Who dun it

Peace Bell at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima
(Photo by Sharkey, taken at the Peace Park in Hiroshima August 2010)

Sharkey and Michael worked together on researching sources on the web, on books, and e-books.   They got together in school and after to write their drafts for their blog entries, and they updated each other's work through Facebook.   Then they split up the photo page, with Mike looking for older pictures from the time of the attack and before, and Sharkey using the pictures he took on his trip to Japan last summer.  Since Sharkey had downloaded his Japan pictures on his computer, they used Sharkey's computer to actually write the blog, but apart from this, all the work was evenly split.  They researched the topic carefully, because they did not want to sound anti-American just because they are both Asian.  They came to the conclusion that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were useless from the perspective of the war against Japan, but they had the function to show American allies (Europe) and rivals (USSR) how powerful and destructive the US could be when it wanted to. 

Sources

The Wikipedia.org pages provided important historical background on the period and the events.  The other sources report first person witness accounts of both the attacks and the internment, and the debate before the attacks.

WEB PAGES

Debatepedia. "Argument: Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was cynically about deterring USSR". (Last edited June 10, 2010). Retrieved from http://debatepedia.idebate.org/en/index.php/Argument:_Bombing_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki_was_cynically_about_deterring_USSR

Hiroshima Peace Site.  (Last edited January 3, 2011). Retrieved from http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/index_e2.html

Johnson, Eric Michael. The Primate Diaries. "Intimidating the Soviets: A Hiroshima anniversary memorial", August 6, 2009. Retrieved from http://scienceblogs.com/primatediaries/2009/08/intimidating_the_soviets_a_hir.php

Lewis, Chris H. American Studies 2010, "Did the United States need to drop the atomic bomb on Japan in order to end World War II?".  (Last edited October 2, 2002). Retrieved from http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/atomic.htm

NuclearFiles.org, "Chronology on decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki". Retrieved from  www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/history/pre-cold-war/hiroshima-nagasaki/decision-drop-bomb-chronology.htm

PBS.org, "David Holloway on Soviet reactions to Hiroshima". Retrieved from  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/filmmore/reference/interview/holloway05.html

Wikipedia:

Bombing of Hiroshima.  (Last edited March 2, 2011). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hiroshima

Anti-Japanese Sentiment. ((Last edited March 3, 2011). Retrieved from

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Japanese

Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  (Last edited March 4, 2011). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

Nuclear Arms Race.  (Last edited March 6, 2011).  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race

EBOOKS

National Research Council, Naval Studies Board. 1997. Incentives to join the coalition and support its nuclear deterrence . Post-Cold War Conflict Deterrence. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=5464&page=83

Tataki, Ronald. 1996. Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb. San Francisco: Back Bay Books.  www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-America-Dropped-Atomic-Bomb/dp/0316831247#reader_0316831247

BOOKS

Cousins, Norman. 1988. The Pathology of Power. New York: Norton.

Dower, John. 1999. Embracing Defeat Japan in the Wake of World War II. New York: Norton.

Hersey, John. 1989. Hiroshima. New York: Vintage Books

Inada, Lawson Fusao (Editor). 2000.  Only What We Could Carry:  The Japanese American Internment Experience. Berkeley: Heyday Books.

IMAGES

Ihara, Sharkey C.  Private Collection: Hiroshima, Japan, August 10, 2010.

Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimedia Commons. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

AUDIO FILES

History Channel:

President Roosevelt asks Congress to declare war on Japan

www.history.com/topics/japan/audio#fdr-asks-congress-to-declare-war-on-japan

After the Hiroshima attack President Truman threatens Japan of more attacks

www.history.com/topics/japan/audio#truman-threatens-japan-with-atomic-attacks

VIDEO FILES

www.history.com/videos/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki#bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki 

www.history.com/videos/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki#einstein-einstein-and-the-atom-bomb 

www.history.com/videos/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki#manhattan-project

Images

The crew of the B-29 Enola Gay which
delivered the Hiroshima bomb
(Source:Wikimedia Commons--public domain)

From the National Archives: "The patient's skin is burned
in a pattern corresponding to the dark portions of a kimono
 worn at the time of the explosion."
(Photo by Sharkey, taken at the Peace Museum in Hiroshima August 2010)

Mushroom cloud from the atomic explosion
over Nagasaki at 11:02 a.m, August 9, 1945
(Source: Wikimedia Commons--public domain)

