J.+Brock+and+D.+Thibault+Nuclear+Powerpoint+Part+2

Nuclear bombs are a great threat to the world and understandably illegal. Two bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki located near the deltas of southwestern Honshu Island facing the Inland Sea on August 6, 1945 and destroyed almost everything in them. There are two basic types of nuclear weapons, atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs. An atomic bomb was the type that was dropped on the two Japanese cities in 1945. In atomic bombs, fissile material is made into supercritical mass by shooting sub-critical material into another or compressing sub-critical material. Although these are less strong than hydrogen bombs, they can still do a lot of damage .

The bomber/pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, flew at a low altitude locating his target area. Around 8:15 am the //Enola Gay// released the 9,700 pound uranium bomb. Tibbets quickly flew away to avoid the explosion, even eleven and a half miles away //Enola Gay// was rocketed by the blast 43 seconds later. The blast went 1, 900 feet high, the city was hidden by an awful cloud mushrooming, boiling up and incredibly tall. “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” were the two nick names of the atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Japan in August of 1945. Sent by the Americans, “Little Boy” leveled almost 90% of Hiroshima, while “Fat Man” destroyed about 1/3 of Nagasaki.

America’s purpose in doing this was to make Japan surrender, and President Truman declared that if Japan still didn't surrender as demanded by the Potsdam Declaration, they would attack other targets equally as destructive. They believed that proving they possessed a strong amount of power would scare the Japanese. Up until then, Japan had never been defeated or invaded. Japan did surrender.

The use of atomic weapons by America killed up to 200,000 Japanese and wounded many more. Debates over the use of atomic bombs to scare the enemy took place for awhile before the actual launching of the bombs. Some people argued that bombing Japan would not end the war because of their strong army, but instead, an invasion was needed. A demonstration was also suggested, but not attempted because of the possibility that some Americans could die. In result of the bombing, parts of Japan were completely destroyed, and for the first time Japan was defeated and the war finally came to an end.

The sight of these bombs being dropped was one to remember. The explosion that was caused by the nuclear reactions was an unbelievable sight. "The mushroom cloud itself was a spectacular sight, a bubbling mass of purple-gray smoke and you could see it had a red core in it and everything was burning inside. . . . It looked like lava or molasses covering a whole city. . . ." -Staff Sergeant George Caron

=Nuclear weapon= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon

=Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

=Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Part 1)= http://history1900s.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/hiroshima.htm