The Manhattan Project: The First Nuclear War

The Manhattan Project was a secret problem barely anyone knew about.Many of the scientists that were involved with the Manhattan Project heard about the Axis powers gaining knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons that could destroy a whole nation.The Manhattan Project produced two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan.The atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Hiroshima was chosen as the target for the first atomic bomb because it was a large port city with an army base. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki missed its target by over a mile.

It was December 7, 1942 a beautiful mourning in Pearl Harbor. When out of the blue, hundreds of Japanese planes bomb and either sunk or severely damaged eight battle ships and at least thirteen other naval ships that were docked on the shore. This spark is what involved the United States the forest fire known as World War II. My paper is not on the war itself, but is on the atomic bomb, and what was known as the Manhattan project. In my report I will talk about the many reasons, the atomic bomb had to be created and used.

     When the first atomic bomb was detonated in Alamogordo New Mexico on June 16, 1945, all the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project understood the great destructive power of radio-active isotopes. Although the atomic bomb was a very destructive force our world would not be as good without it. Because of the government funding involved in the project coupled with the need for an atom bomb, much research that otherwise may not have occurred took place in the US. The Manhattan project opened the door to nuclear advancements and applications.

Thesis Statement: The Manhattan Project was the American program for researching and developing the first atomic bombs because of the project it cost a lot of people their lives.

It was dubbed The Manhattan Project and consisted of some of the most brilliant physicists at the time such as Albert Einstein. Then, in 1945 arguably the most powerful and controversial technology was developed. This was the nuclear bomb and it completely changed the world forever. This weapon could be used to decimate entire cities and the only time it was ever used during any conflict was in 1945 (Shalett, n.d.). Japan was the target and the bomb left nothing but rubble in its path.

The process of building the two atomic bombs was long and hard. The Manhattan project employed 120,000 people, and cost almost $2 billion. Although there were 120,000 Americans working on the project only a select group of scientist knew of the atomic bomb development. Vice president Truman never knew about the development of the bombs until he became president. The axis powers did not know what was going on with the development of the atomic bomb; there was a soviet spy in the project. The soviet spy was Klaus Fuchs, and he had become one of the few people who knew of the bombs.

It all began in 1939 when Franklin D. Roosevelt found out that the Nazis were funding money and were attempting to build some sort of nuclear weapons. Roosevelt knew if the Germans had gotten their hands on an Atomic Weapon, the war would be over quick. Who knows what could’ve happened next? As a result Roosevelt acted fastly but strategically by funding the U.S’s own experiment to build atomic weapons. The secret codename for this project was named the “Manhattan Project.” The Manhattan Project was run by the United States with the help of their allies, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The Manhattan Project was so large it employed over 130,000 people and costed roughly a little over $2 Billion. In today’s USD $2 Billion would be the equivalent of almost $26 Billion. Almost 90% of the overall money used on this project was used just towards building factories and the production of the Fission materials. This left only about 10% of the money which was used directly towards development and production of these atomic weapons. The Creation of the Atomic Bomb has led to Mass Destruction.

On the morning of August 6, 1945, a B-29 Bomber that was names Enola Gay had flew over the City of Hiroshima Japan and dropped the first atomic bomb to have ever been made. The motive for the creation and research of the bomb was a direct result of the Japanese bombing on Pearl Harbor. When the bomb was finalized after all the research of splitting atoms and combining plutonium and uranium and knowing what to use, many tests were done and the bomb was presumed ready. But no one could have guessed the magnitude of this bomb. The city was engulfed in flames as the power of the bomb being equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT being dropped exploded. There was much work that went into making this project a success amongst all others. There was a wide variety of scientific brain knowledge, civilian knowledge and much military knowledge and assembly to make this project happen.