Charred bodies of victims on the stone steps leading down to the river access
near the hypocenter in Hiroshima
(Photo by Sharkey, taken at the Peace Museum in Hiroshima August 2010)

Nagasaki before and after the nuclear bomb
(Source: Wikimedia Commons--public domain)

The rice was saved from total incineration by the metal pot
(Photo by Sharkey, taken at the Peace Museum in Hiroshima August 2010)

Made in the USA: replica of the Fat Man bomb
used on Nagasaki
(Source: Wikimedia Commons--public domain)

Masataro Okahara (then 49) was exposed to the A-bomb in his office.  His wife Tsuneyo immediately tried to get into the city to find him but was stopped by the ferocious flames. One week after the bombing, she dug into the ruins of Masataro's workplace where his desk had been and found bones in the position of a person sitting in a chair.  This lunch box and pipe lay at the end of the outstretched right arm.
(Photo by Sharkey, taken at the Peace Museum in Hiroshima, August 2010)

The flag at the Peace Park in Hiroshima is permanently at half-mast
(Photo by Sharkey, taken at the Peace Museum in Hiroshima August 2010)

Prejudice

Thousands of wreaths of paper cranes are brought to the Peace Park in Hiroshima to commemorate the victims of the Hiroshima bomb. Photo by Sharkey.

Prejudice, and anti-Asian sentiments played a part in choosing Japan as the first (and so far only) target of atomic attacks.  Unlike with Germany and Italy, whose leaders and their followers were hated, but who were familiar countries to most Americans, the Japanese were very foreign in many ways, and it was easier for the US propaganda machine to demonize them and dehumanize them.  WWII era posters, comic books, and cartoons show the Japanese (often called "Japs" as an insult) as dark, short, ugly, and dishonest (Inada, 2000).  While posters attacking the European axis countries only focused on the caricatures of Hitler and Mussolini, all of the Japanese race was ridiculed. The US portrayed itself at war with the Nazi (not the Germans), the fascists (not the Italians), but with Japan and all of its people (Wikipedia, 2011).  After the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese Air Force, the US interned Japanese Americans living in coastal areas into concentration camps.  There was very little opposition by white America to the internment of people who mostly were American citizens, and this shows that the propaganda had worked:  Japanese Americans were not seen as real Americans (Inada, 2000).  This perception worked in favor of the decision to bomb Japan, rather than Germany, a country whose citizens Americans could more easily identify with.  So all in all, several reasons and excuses came together with prejudice, and lead to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:  desire to end the war, fear of the Soviet Union's power in Europe and Asia, and racial fear of the "yellow peril," a late 19th century metaphor used to scare people against Asian immigration to the US (Wikipedia, 2011).

Manzanar Japanese Internment camp
Owens Valley, California. 1942
(Source: Wikimedia Commons--public domain)

The Soviet Menace

In the aftermath of the Hiroshima bomb, an eyewitness documented the scene with hand drawings.
(Photo by Sharkey, taken at the Peace Museum in Hiroshima August 2010)

The US had been working on the development of an atomic bomb since 1940.  It was a complex and expensive project (code-named Manhattan Project) that involved scientists that had come to the US from many European countries (Wikipedia, 2011).  The US feared that Nazi Germany could develop an atomic weapon before they did.  President Roosevelt was more concerned with having the bomb, than with using it.  After President Roosevelt died, President Truman included using the atomic bomb in his war plans, especially since the Soviet Union was now at war with Japan, and a Soviet victory could expand its power over Asia (NuclearFiles.org).  After the first attack, President Truman threatened Japan of more attacks to come if the unconditional surrender was not signed (History, .com).   The Soviet Union had played an important role in defeating Germany, and the United States was worried about possible future Soviet influence in Europe and Asia, so President Truman, despite Japan's offers for a conditional surrender, decided to show the world and the Soviets in particular how powerful America was.  Henry Stimson, the American Secretary of War, was in charge of the Manhattan Project (History.com), and he decided that dropping the first bomb (Nicknamed "Little Boy") on Hiroshima would bring about Japan's unconditional surrender before Japan could arrange with the Soviet Union negotiations for a conditional surrender.  It was also Stimson's decision to drop "Fat Man" on Nagasaki after three days, to speed up events. Stimson believed that an atomic attack on Japan would save the lives of American soldiers by bringing about a quicker resolution to the war, and at the same time would show the Soviets how powerful America was (Tataki, 1996).  As we mentioned before, though, in August 1945 Japan was already very close to surrender, it was just working out the details of a conditional surrender versus an unconditional surrender.  Japan was no longer a threat to the US, but the Soviet Union was becoming one, so the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were meant as a warning to the Soviets more than a final nail in Japan's coffin:  they did not save millions of American lives, but instead cause death, pain and suffering for generations of Japanese. Dropping the bomb was not a unanimous decision.  Many of the scientists who had worked in the Manhattan project opposed its use.  Albert Einstein had urged President Roosevelt to build the bomb, but he said he did not believe President Roosevelt would have ever used it (History.com). Ten years later, on his deathbed, Einstein still felt that his support for the bomb was the worst mistake of his life (Wikipedia, 2011).  General MacArthur, the commander of the allied forces in the Pacific, did not know about it until a few hours before the attack, probably because he would have been against it, since he considered it unnecessary from a military point of view (Tataki, 1996 and Cousin, 1988).

