WWII+Research+and+Symposium+NEMD

__**The use of nuclear weapons to end WWII was a rash decision by our government and military.**__

__**10 Facts:**__


 * 1) The "Manhattan Project" was the secret code name for the atomic bomb project as it was being developed. The scientists leading this project had goal to make an atomic bomb before Germany did. However, Germany's experiments ended in dead ends with no sign of progress.
 * 2) The atomic bomb took eight months and was tested at Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16th, 1945, well after Germany was defeated. The intense heat from the explosion created glass pelets out of the sand. The light could be seen 200 miles away and a mushroom cloud stood 8 miles into the sky.
 * 3) U.S. Navy and U.S. Army Air Forces believed that if we held a strong naval and air blockade then Japan would surrender without the use of the bombs.
 * 4) Scientists fought the deployment of the atomic bomb against civilians, but Harry Truman decided the summer of 1945 to deploy it. These were the only orders for a nuclear attack in history.
 * 5) The first atomic bomb was dropped by the Enola Gay on August 6th, 1945, killing over a hundred thousand people and destroying about two-thirds of Hiroshima, Japan. The explosion was equivalent to 12,500 tons of TNT, or 12.5 kilotons.
 * 6) The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8th, 1945.
 * 7) A second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki in August 9th, 1945, killing 50,000 more people with severe injuries.
 * 8) Japan surrendered after we dropped the two bombs, the "Little Boy" uranium bomb and the "Fat Man" plutonium bomb.
 * 9) 47 percent of the people 5 kilometers from the center of the explosion died within months after, but 89 percent of these deaths were during the first two weeks.
 * 10) In Nagasaki there were 76,000 structures, 48,000 were totally destroyed and 22,000 damaged.

__**Primary Source Paragraghs:**__

**"Franck Report"** "The only reason to treat nuclear power differently from all the other developments in the field of physics is the possibility of its use as a means of political pressure in peace and sudden destruction in war."

1. This report was given to the U.S. Secretary of War on June 11, 1945 telling them they should not use the atomic bomb and it would only cause problems in the long run. It is a completely different type of power in war and it will make more enemies then it will kill. Using the atomic bomb in a time where Japan was completely defeated and probably could not have put any force behind a last attack would only kill innocent people. However, we still used this bomb and destroyed two cities. The passage also says that the atomic bomb should only be necessary in a time of great pressure from other countries, for example, if Japan sent their whole army into California and had completely taken over most of the West Coast, we could either fire it into a deeply Japanese controlled area or into Japan itself to weaken their forces. Therefore, the atomic bomb should only have been a weapon of threat and use in turmoil.

** "Atomic Bomb Explosion in Japan" ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2. On August 9th, 1945, the U.S. dropped the second atomic bomb, "Fat Man" plutonium bomb, in Nagasaki, Japan. The explosion destroyed 70 percent of Japan's industrial zone preventing anymore rapid military productions. The Japanese surrendered days later. By the look of the size of the explosion you can tell it covered a huge area swallowing a huge percentage of Nagasaki and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Anyone receiving contact with the explosion that survived would die weeks or months later from burns or radiation poisoning. These deaths would have devastating effects on family members just trying to live their own lives staying away from the war.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">**"Debates on Alternatives to First Use and Unconditional Surrender"** "The main-point of this memorandum is the predominating importance of considering the use of the nuclear bombs as a problem of long-range policy rather than for its military advantage in this war."

3. The quote from memorandum is explaining that the atomic bomb should be looked at from a future point of view. He is trying to explain that the use of the bomb could effect future relations or policies with other nations causing another war. It should not just be looked at from a present or past point of view, because looking at a past point of view we have no hesitation dropping the bomb on Japan. As a matter of fact, they did kill and destroy tons of people, ships, and buildings in Pearl Harbor. On the contrary though, killing more innocent casualties would make problems worse when we could of easily invaded Japan and finished things that way.