The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are among the many US crimes in World War II.Stunning material about the reasons for the surrender of Japan in World War II, about the atrocities of the Americans in Japan and how the US and Japanese authorities used the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for their own purposes ...

Another US crime, or Why did Japan capitulate?

It is unlikely that we will be mistaken in assuming that most of us are still convinced that Japan capitulated because the Americans dropped two atomic bombs of enormous destructive power. On the Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The act, in itself, is barbaric, inhuman. After all, it died cleanly civil population! And the escort nuclear strike radiation many decades later crippled and cripples newly born children.

However, the military events in the Japanese-American war were, before the drop of the atomic bombs, no less inhumane and bloody. And, for many, such a statement will seem unexpected, those events were even more cruel! Remember what pictures you saw of the bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and try to imagine that before that, the Americans acted even more inhumanly!

However, we will not anticipate and give an excerpt from a voluminous article by Ward Wilson (Ward Wilson) „ It was not the bomb that won the victory over Japan, but Stalin". Presented statistics of the most severe bombing of Japanese cities BEFORE atomic strikes just amazing.

Scales

Historically, the use of the atomic bomb may seem like the most important single event in the war. However, from the point of view modern Japan atomic bombing is not easy to distinguish from other events, just as it is not easy to distinguish a single drop of rain in the middle of a summer thunderstorm.

An American Marine looks through a hole in the wall at the aftermath of the bombing. Nahi, Okinawa, June 13, 1945. The city, where 433,000 people lived before the invasion, was reduced to ruins. (AP Photo/U.S. Marine Corps, Corp. Arthur F. Hager Jr.)

In the summer of 1945, the US Air Force carried out one of the most intense urban destruction campaigns in world history. In Japan, 68 cities were bombed, and all of them were partially or completely destroyed. Approximately 1.7 million people were left homeless, 300,000 people died and 750,000 were injured. 66 air raids were carried out using conventional weapons, and two used atomic bombs.

The damage inflicted by non-nuclear airstrikes was colossal. Throughout the summer, Japanese cities exploded and burned from night to night. In the midst of all this nightmare of destruction and death, it could hardly come as a surprise that this or that blow didn't make much of an impression– even if it was inflicted by an amazing new weapon.

A B-29 bomber flying from the Mariana Islands, depending on the location of the target and the height of the strike, could carry a bomb load weighing from 7 to 9 tons. Usually the raid was carried out by 500 bombers. This means that during a typical air raid using non-nuclear weapons, each city fell 4-5 kilotons. (A kiloton is a thousand tons, and is the standard measure of the yield of a nuclear weapon. The yield of the Hiroshima bomb was 16.5 kilotons, and a bomb with a power of 20 kilotons.)

With conventional bombing, the destruction was uniform (and therefore, more effective); and one, albeit more powerful, bomb loses a significant part of its destructive power at the epicenter of the explosion, only raising dust and creating a pile of debris. Therefore, it can be argued that some air raids using conventional bombs in terms of their destructive power approached two atomic bombings.

The first conventional bombardment was carried out against Tokyo at night from 9 to 10 March 1945. It became the most destructive bombing of a city in the history of wars. Then in Tokyo, about 41 square kilometers of urban territory burned down. Approximately 120,000 Japanese died. These are the biggest losses from the bombing of cities.

Because of the way the story is told to us, we often imagine that the bombing of Hiroshima was much worse. We think the death toll is out of all proportion. But if you compile a table on the number of people who died in all 68 cities as a result of the bombing in the summer of 1945, it turns out that Hiroshima, in terms of the number of civilian deaths is in second place.

And if you calculate the area of ​​destroyed urban areas, it turns out that Hiroshima fourth. If you check the percentage of destruction in cities, then Hiroshima will be in 17th place. It is quite obvious that in terms of the scale of damage, it fits perfectly into the parameters of air raids using non-nuclear funds.

From our point of view, Hiroshima is something that stands apart, something extraordinary. But if you put yourself in the place of the Japanese leaders in the period preceding the strike on Hiroshima, the picture will look quite different. If you were one of the key members of the Japanese government in late July - early August 1945, you would have something like the following feeling from air raids on cities. On the morning of July 17, you would have been informed that at night they were subjected to air strikes four cities: Oita, Hiratsuka, Numazu and Kuwana. Oita and Hiratsuka half destroyed. In Kuwan, destruction exceeds 75%, and Numazu suffered the most, because 90% of the city burned to the ground.

Three days later, you are awakened and told that you have been attacked three more cities. Fukui is over 80 percent destroyed. A week goes by and three more cities are bombarded at night. Two days later, in one night, the bombs fall for another six Japanese cities, including Ichinomiya, where 75% of buildings and structures were destroyed. On August 12, you go into your office, and they report to you that you were hit four more cities.

Toyama, Japan, August 1, 1945 at night after 173 bombers firebombed the city. As a result of this bombing, the city was destroyed by 95.6%. (USAF)

Among all these messages slips information that the city Toyama(in 1945 it was about the size of Chattanooga, Tennessee) 99,5%. That is, the Americans razed to the ground almost the entire city. On August 6, only one city was attacked - Hiroshima, but according to reports, the damage there is huge, and a new type of bomb was used in the airstrike. How does this new air raid stand out from other bombings that have gone on for weeks, destroying entire cities?

Three weeks before Hiroshima, the US Air Force raided for 26 cities. Of them eight(this is almost a third) were destroyed either completely or stronger than Hiroshima(assuming how many cities were destroyed). The fact that 68 cities were destroyed in Japan in the summer of 1945 creates a serious obstacle for those who want to show that the bombing of Hiroshima was the reason for Japan's surrender. The question arises: if they capitulated because of the destruction of one city, then why did they not capitulate when they were destroyed 66 other cities?

If the Japanese leadership decided to surrender because of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then this means that they were worried about the bombing of cities in general, that the attacks on these cities became a serious argument for them in favor of capitulation. But the situation looks very different.

Two days after the bombing Tokyo retired Foreign Minister Shidehara Kijuro(Shidehara Kijuro) expressed an opinion that was openly held by many senior leaders at the time. Shidehara stated, “People will gradually get used to being bombed every day. Over time, their unity and determination will only grow stronger.”

In a letter to a friend, he noted that it is important for citizens to endure suffering, because “even if hundreds of thousands of civilians die, are injured and suffer from hunger, even if millions of houses are destroyed and burned”, diplomacy will take some time. Here it is appropriate to recall that Shidehara was a moderate politician.

Apparently, at the very top of state power in the Supreme Council, the mood was the same. The Supreme Council discussed how important it was for the Soviet Union to remain neutral - and at the same time, its members did not say anything about the consequences of the bombing. From the surviving protocols and archives it is clear that at the meetings of the Supreme Council the bombing of cities was mentioned only twice: once casually in May 1945 and the second time on the evening of August 9, when there was an extensive discussion on this issue. On the basis of the facts available, it is difficult to say that the Japanese leaders attached any importance to air raids on cities - at least in comparison with other pressing wartime issues.

General Anami August 13 noticed that atomic bombings are terrible nothing more than conventional airstrikes, to which Japan was subjected for several months. If Hiroshima and Nagasaki were no more terrible than ordinary bombings, and if the Japanese leadership did not attach much importance to this, not considering it necessary to discuss this issue in detail, then how could atomic attacks on these cities force them to surrender?

Fires after bombardment with incendiary bombs of the city Tarumiza, Kyushu, Japan. (USAF)

strategic importance

If the Japanese didn't care about the bombing of cities in general and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in particular, then what did they care about? The answer to this question is simple : Soviet Union.

The Japanese found themselves in a rather difficult strategic situation. The end of the war was approaching, and they were losing this war. The situation was bad. But the army was still strong and well supplied. Under the gun was almost four million people, and 1.2 million of this number were guarding the Japanese islands.

Even the most uncompromising Japanese leaders understood that it was impossible to continue the war. The question was not whether to continue it or not, but how to complete it on better terms. The allies (the United States, Great Britain and others - remember that the Soviet Union at that time was still neutral) demanded "unconditional surrender". The Japanese leadership hoped that he would somehow be able to avoid military tribunals, preserve the existing form of state power and some of the territories captured by Tokyo: Korea, Vietnam, Burma, separate areas Malaysia and Indonesia, a significant part of the eastern China and numerous islands in the pacific.

