Nuclear Bomb Devastation Analysis

The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 had caused substantial damage and countless of lives lost. People had continued to suffer, whether if it was from radiation injuries or rebuilding their lives, even years after the tragic events. In Kenzaburo Oe’s anthology The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath, is comprised of short stories written by people who experienced and witnessed the events. They retell of their actual experience or re-create the emotions and events of the unforgettable day. In the story “Fireflies” written by Yoko Ota, she illuminates the lives of the people in Hiroshima seven years after the exploding of the atomic bombs. She tells of the struggles her family is facing, as well as many others, and looks how the horrific injuries caused by the radiation affected the lives of A-bomb survivors. Through the use of imagery, simile, and personification, Ota depicts people trying to rebuild their lives, the lasting memory of the event, and long lasting effects of the bomb.

‘Hiroshima is not merely a documentary, Hersey manages to inject into the narrative both compassion and awareness of the ultimate triumph of humanity.’ Discuss Hiroshima from this perspective.

Not only would the blast of the bomb have devastating effects on communities, but also the fallout of the bomb would play a vast role in the outright destruction of populations. The fallout, when all of the radiation from the bomb falls on the people, resulted in gruesome health effects. The fallout could cause rashes, severe burns, leukemia, and birth defects for anyone outside, so the answer was thought to be shelter if under nuclear attack. With that being said, the fallout shelter became a huge topic of conversation among Americans.

“We have to protect our Earth, so our children and grandchildren will never suffer like that,’ she said. And she looked ahead. ‘Maybe nuclear weapons won’t be abolished while I’m alive,’ she said. ‘But I will never give up.” (Hanley, NBC News). August 6, 1945 at 8:16 in the morning, the United States dropped the world's first atomic bomb on thousands of unsuspecting people in Hiroshima, Japan. Not only did this catastrophic event kill thousands of civilians, but it also resulted in other nations obtaining and learning how to create these deadly weapons, weapons that we still have today. In the book Hiroshima by John Hersey he gives readers a new look at that day, through the eyes of six victims who survived the horrific attack on Hiroshima, he shows how the entire city of Hiroshima suffered, and were left alone to fend for themselves.The book Hiroshima by John Hersey, sheds light on the immense dangers of nuclear warfare, and the government's responsibility for its people, affected by a war they aren’t fighting in.

The crises to which this work responds was the total annihilation of Hiroshima and the aftershock experienced by those left

In the book Hiroshima the author illustrates this city’s most tragic point in history as well as its residence’s lives before, during, and after the horrific drop of the atomic bomb. The pain of over one hundred thousand lives were compressed and expressed through six different stories told by this reporter. The extreme range of direction their lives take can be seen by the contrasting examples between Miss Toshiko Sasaki and Dr. Masakazu Fuji. Toshiko Sasaki began as a clerk before the bombing happened; she was deeply into her family and even had a fiancé. On August 6th of 1945 the bomb

When the Atomic Bomb exploded over the city of Hiroshima, the people who experienced it were not expecting it to occur the way it did. We were given an insight of the lives of several characters on that fateful morning in August in 1945. Neighboring towns had all been bombarded by American B-29 raids, but so far Hiroshima had been spared and rumors spread that “something special” was in store for them. Every plane that flew overhead was a considered a threat and would set off the air raid warning, consequently that morning people even though the siren sounded earlier people were either going about their everyday routines or preparing for the worst. The people of Hiroshima were completely confused when the atomic bomb was dropped over their city because they were all expecting a warning of some kind, either from the U.S or the air-raid sirens but there was nothing heard before the bomb was dropped. Hersey describes it as a “noiseless flash,” which conjures the image of silence and a startlingly bright light as total buildings were decimated. With the dropping of the Atomic Bomb over Hiroshima, we ushered in a new age of

First is the radiation that stays there for 250,000 years. The dropping has made it to where no plants will grow from where the bomb hit and left radiation. Most of all of their water in Hiroshima is radiated and if you drink the water you will get sick. (Radiation exposure). The radiation has also killed most of the entire wild in Hiroshima which means they don’t have a lot of food. The radiation has also killed many men, woman, and children. Then all of their houses would start to deuterated.