"When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."
Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.
(Photo source: Wikimedia Commons--public domain)

The FACTS

Miyoko was a first-year student at First Municipal Girls High School. She was exposed to the Hiroshima bomb at her building demolition work site.  Her body was never found, but her mother found this wooden sandal two months later.  She recognized it by the straps that she had made herself using material from her kimono.  The print of Miyoko's left foot remains on the sandal.
(Photo by Sharkey, taken at the Peace Museum in Hiroshima August 2010)

In early 1945 the US was fighting on two fronts:  Europe and the Pacific (Wikipedia, 2011, and History.com).  Germany surrendered to the Allied Forces (which included the USA and the USSR) on May 7, and May 8, 1945 is remembered as Victory in Europe Day.  On the Pacific front, Japan was still fighting against the US and its allies, and also against China.  They had lost several important battles to control islands in the Pacific, like Iwo Jima and Okinawa, their Imperial Navy was in ruins, and American planes were constantly bombing Japanese cities (Hersey, 1989).  Train tracks within the country had also been bombed, and the difficulties in transportation made food scarce in most areas of Japan.  Earlier in 1945, a newly elected Japanese Prime Minister, Kantaro Suzuki , had urges his government to negotiate surrender with the United States (Wikipedia, 2011).  After Victory in Europe, he was even more ready to capitulate because now the allied forces would be using all their might against Japan, and they were hoping for some good terms for their surrender.  Many American generals and military experts were also convinced that Japan could not keep fighting (Tataki, 1996).  Japan also tried to involve the Soviet Union in negotiations, because the US was calling for unconditional surrender, and at that point the US was no longer interested in a dialogue (Debatepedia, 2010).   So, on August 6, 1945, without  warning  an American fighter plane dropped a  nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, destroying about  four square miles of the city.  Right away, 90,000 people were killed; 40,000 were injured, and most of these people died shortly after from radiation sickness. Three days later, a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki killed 37,000 people and injured 43,000. On August 15, 1945 Japan surrendered unconditionally (Wikipedia, 2011).

Japanese foreign affairs minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender
on board USS Missouri as General Richard K. Sutherland watches, September 2, 1945
(Source: Wikimedia Commons--public domain)

Hiroshima/Nagasaki Thesis and Introduction

Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, ca. 1942
(Photo by Sharkey, taken at the Peace Park in Hiroshima August 2010)

Now known as A-bomb dome. August 2010
(Photo by Sharkey, taken at the Peace Park in Hiroshima August 2010)

 Dropping the atom bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an unjustified and criminal act.  On August 6 and 9, 1945 the United States dropped two atom bombs on the Japanese industrial cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroying the cities, killing over 200,000 people, contaminating million more, and accelerating the surrender of Japan and the end of WWII  (Wikipedia, 2011). Yet, the destruction of these two cities, and the civilian casualties did not actually change the outcome of the war, nor saved millions of lives, like some said.  Actually, by the Summer of 1945, Japan was already on its knees and ready to capitulate, even before the bombings Lewis 2010).  The bombings were not justified:  They were mostly a show of strength by the United States, meant to frighten future enemies and to impress current and future allies.  They were a warning, a "Don't mess with us" sign, a message not just to Asia, but also to Europe and its leaders, and most of all to the Soviet Union.

Anti-Japanese progaganda,
a U.S. Army official poster
(Source: Wikimedia Commons--public domain)

Japan had to be the target of the first atom bomb attack, because such attacks on Europe would have found more opposition in the US government, and among the citizens.  Instead, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had caused deep American hatred for Japan, and the little opposition by white Americans to the internment of Japanese Americans (Tataki, 1996) had lead the US Government to assume American support for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.