They had two plans for obtaining optimal terms of surrender. In other words, they had two strategic options. The first option is diplomatic. In April 1941, Japan signed a neutrality pact with the Soviets, which ended in 1946. A group of civilian mostly leaders led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Togo Shigenori hoped that Stalin could be persuaded to act as an intermediary between the United States and the allies on the one hand, and Japan on the other, in order to resolve the situation.

Although this plan had little chance of success, it reflected quite sound strategic thinking. After all, it is in the Soviet Union's interest that the terms of the settlement be not very favorable for the United States - after all, the strengthening of American influence and power in Asia would invariably mean a weakening of Russian power and influence.

The second plan was military, and most of its supporters, led by the Minister of the Army Anami Koretica, were military people. They hoped that when the American troops launched an invasion, the ground forces of the imperial army would inflict huge losses on them. They believed that if they succeeded, they could wring more favorable terms out of the United States. Such a strategy also had little chance of success. The United States was determined to get the Japanese to surrender unconditionally. But since there was concern in US military circles that the losses in the invasion would be prohibitive, there was a certain logic to the strategy of the Japanese high command.

To understand what was the real reason that forced the Japanese to capitulate - the bombing of Hiroshima or the declaration of war by the Soviet Union, one must compare how these two events affected the strategic situation.

After the atomic attack on Hiroshima, as of August 8, both options were still in force. Stalin could also be asked to act as an intermediary (there is an entry in Takagi's diary dated August 8 that shows that some Japanese leaders were still thinking about bringing in Stalin). It was still possible to try to fight one last decisive battle and inflict great damage on the enemy. The destruction of Hiroshima had no effect on the readiness of troops for stubborn defense on the shores of their native islands.

View of the bombed areas of Tokyo, 1945. Next to the burned to the ground and destroyed quarters is a strip of surviving residential buildings. (USAF)

Yes, there was one less city behind them, but they were still ready to fight. They had enough cartridges and shells, and the combat power of the army, if diminished, was very insignificant. The bombing of Hiroshima did not prejudge either of Japan's two strategic options.

However, the effect of the declaration of war by the Soviet Union, its invasion of Manchuria and the island of Sakhalin was completely different. When the Soviet Union entered the war with Japan, Stalin could no longer act as an intermediary - now he was an adversary. Therefore, the USSR, by its actions, destroyed the diplomatic option for ending the war.

The impact on the military situation was no less dramatic. Most of the best Japanese troops were on the southern islands of the country. The Japanese military correctly assumed that the first target of the American invasion would be the southernmost island of Kyushu. Once powerful Kwantung Army in Manchuria was extremely weakened, since its best parts were transferred to Japan to organize the defense of the islands.

When the Russians entered Manchuria, they simply crushed the once elite army, and many of their units stopped only when they ran out of fuel. The 16th Army of the Soviets, numbering 100,000 people, landed troops in the southern part of the island Sakhalin. She received an order to break the resistance of the Japanese troops there, and then prepare for the invasion of the island within 10-14 days. Hokkaido, the northernmost of the Japanese islands. Hokkaido was defended by the 5th Territorial Army of Japan, which consisted of two divisions and two brigades. She concentrated on fortified positions in the eastern part of the island. And the Soviet offensive plan provided for a landing in the west of Hokkaido.

Destruction in residential areas of Tokyo caused by American bombing. The picture was taken on September 10, 1945. Only the strongest buildings survived. (AP Photo)

It does not take a military genius to understand: yes, it is possible to conduct a decisive battle against one great power that has landed in one direction; but it is impossible to repulse an attack by two great powers attacking from two different directions. The Soviet offensive nullified the military strategy of a decisive battle, just as it had previously invalidated the diplomatic strategy. The Soviet offensive became decisive in terms of strategy, because it deprived Japan of both options. BUT the bombing of Hiroshima was not decisive(because she didn't rule out any Japanese variants).

The entry of the Soviet Union into the war also changed all calculations regarding the time left for a maneuver. Japanese intelligence predicted that American troops would begin landing only a few months later. Soviet troops could actually be on Japanese territory in a matter of days (within 10 days, to be more precise). The offensive of the Soviets mixed up all plans concerning the timing of the decision to end the war.

But the Japanese leaders came to this conclusion a few months before. At a meeting of the Supreme Council in June 1945, they stated that if the Soviets go to war, "this will determine the fate of the empire". Deputy Chief of Staff of the Japanese Army Kawabe at that meeting he said: "The maintenance of peace in our relations with the Soviet Union is an indispensable condition for the continuation of the war."

The Japanese leaders were stubbornly unwilling to show interest in the bombing that was destroying their cities. It must have been wrong when the air raids began in March 1945. But by the time the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, they were right in thinking that the bombing of cities was a minor interlude with no major strategic implications. When Truman uttered his famous phrase that if Japan did not capitulate, her cities would be subjected to a “destructive steel shower”, few in the United States understood that there was almost nothing to destroy there.

The charred corpses of civilians in Tokyo, March 10, 1945 after the bombing of the city by the Americans. 300 B-29s dropped 1700 tons incendiary bombs on the largest city in Japan, resulting in the death of 100,000 people. This air raid was the most brutal in the entire Second World War.(Koyo Ishikawa)

By August 7, when Truman made his threat, there were only 10 cities in Japan with more than 100,000 inhabitants that had not yet been bombed. On August 9, a blow was struck on Nagasaki, and there are nine such cities left. Four of them were located on the northern island of Hokkaido, which was difficult to bomb because of the long distance to the island of Tinian, where American bomber aircraft were stationed.

War Minister Henry Stimson(Henry Stimson) crossed the ancient capital of Japan off the list of bomber targets because it had an important religious and symbolic meaning. So, despite Truman's formidable rhetoric, after Nagasaki in Japan there was only four large cities that could be subjected to atomic strikes.

The thoroughness and scope of the American Air Force bombings can be judged by the following circumstance. They bombed so many Japanese cities that they eventually had to strike at towns with a population of 30,000 or less. AT modern world It is difficult to call such a settlement a city.

Of course, cities that had already been firebombed could be re-strike. But these cities were already destroyed by an average of 50%. In addition, the United States could drop atomic bombs on small towns. However, such untouched cities (with a population of 30,000 to 100,000 people) in Japan remained only six. But since 68 cities in Japan had already been seriously affected by the bombing, and the leadership of the country did not attach any importance to this, it was hardly surprising that the threat of further air strikes could not make a big impression on them.

The only thing that has retained at least some form on this hill after the nuclear explosion was the ruins of the Catholic Cathedral, Nagasaki, Japan, 1945. (NARA)

Convenient story

Despite these three powerful objections, the traditional interpretation of events still greatly influences people's thinking, especially in the United States. There is a clear reluctance to face the facts. But this can hardly be called a surprise. We should remember how convenient the traditional explanation for the bombing of Hiroshima is in emotional plan - both for Japan and for the United States.

Ideas hold their power because they are true; but unfortunately, they can also remain strong from what meets the needs from an emotional point of view. They fill an important psychological niche. For example, the traditional interpretation of the events in Hiroshima helped the Japanese leaders achieve a number of important political goals, both domestically and internationally.

Put yourself in the place of the emperor. You have just subjected your country to a devastating war. The economy is in ruins. 80% of your cities are destroyed and burned. The army is defeated, having suffered a series of defeats. The fleet has suffered heavy losses and does not leave the bases. The people begin to starve. In short, the war has become a disaster, and most importantly, you lie to your people without telling him how bad the situation really is.

The people will be shocked to hear of the surrender. So what do you do? Admit that you have failed completely? To issue a statement that you have seriously miscalculated, made mistakes and caused great damage to your nation? Or explain the defeat by amazing scientific advances that no one could have predicted? If you put the blame for the defeat on the atomic bomb, then all the mistakes and military miscalculations can be swept under the carpet. The bomb is the perfect excuse for losing the war. There is no need to look for the guilty, no need to conduct investigations and courts. Japanese leaders will be able to say that they did their best.

