In 1939, under the direction of President Franklin Roosevelt, the United States started developing nuclear weapons because they believed Germany also wanted to make some kind of similar weapon. By mid-1945, the US had managed to make three useable weapons. On August 6 of that year, President Harry Truman ordered America to drop two of those weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because Japan wasn’t surrendering. On September 2, Japan surrendered and the world celebrated. However, the US wasn’t done yet- they wanted to test out this new weapon they had made on the water, and they had found the perfect place- Bikini Atoll. The US said that this would be “for the betterment of mankind”, and this essay will explore different perspectives- including my own- to see if this statement is true. …show more content…
The soldiers were told by the US Government to simply follow orders and that everything would be alright. When the atom bomb was dropped, they watched from their ships- most wore goggles to watch, and others turned away and covered their eyes, as they were told. However, they didn’t know that they could be affected by radiation even though they took those precautions. Only an hour or two after the atom bomb was dropped, some soldiers went ordered to go to ground zero and examine and analyze the wreck made by the bomb. They all wore their regular uniform, which exposed some of their skin to radiation. The soldiers started to take off their shirts to try and cool off after the atom bomb was dropped because it was hotter than they were used to. However, they didn’t know that the radiation was still there, so when radiologists came and scanned their clothes for radiation, they washed it in the water that was radiated, which didn’t really help the situation. Now, most of the soldiers have been affected by some kind of radiation sickness, the most common being