The bomb also destroyed buildings. Kids and adults were killed and had radiation poisoning if they were not killed by the initial blast.. “Children in bicycles screamed as they were blinded by the flash of the fireball and an instant later their skin was charred”( Knoll and Postol 19). This shows that innocent people are in danger of the effects of the atomic bomb.

Telling the true devastation of Hiroshima through the eyes of these six survivors allows Americans to really understand what happened as a result from the atomic bomb. Even though Americans knew of the bomb being dropped, they did not know the degree of devastation that this city and its people faced. Through Mr. Tanimoto, the Americans learned of the obliteration, therefore giving money for Mr. Tanimoto’s, “This Is Your Life tour” because of guilt (Hershey 148). Hersey also shows the great strength that these people had after the bomb, including Mr. Tanimoto, that had “an energy that was remarkable for a hibakusha” (Hersey 148). Informing the readers of the long lasting effects, he tells that Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge falls to “A-bomb sickness,” where he is “constantly hospitalized” (Hersey

However, notwithstanding the horrifying and destructive nature of these results, there is yet another extremely disastrous result of the atomic bomb: the firestorm. The thermal radiation from the explosion ignites countless fires on all flammable surfaces within a wide radius. Furiously overturning fire hazards such as stoves, heaters, and furnaces as well as rupturing gas lines and causing short circuits, the blast wave intensifies the already precarious situation. Indeed, the blast wave also breaks windows and blows in fire shutters, which causes better ventilation for the fires. The debris from all the fallen buildings creates much more vulnerable fuel for the fire as well. When all of these individual fires started by the combined efforts

The initial blast of the bomb is only the beginning of the suffering that it causes. Within 30-40 minutes of the bombing a phenomenon known as “Black rain” occurs. The blast of the atomic bomb throws a gigantic amount of irradiated materials into the air which it mixes with the carbon from the fires around the city. This mixture then falls back down as a sticky, radioactive water. This water would then could land on and stain, people’s skin, clothing, and buildings.

“My clothes were burnt and so was my skin. I was in rags. I had braided my hair, but now it was like a lion’s mane. There were people, barely breathing, trying to push their intestines back in. People with their legs wrenched off. Without heads. Or with faces burned and swollen out of shape. The scene I saw was a living hell.” (Michiko 385). A civilian who was exposed to the atomic bomb, Yamamoka Michiko, reflects on the scene she so devastatingly was a part of the day the bomb was dropped. Her description of the cities ruins gives us an idea of just how brutal and horrific the nuclear weapon turned to be. Not only did the United States privately construct such a ruthless weapon, but also used the Atomic Bomb as an unfortunate way to instantaneously end WWII. The United States’ decision to bomb Japan was seen as directed against the Soviet Union because during this time, Stalin had moved troops to the far East in order to enter war with Japan to secure and strengthen a soviet strategic position for combat. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is seen as an unnecessary war crime because allied nations were making moves to prepare to defeat Japan. Though nations such as the Soviet Union worked vigorously to defeat Japan, the United States wanted to end the war quickly while letting other nations know the they were in charge due to their possession of the world’s first nuclear weapon.

Nuclear weapons cause the decimation of cities and prolonged death. In “Hiroshima” Berger, speaks of the destruction of Hiroshima a city in Japan on August 6th, 1945. In Hiroshima, an A-Bomb was dropped on this city by the Americans in retaliation to Pearl Harbor. The A-Bomb caused prolonged death as stated: “The latter included long, lingering deaths, radiation sickness, many

The atomic bomb is a very destructive force and the most destructive force man has made to date. With its force, humans have the power to completely wipe cities off of the map, including anything within them. Men, women, children, animals, and anything else within a certain radius lives no longer and can not leave a legacy or trace behind them. It becomes almost as if the person affected had never existed, except in the minds of their family and friends. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki decimated the cities and left a huge impact, not only upon the Japanese people, but upon the world.