Thus, by and large the atomic bomb helped remove the blame from Japanese leaders.

But by explaining the Japanese defeat by atomic bombings, three more very specific political goals were achieved. Firstly, this helped maintain the emperor's legitimacy. Since the war was lost not because of mistakes, but because of an unexpected miracle weapon that appeared in the enemy, it means that the emperor will continue to enjoy support in Japan.

Secondly, it attracted international sympathy. Japan waged war aggressively, and showed particular cruelty to the conquered peoples. Other countries certainly should have condemned her actions. What if turn Japan into a victim country, which was inhumanly and dishonestly bombed with the use of a terrible and cruel tool of war, then it will be possible to somehow atone for and neutralize the most vile deeds of the Japanese military. Bringing attention to the atomic bombings helped create more sympathy for Japan and quell the desire for the harshest possible punishment.

And finally, claims that the Bomb won the war are flattering to the American victors of Japan. The American occupation of Japan officially ended only in 1952, and all this time The US could change and remake Japanese society as it saw fit. In the early days of the occupation, many Japanese leaders feared that the Americans would want to abolish the institution of the emperor.

They also had another concern. Many of Japan's top leaders knew they could be tried for war crimes (when Japan capitulated, Germany was already on trial for its Nazi leaders). Japanese historian Asada Sadao(Asada Sadao) wrote that in many post-war interviews, "Japanese officials ... clearly tried to please their American interviewers." If the Americans want to believe that it was their bomb that won the war, why disappoint them?

Soviet soldiers on the banks of the Songhua River in the city of Harbin. Soviet troops liberated the city from the Japanese on August 20, 1945. At the time of Japan's surrender, there were about 700,000 Soviet soldiers in Manchuria. (Yevgeny Khaldei/waralbum.ru)

By explaining the end of the war with the use of the atomic bomb, the Japanese were largely serving their own interests. But they also served American interests. Since the war was won by a bomb, the idea of ​​American military power is being reinforced. US diplomatic influence in Asia and around the world is growing, and American security is being strengthened.

The $2 billion spent on building the bomb was not wasted. On the other hand, if it is accepted that the reason for Japan's capitulation was the entry of the Soviet Union into the war, then the Soviets may well claim that they did in four days what the United States could not do in four years. And then the idea of ​​the military power and diplomatic influence of the Soviet Union will increase. And since the Cold War was already in full swing at that time, recognizing the decisive contribution of the Soviets to victory was tantamount to helping and supporting the enemy.

Looking at the questions raised here, it is disturbing to realize that the evidence about Hiroshima and Nagasaki underlies everything we think about nuclear weapons. This event is irrefutable proof of the importance of nuclear weapons. It is important for gaining a unique status, because the usual rules do not apply to nuclear powers. This is an important measure of nuclear danger: Truman's threat to expose Japan to a "destructive shower of steel" was the first open atomic threat. This event is very important for creating a powerful aura around nuclear weapons, which makes them so significant in international relations.

But if the traditional history of Hiroshima is questioned, what do we do with all these conclusions? Hiroshima is the central point, the epicenter, from which all other statements, statements and claims spread. However, the story we tell ourselves is far from reality. What are we to think of nuclear weapons now if their colossal first achievement - the miraculous and sudden surrender of Japan - turned out to be a myth?

It was only thanks to our people that Japan was defeated

Image copyright AP Image caption Hiroshima a month after the bombing

70 years ago, on August 6, 1945, the United States used nuclear weapons for the first time against the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On August 9, this happened for the second and, hopefully, the last time in history: the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

The role of the atomic bombings in the surrender of Japan and their moral assessment is still a matter of controversy.

Manhattan Project

The possibility of using uranium fission for military purposes became obvious to specialists as early as the beginning of the 20th century. In 1913, H. G. Wells wrote the fantasy novel The World Set Free, in which he described the nuclear bombing of Paris by the Germans with many reliable details and for the first time used the term "atomic bomb".

In June 1939, University of Birmingham scientists Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls calculated that the critical mass of the charge should be at least 10 kg of enriched uranium-235.

Around the same time, European physicists who fled from the Nazis in the United States noticed that their German colleagues, who dealt with relevant issues, had disappeared from the public field, and concluded that they were engaged in a secret military project. The Hungarian Leo Szilard asked Albert Einstein to use his authority to influence Roosevelt.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Albert Einstein opened his eyes to the white house

On October 11, 1939, an appeal signed by Einstein, Szilard and the future "father of the hydrogen bomb" Edward Teller was read by the president. History has preserved his words: "This requires action." According to others, Roosevelt called the Secretary of War and said, "Make sure the Nazis don't blow us up."

Large-scale work began on December 6, 1941, coincidentally the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The project was given the code name Manhattan. Brigadier General Leslie Groves, who knew nothing about physics and did not like "egg-headed" scientists, was appointed leader, but he had experience in organizing large-scale construction. In addition to "Manhattan", he is known for the construction of the Pentagon, to this day the largest building in the world.

As of June 1944, 129 thousand people were employed in the project. Its approximate cost was two billion then (about 24 billion current) dollars.

Russian historian that Germany did not acquire a bomb, not because of anti-fascist scientists or Soviet intelligence, but because the United States was the only country in the world economically capable of doing so in a war. Both in the Reich and in the USSR, all resources went to the current needs of the front.

"Frank Report"

The progress of work at Los Alamos was closely monitored by Soviet intelligence. Her task was made easier by the leftist beliefs of many physicists.

A few years ago, the Russian television channel NTV made a film, according to which the scientific director of the "Manhattan Project" Robert Oppenheimer allegedly offered Stalin back in the late 1930s to come to the USSR and create a bomb, but the Soviet leader preferred to do it for American money, and get the results in finished form.

This is a legend, Oppenheimer and other leading scientists were not agents in the generally accepted sense of the word, but they were frank in conversations on scientific topics, although they guessed that the information was going to Moscow, because they found it fair.

In June 1945, some of them, including Szilard, sent a report to Secretary of War Henry Stimson, known by the name of one of the authors, Nobel laureate James Frank. Scientists suggested that instead of bombing Japanese cities, a demonstrative explosion should be carried out in an uninhabited place, they wrote about the impossibility of maintaining a monopoly and predicted a nuclear arms race.

Target selection

During Roosevelt's visit to London in September 1944, he and Churchill agreed to use nuclear weapons against Japan as soon as they were ready.

On April 12, 1945, the President died suddenly. After the first meeting of the administration, which was presided over by Harry Truman, previously not privy to many secret matters, Stimson remained and informed the new leader that weapons of unprecedented power would soon be in his hands.

The most important US contribution to the Soviet nuclear project was the successful test in the Alamogordo desert. When it became clear that it was possible in principle to do this, we could not have received any more information - we would have done it anyway Andrey Gagarinsky, adviser to the director of the Kurchatov Institute

On July 16, the Americans conducted a test of a nuclear charge with a capacity of 21 kilotons in the Alamogordo desert. The result exceeded expectations.

On July 24, during Truman, as if casually, he told Stalin about the miracle weapon. He showed no interest in the topic.

Truman and Churchill decided that the old dictator did not understand the importance of what he heard. In fact, Stalin knew all the details about the test from the agent Theodore Hall, who was recruited in 1944.

On May 10-11, the newly formed Target Selection Committee met at Los Alamos and recommended four Japanese cities: Kyoto (the historical imperial capital and a major industrial center), Hiroshima (large military depots and the headquarters of the 2nd Army of Field Marshal Shunroku Hata), Kokuru (engineering enterprises and the largest arsenal) and Nagasaki (military shipyards, an important port).

Henry Stimson crossed out Kyoto because of its historical and cultural monuments and sacred role for the Japanese people. According to American historian Edwin Reischauer, the minister "knew and loved Kyoto since his honeymoon spent decades ago."

Final stage

On July 26, the United States, Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration demanding Japan's unconditional surrender.

