Dropping the Bomb and Summary
Overview
Statewide Dual Credit Modern World History: Unit 14, Lesson 12
A discussion of the use of atomic bombs in WWII highlights the devastation caused in Japan and the subsequent surrender and an exploration of the formation of the United Nations as a governing structure for international peace and conflict resolution.
Dropping The Bomb
By 1943, Allied forces had successfully pushed Japanese forces back to the home islands. American bombers launched round-the-clock firebombing raids on Japanese cities, most notably Tokyo. However, Allied leaders became worried that an invasion of the Japanese home islands might cost upwards of a million casualties and drag on for years as Japanese troops and civilians fought diligently to their deaths. As such, President Roosevelt and his generals looked for an alternative to invasion.
Following the death of President Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945, his successor, Harry S. Truman, authorized the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. On August 6, 1945, the crew of the U.S. bomber Enola Gay dropped a 21-kiloton atomic bomb named “Fat Man” on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, American forces dropped another atomic bomb dubbed “Little Boy” on Nagasaki. When counting not only the immediate victims of the atomic blasts but also those who died later from radiation poisoning, it is estimated that between 90,000-166,000 residents of Hiroshima and 60,000-80,000 people living in Nagasaki died. Unaware that the United States only possessed two atomic bombs, Japanese officials agreed to the Allied demand for unconditional surrender, insisting only that the Japanese Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989) be allowed to remain in power as a symbolic ruler. On September 2, 1945, Japanese delegates signed documents of surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor. The war in the Pacific was now at an end.
Spotlight On | THE ATOMIC BOMB
The Manhattan Project represented one of the most top-secret projects of the war. Led by physicists Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) and Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) and coordinated by U.S. Army General Leslie Groves (1896-1970), scientists for the Manhattan Projects worked first in Chicago, then in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Experimenting with Einstein’s concept that matter and energy were interchangeable, Oppenheimer and Fermi’s team learned through constant experimentation to split uranium 238, a very unstable isotope. On July 16, 1945, the Manhattan team detonated an 18.6 kiloton atomic bomb dubbed “the Gadget” on a barren stretch of desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Upon witnessing the power of the nuclear blast, Oppenheimer quoted the Hindu holy text, the Bhagavata, by stating, “I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Spotlight On | THE UNITED NATIONS
From April 25 to June 26, representatives from over 50 countries gathered in San Francisco to draft the charter for the United Nations. Similar in principle to the League of Nations, the UN would act as an international forum to air grievances between nations and seek peaceful solutions to global problems. The Charter of the United Nations established a governing structure that resembled a parliamentary democracy. Each of the 51 nations that initially joined the UN sent delegates to meet once a year in a General Assembly. Regardless of the size of each member state’s delegation, they received one vote each in assembly votes. Delegates generally debated the adoption of international treaties and set up and evaluated the work of UN subcommittees, including the World Health Organization and the UN Children’s Fund. The UN also featured a number of permanent committees. The United Nations International Court of Justice oversaw the prosecution of war criminals and international terrorists. The UN Secretariat ran the day-to-day operations of the UN and enforced General Assembly resolutions. The UN Security Council constituted the most powerful part of the United Nations. It initially featured five permanent members–the United States, Soviet Union, Britain, France and China (Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang government until 1971, Mao Zedong’s PRC regime afterward) each of which wielded a veto over Security Council resolutions. The Security Council was charged with maintaining international peace and stability, investigating conflicts, establishing peacekeeping missions and setting up economic sanctions. Since its first session in 1946, the United Nations has played an active role in shaping global politics.
SUMMARY
By 1945, the Second World War ended in a complete victory for the Allied Powers. Although victorious, Americans, British, French and Russians soon came face to face with the true costs of the war. Between 40 and 50 million people died in the conflict, many of them civilians. Six million Jews and 6 million Romani, Slavs, homosexuals and other target groups died in the Holocaust. The economies of much of Europe and Asia lay shattered. Of all the prewar powers, only the United States could boast a booming economy and a fully operational military. Furthermore, two erstwhile allies, the U.S. and the USSR, were moving toward a cold war that pitted American capitalism and freedom against Soviet beliefs in planned economies and a collective mentality. For the next 50 years, the conflict between these two superpowers would help shape world events.