Atomic Bomb Essay

Daniel Kramer

On August 6th, 1945 the Enola Gay, an American B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. With just one blast from a plane holding only a single weapon, the United States destroyed four square miles of the city and killed approximately 80,000 people. But this was not the end of it; three days later, on August the 9th of 1945, a second American plane flew over Nagasaki and dropped another atomic bomb causing the death of an additional 100,000 people. It took only two blasts to cause the death of nearly 200,000 people, and yet this number doesn’t begin to reflect the widespread devastation and hardships that would adversely affect so many innocent people for many years to come. These actions ordered by President Truman put an end to World War Two, the most destructive war in history, and a war that had claimed the lives of nearly 55 million people worldwide. But this action also created much controversy. Even until this day, over 50 years later, people still cannot agree whether this decision to kill so many was just. America’s decision to commit these acts of violence against so many innocent people was very unnecessary to end a war that had already caused the destruction of so much.

The atom bomb did not just appear from nowhere. Under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves and the U.S Army Corps of Engineers, America took on a secret plan to create a nuclear weapon. With the help of many scientists including Neils Bohr and Enrico Fermi, the U.S achieved the first fission chain reaction which would allow for new neutrons that produced fission in other atoms at a very quick and increasing rate. This project was known as the Manhattan Project (Groueff). Under the control of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the development of the atomic bomb, the United States was able to create its first atomic weapon. After a successful test explosion in a desert in New Mexico, known as the Trinity Test, America was ready for the use...