According to researchers, Emperor Hirohito, after the defeat of Germany, realized the futility of further struggle and wished for negotiations, but hoped that the USSR would act as a neutral mediator, and the Americans would be afraid of heavy casualties during the assault on the Japanese islands, and thus succeed, giving up positions in China and Korea, avoid surrender and occupation.

Let there be no misunderstanding - we will completely destroy Japan's ability to wage war. It was to prevent the destruction of Japan that an ultimatum was issued on July 26 in Potsdam. If they don't accept our terms now, let them expect a rain of aerial destruction like never before on this planet President Truman's statement after the bombing of Hiroshima

On July 28, the Japanese government rejected the Potsdam Declaration. The military command began to prepare for the implementation of the "Yasper to smithereens" plan, which provided for the total mobilization of the civilian population and its arming with bamboo spears.

At the end of May, a secret 509th air group was formed on the island of Tinian.

On July 25, Truman signed a directive to launch a nuclear strike "on any day after August 3, weather permitting." On July 28, it was duplicated in the combat order by the Chief of Staff of the American Army, George Marshall. The next day, Commander-in-Chief of Strategic Aviation Karl Spaats flew to Tinian.

On July 26, the Indianapolis cruiser delivered the Little Boy atomic bomb with a yield of 18 kilotons to the base. The components of the second bomb, codenamed "Fat Man", with a yield of 21 kilotons, were airlifted on July 28 and August 2 and assembled on site.

Judgment Day

At 01:45 local time on August 6, a B-29 "air fortress" piloted by the commander of the 509th Air Group, Colonel Paul Tibbets and named Enola Gay after his mother, took off from Tinian and reached the target six hours later.

On board was a bomb "Kid", on which someone wrote: "For those killed at Indianapolis." The cruiser that delivered the charge to Tinian was sunk by a Japanese submarine on July 30. 883 sailors died, about half of whom were eaten by sharks.

The Enola Gay was escorted by five reconnaissance aircraft. Crews sent to Kokura and Nagasaki reported heavy cloud cover, and over Hiroshima the sky was clear.

The Japanese air defense issued an air alert, but canceled it when they saw that there was only one bomber.

At 08:15 local time, a B-29 dropped the "Baby" on the center of Hiroshima from a height of 9 km. The charge worked at an altitude of 600 meters.

After about 20 minutes in Tokyo, they noticed that all forms of communication with the city had been cut off. Then, from a railway station 16 km from Hiroshima, a confused message came in about some kind of monstrous explosion. The officer of the General Staff, sent by plane to find out what was the matter, saw the glow for 160 kilometers and found it hard to find a place to land in the vicinity.

The Japanese learned about what happened to them only 16 hours later from an official statement made in Washington.

Goal #2

The bombing of Kokura was scheduled for August 11, but was delayed by two days due to a long period of bad weather predicted by forecasters.

At 02:47, a B-29, under the command of Major Charles Sweeney with a bomb, "Fat Man" took off from Tinian.

I was knocked to the ground from my bike, and for a while the ground shook. I clung to her so as not to be carried away by the blast wave. When I looked up, the house I had just passed was destroyed. I also saw the child being blown away by the blast. Large rocks flew through the air, one hit me and then flew back up into the sky. When everything calmed down, I tried to get up and found that on my left arm the skin was hanging from the shoulder to the fingertips, like tattered rags Sumiteru Taniguchi, 16-year-old resident of Nagasaki

Kokura was saved for the second time by heavy cloud cover. Arriving at the reserve target, Nagasaki, which had previously hardly been subjected to even ordinary raids, the crew saw that the sky was overcast there too.

Since there was little fuel left for the return trip, Sweeney was about to drop the bomb at random, but then the gunner, Captain Kermit Behan, saw the city stadium in the gap between the clouds.

The explosion occurred at 11:02 local time at an altitude of about 500 meters.

If the first raid went smoothly from a technical point of view, then Sweeney's crew had to repair the fuel pump all the time.

Returning to Tinian, the aviators saw that there was no one around the runway.

Exhausted by the difficult hours-long mission and annoyed by the fact that three days ago everyone was running around with the Tibbets crew, as if with a written bag, they turned on all the alarm signals at once: "We are going to an emergency landing"; "Aircraft damaged"; "Killed and wounded on board." Ground personnel poured out of the buildings, fire engines rushed to the landing site.

The bomber froze, Sweeney descended from the cockpit to the ground.

"Where are the dead and wounded?" they asked him. The major waved his hand in the direction from which he had just arrived: "They all stayed there."

Effects

One resident of Hiroshima, after the explosion, went to relatives in Nagasaki, fell under the second blow, and survived again. But not everyone is so lucky.

The population of Hiroshima was 245 thousand, Nagasaki 200 thousand people.

Both cities were built up mainly wooden houses flashed like paper. In Hiroshima, the blast wave was further amplified by the surrounding hills.

Three colors characterize for me the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima: black, red and brown. Black because the explosion cut off the sunlight and plunged the world into darkness. Red was the color of blood and fires. Brown was the color of the burnt, peeling skin of Akiko Takahura, who survived 300 meters from the epicenter of the explosion

90% of people who were within a kilometer radius of the epicenters died instantly. Their bodies turned to charcoal, the light emitted silhouettes of bodies on the walls.

Everything that could burn flared up within a radius of two kilometers, windows were broken in houses within a radius of 20 kilometers.

The victims of the raid on Hiroshima were about 90 thousand, Nagasaki - 60 thousand people. Another 156,000 died in the next five years from diseases associated by doctors with the consequences of nuclear explosions.

A number of sources give total figures of 200,000 victims of Hiroshima and 140,000 of Nagasaki.

The Japanese had no idea about radiation and did not take any precautions, and doctors at first considered vomiting a symptom of disinteria. For the first time, the mysterious “radiation sickness” was discussed after the death of the popular actress Midori Naka, who lived in Hiroshima, on August 24 from leukemia.

According to official Japanese data as of March 31, 2013, 201,779 hibakusha lived in the country - people who survived the atomic bombings and their descendants. According to the same data, 286,818 "Hiroshima" and 162,083 "Nagasaki" hibakusha died in 68 years, although decades later death could also have been caused by natural causes.

Memory

Image copyright AP Image caption Every year on August 6, white doves are released in front of the Atomic Dome.

The world went around the touching story of a girl from Hiroshima Sadako Sasaki, who survived Hiroshima at the age of two, and at the age of 12 she fell ill with blood cancer. According to Japanese belief, any desire of a person will be fulfilled if he makes a thousand paper cranes. Lying in the hospital, she folded 644 cranes and died in October 1955.

In Hiroshima, the reinforced concrete building of the Chamber of Industry, located just 160 meters from the epicenter, was built before the war by the Czech architect Jan Letzel, counting on an earthquake, and now known as the "Atomic Dome".

In 1996, UNESCO included it in the list of protected world heritage sites, despite the objections of Beijing, which believed that honoring the victims of Hiroshima offended the memory of the Chinese who suffered from Japanese aggression.

The American participants in the nuclear bombings subsequently commented on this episode of their biography in the spirit: "War is war." The only exception was Major Claude Iserli, commander of the reconnaissance aircraft, who reported clear skies over Hiroshima. He subsequently suffered from depression and participated in the pacifist movement.

Was there a need?

Soviet history textbooks clearly stated that "the use of atomic bombs was not caused by military necessity" and was dictated solely by the desire to intimidate the USSR.

Truman was quoted as saying after the Stimson report: "If this thing blows up, I'll have a good club against the Russians."

The debate about the advisability of the bombing will definitely continue Samuel Walker, American historian

At the same time, the former American ambassador to Moscow, Averell Harriman, argued that, at least in the summer of 1945, Truman and his entourage had no such considerations.

“In Potsdam, no one had such an idea. The prevailing opinion was that Stalin should be treated as an ally, albeit a difficult one, in the hope that he would behave in the same way,” wrote a high-ranking diplomat in his memoirs.

The operation to capture one small island, Okinawa, lasted two months and claimed the lives of 12,000 Americans. According to military analysts, in the event of a landing on the main islands (Operation Downfall), the battles would last another year, and the number of US casualties could rise to a million.

