ObjectivesContent: Choose and defend your position on

whether the United States should have dropped the atomic bomb to end the war with Japan.

Learning: Listen to Gerda’s story of the Holocaust.

ObjectivesContent: Choose and defend your position on

whether the United States should have dropped the atomic bomb to end the war with Japan.

Learning: Explain the effects of World War II.

The Atomic Bomb

Manhattan ProjectCode name for the research and development of the atomic bomb

J. Robert OppenheimerPhysicist Director of Los Alamos research laboratory that developed first atomic bombs

Albert Einstein J. Robert Oppenheimer

Trinity Test Site

Harry Truman’s Decision:

Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Bombing of HiroshimaAugust 6, 1945“Little Boy” dropped by the Enola

GayTook the lives of 70,000 people that

day and another 70,000 from radiation exposure within 5 years

Bombing of NagasakiAugust 9, 1945“Fat Man”Took the lives of about 40,000 that day and up to 80,000 within a year

http://students.umf.maine.edu/~donoghtp/Hiroshima_aftermath.jpg

Nagasaki

Before

&

After

Effects of the Bombings on the PeopleImmediate Death (100,000+, exact number

unknown)Death from fires, falling debrisBurnsKeloids (tumor-like growth of scar tissue)Radiation exposure:

Some became sick several days later because they had no white blood cells and their bone marrow deteriorated

Others developed high fevers, hair loss, inflammation of gums and mouth

Development of cancer(s) over time

“A year after the bombing, Hiroshimans had begun repossessing the plots of rubble where their houses had once stood. Many had built crude wooden huts, having scavenged fallen tiles from ruins to make their roofs. There was no electricity to light their shacks, and at dusk each evening, lonely, confused, and disillusioned, they gathered in an open area near the Yokogawa railroad station to deal in the black markets and console each other.”

-John Hersey’s Hiroshima

“In Hiroshima, the early postwar years were, besides, a time, especially painful for poor people… of disorder, hunger, greed, thievery, black markets. Non-hibakusha [survivors of the bomb] employers developed a prejudice against the survivors as word got around that they were prone to all sorts of ailments… most of them seemed to suffer… from the mysterious but real malaise that came to be known as one kind of lasting A-bomb sickness: a nagging weakness and weariness, dizziness now and then, digestive troubles…”

- John Hersey’s Hiroshima