic bomb. Good work Kuleen.
ReplyDeleteGood article. The structure of the article was well done. Some mechanics need to be cleaned up though.
ReplyDeleteI agree, good structure but watch out for the mechanics. I also think it is really interesting the names of the bombs they dropped on Japan, I wonder where they got the ideas for the names from. Overall, great work!
ReplyDeleteI like how you structured this. Yours had a better flow to it as opposed to other articles which were just listing facts. Good details just some grammatical errors.
ReplyDelete