The entry into the war of the Soviet Union, of course, was an important factor. But the defeat of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria practically did not weaken the defense capability of the Japanese mother country, since it would still be impossible to transfer troops there from the mainland due to the overwhelming superiority of the United States at sea and in the air.

Meanwhile, already on August 12, at a meeting of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki resolutely declared the impossibility of further struggle. One of the arguments voiced then was that in the event of a nuclear strike on Tokyo, not only subjects born to selflessly die for the fatherland and mikado, but also the sacred person of the emperor, could suffer.

The threat was real. On August 10, Leslie Groves informed General Marshall that the next bomb would be ready for use on August 17-18.

At the disposal of the enemy is a new terrible weapon that can take many innocent lives and cause immeasurable material damage. In such a situation, how can we save millions of our subjects or justify ourselves before the sacred spirit of our ancestors? For this reason, we ordered to accept the terms of the joint declaration of our opponents From the declaration of Emperor Hirohito of August 15, 1945

On August 15, Emperor Hirohito issued a decree of surrender, and the Japanese began to surrender en masse. The corresponding act was signed on September 2 on board the American battleship Missouri, which entered Tokyo Bay.

According to historians, Stalin was dissatisfied with the fact that this happened so soon, and the Soviet troops did not have time to land on Hokkaido. Two divisions of the first echelon had already concentrated on Sakhalin, waiting for the signal to move.

It would be logical if the surrender of Japan on behalf of the USSR was accepted by the commander-in-chief in the Far East, Marshal Vasilevsky, as in Germany Zhukov. But the leader, showing disappointment, sent a minor person to the Missouri - Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko.

Subsequently, Moscow demanded that the Americans allocate Hokkaido to it as a zone of occupation. Claims were withdrawn and relations with Japan were normalized only in 1956, after the resignation of Stalin's Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.

Ultimate Weapon

At first, both American and Soviet strategists considered atomic bombs as conventional weapons, only with increased power.

In the USSR in 1956, a large-scale exercise was held at the Totsk training ground to break through the enemy’s fortified defenses with the actual use of nuclear weapons. US Strategic Air Commander Thomas Powell around the same time ridiculed scientists who warned about the effects of radiation: "Who said two heads are worse than one?"

But over time, especially after the appearance in 1954, capable of killing not tens of thousands, but tens of millions, Albert Einstein's point of view prevailed: "If in world war number three they will fight with atomic bombs, then in world war number four they will fight with clubs" .

Stalin's successor Georgy Malenkov at the end of 1954 published in Pravda in the event of a nuclear war and the need for peaceful coexistence.

Nuclear war is insane. There will be no winners Albert Schweitzer, physician, philanthropist, Nobel Peace Prize winner

John F. Kennedy, after a mandatory briefing for the new president with the secretary of defense, bitterly exclaimed: "Do we still call ourselves the human race?"

Both in the West and in the East, the nuclear threat has receded into the background in the mass consciousness according to the principle: "If this has not happened so far, then it will not happen further." The problem has moved into the mainstream of many years of sluggish negotiations on reduction and control.

In fact, the atomic bomb turned out to be the “ultimate weapon” that philosophers have been talking about for centuries, one that will make impossible, if not wars at all, then their most dangerous and bloody variety: total conflicts between great powers.

The build-up of military power according to the Hegelian law of negation of negation turned into its opposite.

The Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stores documents that were previously available only to the top leaders of the USSR. These are reports on the trips of employees of Soviet foreign missions to the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki shortly after they were dropped on August 6 and 9, 1945, atomic bombs, the latest weapons of mass destruction. "Baby" and "Fat Man", as the Americans affectionately dubbed them. More than 200,000 people died during the bombing, died from wounds and radiation sickness in the next few months.

The nuclear bombings were a terrible tragedy for the Japanese. The official authorities at first did not realize the seriousness of what had happened and even announced that these were ordinary charges. But very soon the scale and consequences of atomic explosions became clear.

But after all, the landing of American troops on the Japanese islands could follow the nuclear strikes. What would this mean for a country that had never been subject to foreign intervention? This danger really hung over Japan only once, in the 13th century, when the naval armada of the Mongol conqueror Kublai Khan approached its southern shores. But then the "divine wind" (kamikaze) twice scattered the Mongolian ships in the Korea Strait. In 1945, the situation was completely different: the United States was preparing for a major and lengthy (up to two years) military operation in the main territory of Japan, consecrated by religious precepts (according to the ancient Kojiki chronicle, the entire Japanese archipelago was created by the ancestors of the Japanese emperor). Fighting for their country, the Japanese would have fought to the death. How they know how to do this, the Americans felt during the battles for Okinawa.

It remains only to guess what human casualties the continuation of hostilities would entail if Emperor Hirohito did not announce on August 15, 1945 the acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and if Japan did not sign the Instrument of Surrender on September 2 of the same year. At the same time, historical facts indisputably testify: it was not atomic bombs that, in the end, forced Tokyo to lay down its arms. The then Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki admitted that "we experienced a huge shock from the explosion of the atomic bomb," but the entry into the war of the Soviet Union put us in a "stalemate", making it impossible to continue it.

Let's add: this step of the USSR helped to save the lives of millions of ordinary Japanese.

The head of the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer, stunned by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (he said that he felt blood on his hands), was not reassured by the words of US President Harry Truman: "Nothing, it is easily washed off with water." Oppenheimer famously said that "we have done the work for the devil", and "if atomic bombs replenish the arsenals of the warlike world as a new weapon, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima." Albert Einstein, who once called on the US government to develop nuclear weapons, radically revised his views and called for them to be abandoned in his dying will.

But what was before these insights to American politicians?

The use of new weapons by the United States was dictated primarily by political reasons. Washington showed its power Soviet Union and the rest of the world, their claims to the role of a superpower that will determine the course of international development. The death of several hundred thousand civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not considered too high a price to pay for achieving this goal.

Members of the Soviet diplomatic mission in Tokyo were among the first foreign observers who saw firsthand the consequences of the nuclear disaster. Their personal impressions, the testimonies of eyewitnesses of the bombings recorded by them convey to us the echo of the tragedy, allow us today, 70 years later, to realize the depth and horror of what happened, serve as a stern warning about the terrible consequences of the use of nuclear weapons.

Some of these documents, which are still difficult to read today, we offer for publication by Rodina magazine.

Spelling and punctuation preserved.

Note from the USSR Ambassador to Japan

tt. Stalin, Beria, Malenkov,
Mikoyan + me.
22.XI.45
V. Molotov

Materials on the consequences of the use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; descriptions of our eyewitnesses and data from the Japanese press).

September 1945

The USSR Embassy in Tokyo sent a group of employees to inspect and familiarize themselves on the spot with the consequences of the atomic bomb explosion in the city of Hiroshima (Japan). The employees managed to personally inspect the site and the results of the explosion of this bomb, talk with the local population and eyewitnesses, visit the hospital where people who suffered from the atomic bomb were being treated. All that they saw and heard, together with their personal impressions, these employees set out in a special brief review, placed in this collection.

The second group of employees of the Embassy and the Soviet Military Mission in Tokyo visited the city of Nagasaki in order to get acquainted with the consequences of the use of the atomic bomb there. The group also included a cameraman from Soyuzkinochronika, who filmed the site of the explosion of the atomic bomb and the destruction caused by this explosion. The report on the results of the inspection of Nagasaki is drawn up and must be submitted from Tokyo by Major General Voronov.

The embassy collected and translated into Russian the most significant articles from the Japanese press about the atomic bomb. Translations of these articles are also included in this collection.

Ambassador Y. Malik
AVPRF. F. 06. Op. 8. P. 7. D. 96.

"Only personal impressions"

Report of a group of Embassy workers who visited Hiroshima

The atomic bomb and the destruction it caused made a great impression on the people of Japan. Popular rumor picks up press reports, distorts them and sometimes brings them to the point of absurdity. There was even a rumor that even now the appearance of people in the area of ​​an atomic bomb explosion is fraught with danger to life. We have repeatedly heard from both the Americans and the Japanese that after visiting areas affected by the atomic bomb, women lose their ability to bear children, and men become ill with impotence.

