Research Paper On Hiroshima Bombing

Due to the staggering loss of buildings after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, countless were left homeless and starving. Sueko Hada, though reluctant to talk about her ordeal in Hiroshima, opened up during an interview stating, “I had nowhere to go. A soldier took pity on me, gave me some money and told me to take the train to his grandmother's house. But on the train a woman stole all my belongings. Then someone else offered to take me to my elementary school.”[ix] After the atomic bomb wiped out many of the buildings and houses, many who were lucky enough to survive the blast, struggled with the difficulty to live because they were lacking houses and the resources necessary to carry on. Many survivors such as Hada had nowhere to go; circumstances were especially dire if one was the sole survivor within the family, making one have to suffer the hardships in isolation, just as in Hada’s situation. Along with having a

John Hersey's journalist narrative, Hiroshima focuses on the detonation of the atomic bomb, Little Boy, that dropped on the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Although over one hundred thousand people died in the dropping of the bomb, there were also several survivors. John Hersey travelled to Hiroshima to listen to the experiences of six survivors. Hersey uses his book to tell the story of six of these survivors (spanning from the morning the bomb fell to forty years later) through a compilation of interviews. Hiroshima demonstrates the vast damage and suffering inflicted on the Japanese that resulted from US deployment of the atomic bomb. And although depressing, humbling, and terrifying, this book was very good, interesting, and

     The book, Hiroshima, is the story of six individuals who experienced the true effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, August 6, 1945. Miss Toshinki Sasaki, a clerk in the East Asia Tin Works factory, just sat down in the plant office and was turning to converse with the girl at the next desk when the bomb exploded. Dr. Masakazu Fujii, a physician, was relaxing on his porch, which overlooked the Kyo River, where he was reading the morning periodical when the shell detonated. Before the eruption, Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura was observing her neighbor destruct his house as part of a fire lane in preparation of an American attack. Previous to the attack, Father

The non-fiction book Hiroshima by John Hersey is an engaging text with a powerful message in it. The book is a biographical text about lives of six people Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamura, Father Kleinsorge, Dr. Sasaki and Rev. Tanimoto in Hiroshima, Japan and how their lives completely changed at 8:15 on the 6th of August 1945 by the dropping of the first atomic bomb. The author, John Hersey, through his use of descriptive language the in book Hiroshima exposes the many horrors of a nuclear attack.

Hiroshima covers the lives of six survivors of the atomic bomb in detail but right now we are going to focus on how Mrs. Nakamura and Mr. Tanimoto initially reacted to the bomb and how their lives were effected afterwards. Mrs. Nakamura is a widow and a mother of three children. Her and her family are left homeless and jobless after the bomb destroyed her house. While neither her nor her children suffer any immediate harm following the bomb, both Mrs. Nakamura and her daughter, Myeko, contract radiation poising later on as a side effect of prolonged exposure to large amounts of radiation. Mrs. Nakamura will suffer from radiation poison which will take away her ability to work. With no work or money, her and her family will fall into extreme poverty. Eventually, Mrs. Nakamura is employed and becomes finically stable. While it was no easy task, she, like many other Japanese citizens, started a new life for themselves and families. Mr. Tanimoto underwent the most drastic lifestyle change from before the bomb went off to his life afterwards by far. Mr. Tanimoto is a Methodist pastor and initially

Wilfred Burchett, an Australian journalist who visited Hiroshima just a month after the Hiroshima bombing. He provides evidence that he did not approve of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For example he stated that he saw people in hospitals dying mysteriously, ‘they lost their appetites, their hair fell out . . their flesh began rotting away from their bones.’ (Direct quote from source A). He also stated that ‘thousands of people came out of their shelters to watch the bomb descend by parachute’ they didn’t realise what was to come next.