The Manhattan Project was a project made up of the top scientist, split into two teams. The project started in 1939 and ended in 1946. Scientists were gathered to construct the very first atomic bomb. The scientists were not told why they were making what they were nor were they told what they were making. The U.S. used it to bomb Japan, killing innocent people in order to end the war. Later, Scientists who had worked on the project, like Albert Einstein, stated that if he had known what they were using it for/what they were making, he never would have worked on it. The U.S. tricked it’s own people into creating a weapon that was created solely for killing thousands. This evil injustice wasn’t just harmful to those who were bombed, but to those who were instructed to create the bomb, oblivious to what horrendous

The war in the Pacific had reached its pinnacle point in 1945 with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The world was terrified of both dominant nations at war against each other, the United States and the Japanese were at battle. In the 1943 a new era was just being discovered, Albert Einstein had revealed an unordinary way of destroying things. Something so dominate that cities would be demolished into pieces of ruins. Einstein communicated with the United States President Truman of this new brilliant idea of a way to stop the war. When the war had become out of hand and resulting into many casualties, Truman considered. The United States of America took advantage of the new theory and embarked into a project that would change mankind and the world forever. The “Manhattan Project” became known as the new mission that would stop the world war. The Manhattan project consisted in multiple events that lead to the bombing of Hiroshima and later changed the world. Large controversies still exist of whether the bombing on Hiroshima was obligatory. Was the atomic bomb that demolished thousands people and caused many deaths necessary? If the atomic bomb was not created and an invasion of Japan would have resulted in an estimated one million American deaths and tens of millions of Japanese would have died. The dropping of the Atomic bombs resulted in no American deaths and less than to hundred thousand Japanese deaths. Using the atomic bombs to end the war was the humane thing to

Defectors from germany helped with the project. Allies helped some with the project. The other countries brought their knowledge of nuclear weapons and brought it here to the United States.

While there were many new weapons were built, and being built in World War 2. And scientists had many experiments and test to find out the most destructive and most reliable weapons. A top-secret project, by the name of “The Manhattan Project” a mission to create the most destructive bomb ever heard of. Some enemy countries had already start to build a nuclear weapon of mass destruction to conquer everything. The U.S., president Franklin D. Roosevelt moved very slow on this action tough, Thinking it wasn’t necessary to defeat the enemy. Until he heard that the enemy was coming very close to making this nuclear bomb. The U.S. were doing many experiments to make a nuclear bomb. Their first test in Los Alamos was a success now they had to figure out how to be able to transport it over seas to use on enemy countries. They made two bombs little boy and fatman.

The Manhattan Project led by J. Robert Oppenheimer was the sole responsibility of the most destructive, but a most productive exploration of energy in the history of man- producing the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, arguably started the war-like encounter, the cold war, sparking conflicts and bills that would affect future for centuries to come, and starting a nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia. Firstly, with substantiation from the many lives claimed by the atomic bombs, was this an instance in which the US had to explore a lot of bad, to do a lot of good, or was this an encounter of pure human evil? Moreover, because of the further conflicts that did quite a huge number onto humanity, it’s a

On December 7th, 1941 the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan. This unprovoked assault on our nation’s soil forced Congress to take action with a formal declaration of war on Japan. With the country’s entry into World War II, a secret venture was implemented by the government. The clandestine project would employ some of the greatest scientific minds in history, including renowned physicists Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein. The plan was codenamed, “Manhattan,” and its goal was the development and production of the most destructive weapon known to man: the atomic bomb. Over the course of the next four years, from December 1941 to July 1945,

Through the efforts of the “Manhattan Project” and the scientists within it, several nuclear bombs were created. Two of which, “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” ended up being dropped on Japan. “Little Boy,” the only uranium bomb created was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 (Batchelder 99-105). “Fat Man,” the second nuclear bomb ever used in warfare, detonated above Nagasaki on August 11, 1945 (Batchelder 95-105). The leaders of the United States, decided that dropping the newly developed atomic bombs on Japan was the smartest action they could take at the time, given the current situation that the United States and the world was in. Dropping the bombs on Japan was mainly motivated by the belief that human lives could be saved. A massive invasion of the Japanese mainland was the only other option if no bombs were going to be dropped. The fact that the Japanese main army of approximately two million had never before been defeated on top of the Japanese terrain which was much better suited for guerrilla warfare than the mechanical ways of the U.S. put estimated American deaths alone well over the deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (Batchelder 114-118).