These conversations were fueled by radio transmissions from San Francisco, which said that in the areas of the explosion of the atomic bomb, nothing living could exist for seventy years.

Not trusting all these rumors and reports and setting themselves the task of personally getting acquainted with the effect of the atomic bomb, a group of Embassy employees, consisting of the TASS correspondent Varshavsky, the former acting military attaché Romanov and an employee of the naval apparatus Kikenin, left for Hiroshima and Nagasaki on September 13. This condensed essay is limited to recording conversations with the local population and victims and a summary of personal impressions, without any generalizations and conclusions.

"He said it's safe to live here..."

A group of Embassy staff arrived in Hiroshima at dawn on 14 September. It was continuously raining heavily, which greatly interfered with the inspection of the area and, most importantly, prevented taking photographs. The railway station and the city were destroyed to such an extent that there was not even shelter from the rain. The stationmaster and his staff took shelter in a hastily built shed. The city is a scorched plain with towering 15-20 skeletons of reinforced concrete buildings.

At a distance of half a kilometer from the station, we met an old Japanese woman who got out of the dugout and began to rummage through the conflagration. When asked where the atomic bomb fell, the old woman replied that there was a strong flash of lightning and a huge impact, as a result of which she fell and lost consciousness. Therefore, she does not remember where the bomb fell and what happened next.

Having gone further than 100 meters, we saw a semblance of a canopy and hurried to take cover there from the rain. Under the canopy we found a sleeping man. He turned out to be an elderly Japanese man building a hut on the site of the ashes of his house. He told the following:

On August 6, at about 8 o'clock in the morning, the threatened position was lifted in Hiroshima. After 10 minutes, an American plane appeared over the city and at the same time there was a lightning strike, they fell and died. Many people died. Then there were fires. It was a clear day and the wind was blowing from the sea. The fire spread everywhere and even against the wind.

When asked how he remained alive, being at home, which is located approximately at a distance of 1-1.5 km from the bomb site, the old man replied that somehow it happened that he was not hit by the rays, but his house burned down, because fire raged everywhere.

For the time being, he said, it was safe to live here. On the outskirts of the city, several tens of thousands of people huddle in dugouts. It was dangerous for the first 5-10 days. In the first days, he noted, people who came to help the victims died. Even the fish died in shallow water. Plants are starting to come to life. I, said the Japanese, cultivated a vegetable garden and expect that shoots will soon begin.

And indeed, contrary to all assertions, we have seen how grass begins to turn green in various places and even new leaves appear on some scorched trees.

"The victim is given vitamins B and C and vegetables..."

One of our group members managed to visit the Red Cross hospital in Hiroshima. It is located in a dilapidated building and contains the victims of the atomic bomb. There are burnt and other wounded, and among them are the sick, delivered 15-20 days after the injury. Up to 80 patients are housed in this two-story building. They are in an unsanitary condition. They mainly have burns on exposed parts of the body. Many received only severe glass wounds. Burned people mostly have burns on the face, hands and feet. Some worked only in shorts and caps, so most of the body was burned.

The body is burnt dark brown with open wounds. All of them are bandaged with bandages and smeared with a white ointment resembling zinc. The eyes are not damaged. Severely injured with burned limbs did not lose the ability to move their toes and fingers. Many are wounded by glasses, they have deep cuts to the bone. Hair fell out of those exposed with their heads uncovered. Upon recovery, open skulls begin to grow hair in separate tufts. Patients have a pale wax complexion.

One injured man, 40-45 years old, was at a distance of 500 meters from the bomb. He worked at some electrical company. He has up to 2700 white blood cells left in one cubic cm of blood. He went to the hospital himself and is now recovering. We have not been able to establish the reasons that he could have been saved at such a close distance from the bomb site. It was only possible to establish that he worked with electrical equipment. He has no burns, but his hair has come out. He is given vitamins B and C and vegetables. There is an increase in white blood cells.

AVPRF. F. 06, op. 8, p.7, d.96

"The doctor thinks the defense against the uranium bomb is rubber..."

On the railway station our attention was attracted by a man with a bandage on his arm, on which was written "help to the victims." We approached him with a question, and he said that he was an ear, nose, and throat doctor and had gone to Hiroshima to help the victims of the atomic bomb. This Japanese doctor named Fukuhara told us that three atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima by parachute. According to him, he personally saw three parachutes from a distance of 14 km. Two unexploded bombs, according to the doctor, were picked up by the military and are now being studied.

Fukuhara arrived at the rescue site on the second day. After drinking water, he developed diarrhea. Others got diarrhea after a day and a half. He said that the rays of the atomic bomb cause, first of all, a change in the composition of the blood. In one cubic centimeter of a healthy person's blood, the doctor said, there are 8,000 white blood cells. As a result of the impact of the atomic bomb, the number of white blood cells is reduced to 3000, 2000, 1000 and even 300 and 200. As a result, severe bleeding from the nose, throat, eyes and in women uterine bleeding. In the victims, the temperature rises to 39-40 and 41 degrees. After 3-4 days, patients usually die. Sulfzone is used to lower the temperature. In the treatment of victims, they resort to blood transfusion, glucose and saline are also introduced. When transfusing blood, up to 100 gr. blood.

Victims who drank water or washed themselves with water in the area where the bomb fell on the day it exploded, the doctor said further, died instantly. For 10 days after the bomb exploded, it was dangerous to work there: uranium rays continued to radiate from the ground. It is now considered safe to stay in those places, the doctor said, but this issue is not being studied. According to him, protective clothing against a uranium bomb is rubber and all kinds of insulator against electricity.

During our conversation with the doctor, an old Japanese man turned to him for advice. He pointed to the burned neck, which had not yet fully healed, and asked if it would heal soon. The doctor examined the neck and said everything was fine. The old man told us that at the moment the bomb exploded, he fell and felt a sharp pain. Didn't lose consciousness. The pain was felt in the future until recovery.

AVPRF. F. 06, op. 8, p.7, d.96

"Children sitting on the trees in the foliage survived ..."

On the way to Nagasaki, we chatted with two Japanese students. They told us that a girl, a relative of one of them, went to Hiroshima a few days after the bombing to find out about her loved ones. After a long time, on August 25, she fell ill, and two days later, i.e. She died on August 27th.

Driving around the city by car, we bombarded the Japanese driver with questions. He told us that there was no rescue work on the first day because fire was rampant everywhere. Work began only on the second day. In the area closest to the explosion of the bomb, no one survived. Prisoners of war, mostly Filipinos, who worked at the Mitsubishi Heiki military plant and Japanese workers at the Nagasaki Seiko plant, died. The atomic bomb, the driver said, fell in the area of ​​the university hospital (Urakami area). The skeleton of the hospital has been preserved. All patients of the hospital, along with the attendants, doctors and the director, died.

There is a strong putrid smell in the area where the bomb fell: many corpses have not yet been removed from under the ruins and the conflagration. The driver told us that there were cases when children sat on trees in the foliage and remained alive, and those who played on the ground nearby died.

AVPRF. F. 06, op. 8, p.7, d.96

American opinion: "The Japanese greatly exaggerate the effectiveness of the atomic bomb ..."

Most Japanese claim that the bomb over Hiroshima was dropped by parachute and exploded at a distance of 500-600 meters from the ground. In contrast, Commander Willicutts, the chief medical officer of Spruence's US Fifth Fleet, with whom we made our way back to Tokyo, claimed that the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki without a parachute. He also denied any possibility of an atomic bomb falling without exploding. He claimed that after the explosion of the bomb, it was safe in the area where it fell. In his opinion, the Japanese greatly exaggerate the effectiveness of the atomic bomb.

AVPRF. F. 06, op. 8, p.7, d.96

"Even moles and worms in the ground die"

Reports about the action of the atomic bomb that appeared in the Japanese press
"Mainiti" 15.8.