This is understandable and makes sense, however the choice for where to drop the bomb, when examined, has malicious. The people who made this decision were known as “The Target Committee”. This committee went through numerous Japanese towns and prefectures as possible targets, a main one that was considered was Kyoto. When trying to decide which town to bomb, the target committee considered Kyoto, which had about 1 million citizens at this point.(Ham). This shows that they really wanted to hurt as many people as possible. Their decision of Hiroshima wasn’t much better. The target committee chose Hiroshima due to its large population and “sentimental value”(Ham). In fact, a direct quote from the target committee shows that this bomb and its dropping was meant to cause excessive damage. “This is an important army depot and port of embarkation in the

While looking for a boat to carry the severely injured across the river, Mr Tanimoto “… Found a good-sized pleasure punt drawn up on the bank… five dead men, nearly naked, badly burned…” (Hersey, 37) near it, he “… lifted the men away from the boat… he experienced such horror at disturbing the dead…” (Hersey, 37). On August 6, 1945 the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to end the war between them. Hiroshima, by John Hersey is a book about six survivors of the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city. The six survivors tell their stories of where they were before the bomb was dropped, what they did after the bomb was dropped, and what their life was like years after the bomb. The book also

Hiroshima is an outstanding recreation of the complete annihilation and devastation of during the aftermath and the year following the United States’ dropping of the atomic bomb. As the war in the east carried on, many thought this desolated war might last a lifetime, all the while hoping for an end and praying it not mean their own end. To end the war, Americans had to pick a target that would leave the Japanese government with nowhere to retreat, allowing for a crippling effect that would essentially cause their collapse and surrender. In his writings, John Hersey proclaims that Hiroshima was a “… inviting target - mainly because it had been one of the most important military command and communications centres in Japan …” (HERSEY, P. 107). In the minds of American strategists, this must have seemed a flawless method to force the Japanese military into a corner, not allowing withdrawal without laying down of arms. There was surely no doubt that dropping this bomb of god-like destructive power would, at a minimum, tear into the souls of Japanese, causing catastrophic devastation.

Boom! Crash! Woosh! Silence. Devastation. In August 1945, two extremely powerful atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The bombing killed over one-hundred thousand people. Bombing the two cities impacted the world on a global scale, and was one of the final factors that officially ended this unbelievably devastational war. Was this deadly bombing justified? I believe the bombing was justified, for more reasons than one.

One passage from Hiroshima, written by John Hersey, was an observation from all the individuals in the book. This passage caught my attention and it stayed with me as I read on. Hersey wrote, “They still wonder why they lived when so many others died. [...] At the time, none of them knew anything (Hersey, 2).” The quote helped me to understand the seriousness of dropping an atomic bomb.

Washington, Aug 6th – At around 11o’clock this morning, President Truman, in the utmost solemnity, issued a statement to the world, that an atomic bomb, more powerful than 20,000 tons of TNT, had been dropped by an American plane on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The city was an important army base and held large amounts of military supplies.

On August 6, 1945, the US dropped its first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The bomb was called "Little Boy" and was a uranium bomb that exploded with about thirteen kilotons of force. Hiroshima population was 280,000-290,000 civilians as well as 43,000 soldiers. Between 90,000 and 166,000 people died from the bomb over four months following the explosion. estimated that after five years there were perhaps 200,000 or more fatalities as a result of the bombing, the city of Hiroshima has estimated that 237,000 people were killed directly or indirectly by the bomb's effects, including burns, radiation sickness, and

In Hiroshima we learned on how many people suffered with the atomic bomb. In Hiroshima we also learned that we need to think before we act by remembering our past mistakes to prevent them in the future and trying to make peace.

In the beginnings of a disaster we often are immediately reminded of our loved ones. After the blast pushed her house down violently, Mrs. Nakamura thought instantly of her children. TEXT after she plucked her children from the rubble, a neighbor came to her asking if “she had any bandages” (page ). When she got under the rubble she found her sewing machine which was very precious to her, however, she abandoned it and quickly made her way to bring the makeshift bandages and give them to Mrs. Nakamoto. Not only during the turmoil did Mrs. Nakamura sacrifice herself willingly for the sake of others, in her case her children after the atom-bomb, she worked tirelessly to provide for her children as a single mother. She grew very ill from radiation sickness due to the atomic bomb, but nonetheless she