John Hersey Hiroshima Bombing

From hand to hand contact to weapons of mass destruction, the technology used to fight wars has evolved immensely. Today in war, nations use rockets filled with nerve gas, a toxic gas that causes victims eyes to dilate, have cold limbs, and foam come from their mouth.1 This was a game changer that killed over 1,300 people.2 Another example of military weaponry is the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August of 1945. These events killed more than 140,000 people3. Historians have looked deeper into these bombings and have raised a serious question: Did these bombing contribute in any way to the end of WWII? Although the answer may not be clear, through historical data and research, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

John Hersey,in his novel “Hiroshima”, described it as “a tremendous flash of light (that) cut across the sky.”4 George Caron, who was on the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress aircraft that dropped “Little Boy”, wrote the following about the bombing of Hiroshima:

At the base of the cloud, fires were springing up everywhere amid the turbulent mass of smoke that had the appearance of bubbling hot tar. . . . The city we had seen so clearly in the daylight a few minutes before was now an ugly smudge. It had completely disappeared under this awful blanket of smoke and fire.5

One main reason, according to Ryan Browne, that the United States decided to bomb Hiroshima, was that Japan would most likely surrender from the war.6 However the Japanese Empire believed that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was the only one the United States had in their possession, this belief placed by Army Minister Korechika Anami.7 Until the second bombing of Nagasaki. Three days after “Little Boy” blew up over the city of Hiroshima, another atomic bomb, “Fat Man”, was dropped over the city of Nagasaki at 11:02 a.m.8 This, like the bomb three days before, killed over 70,000 people instantly, coming to a combined total of over 140,000 people killed between the two bombings.9 The Japanese knew then that the United States would keeping bombing

The Japanese army was decreasing in numbers until August 14 when the Japanese Emperor said over radio, “We have ordered our Government to communicate to the Governments of The United States, Great Britain, China, and The Soviet Union that our Empire accepts the provisions of their joint declaration.”11 The joint declaration asked for Japan’s unreserved submission.12 However, more questions were raised. Was the main reason Japan surrendered the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Would Japan have acquiesced if the United States decided not to flaunt their military superiority? Historical data has the