This study was compiled by Professor Asada on the basis of a report by a panel of experts. There are the following characteristic features of the radiation, much to say that the emitted rays are ultraviolet rays.

Persons who were behind glass windows were injured from the action of the blast wave, but did not receive burns. This is because ultraviolet rays do not pass through glass.

clothing white color was not burned, but those wearing black or khaki clothing were burned. At the station, the black letters of the train schedule burned down, while the white paper was not damaged. Further, three people who were in a reinforced concrete building located at the site of the explosion and were holding aluminum plates in their hands received very severe burns on their hands, while there were no injuries to other parts of the body. This can be explained by the position of the window, in which only this part fell under the action of the rays, and the rays were reflected from the aluminum surface.

In the river with clear water, the backs of the fish were burned, many dead fish were swimming two days later. This is apparently due to the fact that ultraviolet rays pass through a water layer of several tens of centimeters.

The treatment of burns is exactly the same as the treatment of ordinary burns. As a rule, vegetable oil or sea water diluted twice or three times helps. Particular attention should be paid to the fact that a long stay at the site of an atomic bomb explosion has a very bad effect on the body due to the ongoing radiation.

AVPRF. F. 06, op. 8, p.7, d.96

Four radii of death

The destructive power of the atomic bomb
"Mainiti" 29.8.

In Hiroshima, all people and animals, as well as all living beings, were destroyed, killed or injured within a radius of 5 km. from the bomb site. As of August 22, the death toll in Hiroshima is over 60,000. The wounded are dying one by one, and this figure is increasing more and more. Most of the wounded suffered from burns, however, these burns are not ordinary burns: they destroy blood balls due to the special action of uranium. People who have received this kind of burns gradually die. The number of victims now stands at over 120,000; this figure is decreasing as these people gradually die.

Even moles and worms in the ground die; this happens because uranium penetrates the earth, emits radioactive rays. Those who appear in the affected area even after a raid, there is some disorder of the body. As the radio broadcast from the USA says: "Not a single living being will be able to live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki even after 70 years."

1. Within a radius of 100 m from the place of the explosion.

casualties among the population. Those who were outside were killed, the insides fell out, burned. Those who were inside the premises: inside wooden buildings - killed; in reinforced concrete buildings received serious injuries (burns, bruises, cuts by glass fragments); in poorly made shelters - killed.

2. Destruction within a radius of 100 meters to 2 km.

Casualties among the population: those who were outside - killed or seriously injured, some had their eyes popped out of their sockets. A lot of people got burned. Most of those who were inside were crushed and burned in their houses; with an iron frame - many were injured by glass fragments, received burns, some were thrown into the street. In shelters, they remained safe, but some were thrown away along with the chairs they sat on.

Area of ​​partial destruction within a radius of 2 to 4 km. from the break point.

Victims among the population: those who were outside received burns, inside the premises - minor injuries, in shelters - remained unharmed.

AVPRF. F. 06, op. 8, p.7, d.96

dead tram

Episodes of the aftermath of the bombing.

"Mainiti" 15.8.

In addition to official reports on the destructive power of the atomic bomb, the Japanese press published a description of a number of episodes, which cite various moments of the bombing and its consequences.

“Not far from the place of the rupture, there is a charred skeleton of a tram. If you look from a distance, then there are people inside the tram. However, if you come closer, you can see that they are corpses. The beam of the new bomb hit the tram and, together with the blast wave, did its job. Those those who sat on the benches remained in the same form, those who stood hung on the straps that they held on to while the tram was moving.Out of several dozen people, not one escaped death in this narrow tram car.

This is the place where people's volunteer detachments and detachments of students worked to demolish buildings intended for dispersal. The rays from the new bomb hit their skin and burned it in an instant. Many people fell on this spot and never got up again. From the fire that then broke out, they burned down without a trace.

There was a case when one group, wearing iron helmets, began to fight the fire. At this place, one could then see the remains of helmets, in which the bones of human heads were found.

Burnt out one a famous person. His wife and daughter ran out of the house, which was destroyed by the blast. They heard the voice of the husband calling for help. They themselves could not do anything and ran for help to the police station. When they returned, pillars of fire and smoke were rising where the house had been.

AVPRF. F. 06, op. 8, p.7, d.96

"Until death, the wounded retain full consciousness ..."

Correspondence from Hiroshima Special Correspondent Matsuo

"Asahi", 23.8

Considered to be one of the best stations in the Tsyugoku area, Hiroshima Station is nothing but the rails gleaming in the moonlight. I had to spend the night in a field in front of the station; the night was hot and stuffy, but in spite of this, not a single mosquito was visible.

The next morning, they inspected a potato field located at the site where the bomb exploded. There is no leaf or grass on the field. In the center of the city, only the skeletons of large reinforced concrete buildings of the Fukuya department store, bank branches - Nippon Ginko, Sumitomo Ginko, the editorial office of the Chugoku Shimbun newspaper remained. The rest of the houses turned into piles of tiles.

The affected parts of those who received burns are covered with red ulcers. Crowds of those who fled from the place of fires resembled crowds of the dead who came from the next world. Although these victims received medical attention and drugs were injected into the outer parts of their wounds, they still gradually died due to the destruction of the cells. At first they said that there were 10 thousand killed, and then their number increased more and more and reached 100 thousand, as they say. Until death, the wounded retain full consciousness, many of them continue to beg "kill me as soon as possible."

AVPRF. F. 06, op. 8, p.7, d.96

"The wounded cannot be healed..."

"Asahi", 23.8

Since the burn occurs due to the action of ultraviolet rays, it is not felt at first. After two hours, water bubbles appear on the body. Despite the fact that immediately after the bombing, medicines were sent from Kure and Okayama and there was no shortage of them, nevertheless, the number of deaths is constantly increasing. American radio announced at the time: "Hiroshima has become an area in which neither people nor animals can live for 75 years. Actions such as sending experts to this area are tantamount to suicide."

As a result of the destruction of uranium atoms, countless particles of uranium are produced. The presence of uranium can be easily detected by approaching the affected area with a Geig Müller measuring tube, the arrow of which shows an unusual deviation. This uranium has a bad effect on the human body and is the cause of such an increase in deaths. The study of red and white blood cells established the following: the blood of soldiers employed in the restoration of the Western military training ground (at a distance of 1 km from the site of the bomb explosion a week after the bombing) was examined. Among the surveyed 33 people. 10 people had burns, 3150 white blood cells were found in the burnt ones, 3800 in healthy people, which gives a large reduction compared to 7-8 thousand balls in a normal healthy person.

As for the red blood globules, the burned ones had 3,650,000, the healthy ones had 3,940,000, while normal healthy people have from 4.5 to 5 million red blood globules. As a result, the wounded cannot be healed because they are in Hiroshima. They have headaches, dizziness, poor heart function, lack of appetite, bad taste in the mouth, retention of natural urination. The presence of uranium is a big blow to the reconstruction of the city of Hiroshima.

AVPRF. F. 06, op. 8, p.7, d.96

"You can see the brutal character used by American aviation ..."

Article by Professor Tsuzuki University of Tokyo.

"Asahi", 23.8

From the editor. From the article below, one can see the brutal character used by American aircraft in Hiroshima. The luminary of our medical world could not save the life of a young artist, the wife of the famous artist Maruyama, who toured with his traveling troupe to Hiroshima. Of the 17 members of this troupe, 13 died on the spot, the remaining four were taken to the hospital at the University of Tokyo.

“The patient was a very healthy woman about 30 years old. She was admitted to the hospital on the 10th day after the injury. During these 10 days, except for the extreme lack of appetite, there were no pronounced signs of the disease. She was wounded in Hiroshima, and was on 2 on the 3rd floor of a building in the area of ​​the Fukuya house, near the site of the explosion of the atomic bomb.During the collapse of the house, she received a slight wound in the back, no burns or fractures.After the injury, the patient herself boarded the train and returned to Tokyo.

After arriving in Tokyo, weakness increased every day, there was a complete lack of appetite, the patient drank only water. After she was admitted to the hospital, a blood test was taken and large changes were found. Namely, an extreme lack of white blood cells was revealed; as a rule, should be in 1 cu. mm. from 6 to 8 thousand bodies, however, only 500-600 were found, only 1/10 of the norm. Their resistance has been significantly weakened. On the 4th day of admission to the hospital, just two weeks after the injury, the patient's hair began to fall out. At the same time, the abrasion on his back suddenly worsened. A blood transfusion was immediately done, other assistance was provided, and the patient became quite vigorous and healthy.

However, on August 24, on the 19th day after the injury, the patient died suddenly. As a result of the autopsy, remarkable changes were found in the insides. Namely, the bone marrow, which is the apparatus that produces blood balls, the liver, spleen, kidneys, and lymphatic vessels, was significantly damaged. It has been determined that these injuries are exactly the same as those resulting from the strong use of x-rays or radium rays. Previously, it was believed that the effect of an atomic bomb is twofold: destruction from the blast wave and burns from thermal rays. Now this is added to the damage inflicted as a result of the action of radiant substances.

AVPRF. F. 06, op. 8, p.7, d.96

A year after the trip of Soviet diplomats, in September 1946, another Soviet representative visited the site of the tragedy. We are publishing fragments of the written and photographic reports of an employee of the Soviet representative office in the Allied Council for Japan - senior assistant to the political adviser V.A. Glinkin.

(AVPRF F. 0146, op. 30, item 280, file 13)

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Photochronology after the explosion: the horror that the United States tried to hide.

August 6 is not an empty phrase for Japan, it is the moment of one of the greatest horrors ever committed in the war.

On this day, the bombing of Hiroshima took place. In 3 days, the same barbaric act will be repeated, knowing the consequences for Nagasaki.

This nuclear barbarism, worthy of the worst nightmare, partially eclipsed the Jewish Holocaust carried out by the Nazis, but this act placed then-President Harry Truman on the same list of genocide.

Because he ordered 2 atomic bombs to be fired on the civilian population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in the direct death of 300,000 people, thousands more died weeks later, and thousands of survivors were physically and psychologically marked by the side effects of the bomb.

As soon as President Truman became aware of the damage, he said, "This is the greatest event in history."

In 1946, the US government forbade the circulation of any testimony about this massacre, and millions of photographs were destroyed, and pressure in the US forced the defeated Japanese government to create an edict in which speaking of "this fact" was an attempt to disturb the public peace, and therefore was forbidden.

Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Of course, on the part of the American government, the use of nuclear weapons was an act to hasten the surrender of Japan, how justified such an act was, posterity will discuss for many centuries.

On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay bomber took off from a base in the Marianas. The crew consisted of twelve people. The training of the crew was lengthy, it consisted of eight training flights and two sorties. In addition, a rehearsal of a bomb drop on an urban settlement was organized. The rehearsal took place on July 31, 1945, a training ground was used as a settlement, a bomber dropped a model of a supposed bomb.

On August 6, 1945, a sortie was made, a bomb was on board the bomber. The power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 14 kilotons of TNT. Having completed the task, the crew of the aircraft left the affected area and arrived at the base. results medical examination all crew members are still kept secret.

After completing this task, a second flight of another bomber was made. The Bockscar bomber crew consisted of thirteen people. Their task was to drop a bomb on the city of Kokura. Departure from the base took place at 02:47 and at 09:20 the crew reached their destination. Arriving at the place, the crew of the aircraft found heavy cloud cover and after several visits, the command instructed to change the destination to the city of Nagasaki. The crew reached their destination at 10:56, but clouds were also found there, preventing the operation. Unfortunately, the goal had to be met, and this time the cloudiness did not save the city. The power of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki was 21 kilotons of TNT.

In what year Hiroshima and Nagasaki were subjected to a nuclear attack, it is precisely indicated in all sources that August 6, 1945 - Hiroshima and August 9, 1945 - Nagasaki.

The explosion of Hiroshima claimed the lives of 166 thousand people, the explosion of Nagasaki claimed the lives of 80 thousand people.

Nagasaki after the nuclear explosion

Over time, some document and photo came to light, but what happened, compared to the images of German concentration camps that were strategically distributed by the American government, was nothing more than the fact of what happened in the war and was partially justified.

Thousands of victims had photos without a face. Here are some of those photos:

All clocks stopped at 8:15, the time of the attack.

The heat and explosion cast the so-called "nuclear shadow", here you can see the pillars of the bridge.

Here you can see the silhouette of two people who were sprayed instantly.

200 meters from the explosion, on the stairs of the bench, there is a shadow of a man who opened the doors. 2,000 degrees burned him on the step.

human suffering

The bomb exploded almost 600 meters above the center of Hiroshima, 70,000 people died instantly from 6,000 degrees Celsius, the rest were killed by a shock wave that left the building standing and destroyed trees within a radius of 120 km.

A few minutes and the atomic mushroom reaches a height of 13 kilometers, causing acid rain that kills thousands of people who escaped the initial explosion. 80% of the city has disappeared.

There were thousands of cases of sudden burning and very severe burns more than 10 km from the explosion area.

The results were devastating, but after a few days, doctors continued to treat the survivors as if the wounds were simple burns, and many of them indicated that people continued to die mysteriously. They had never seen anything like it.

Doctors even injected vitamins, but the flesh rotted on contact with the needle. The white blood cells were destroyed.

Most of the survivors within a 2 km radius were blind, and thousands of people suffered from cataracts due to the radiation.

burden of survivors

"Hibakusha" (Hibakusha), as the Japanese called the survivors. There were about 360,000 of them, but most of them are disfigured, with cancer and genetic deterioration.

These people were also victims of their own compatriots, who believed that radiation was contagious and avoided them at all costs.

Many secretly hid these consequences even years later. Whereas if the company where they worked found out they were "Hibakushi", they were fired.

There were clothing marks on the skin, even the colors and fabrics that people were wearing at the time of the explosion.

The story of a photographer

On August 10, a Japanese army photographer named Yosuke Yamahata (Yosuke Yamahata) arrived in Nagasaki with the task of documenting the consequences of the "new weapons" and spent hours walking through the wreckage, photographing all this horror. These are his photographs and he wrote in his diary:

“A hot wind began to blow,” he explained many years later. “There were small fires everywhere, Nagasaki was completely destroyed… we encountered human bodies and animals that lay in our path…”

“It was truly hell on earth. Those who could barely stand the intense radiation, their eyes burned, their skin “burned” and ulcerated, they wandered around, leaning on sticks, waiting for help. Not a single cloud eclipsed the sun on this August day, shining mercilessly.

Coincidence, but exactly 20 years later, also on August 6, Yamahata suddenly fell ill and was diagnosed with duodenal cancer from the effects of this walk where he took photographs. The photographer is buried in Tokyo.

As a curiosity: a letter that Albert Einstein sent to former President Roosevelt, where he counted on the possibility of using uranium as a weapon of considerable power and explained the steps to achieve it.

The bombs that were used to attack

Baby Bomb is the code name for the uranium bomb. It was developed as part of the Manhattan Project. Among all the developments, the Baby Bomb was the first successfully implemented weapon, the result of which had enormous consequences.

The Manhattan Project is an American nuclear weapons program. The project activity began in 1943, based on research in 1939. Several countries took part in the project: the United States of America, Great Britain, Germany and Canada. Countries took part not officially, but through scientists who participated in the development. As a result of development, three bombs were created:

• Plutonium, codenamed "Thing". This bomb was blown up in nuclear tests, the explosion was carried out at a special test site.
• Uranium bomb, codename "Kid". The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
• Plutonium bomb, codename "Fat Man". The bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

The project operated under the leadership of two people, nuclear physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer spoke from the scientific council, and General Leslie Richard Groves from the military leadership.

How it all began

The history of the project began with a letter, as is commonly believed, the author of the letter was Albert Einstein. In fact, four people participated in writing this appeal. Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, Edward Teller and Albert Einstein.

In 1939, Leo Szilard learned that scientists in Nazi Germany had achieved stunning results on a chain reaction in uranium. Szilard realized what power their army would gain if these studies were put into practice. Szilard was also aware of the minimality of his authority in political circles, so he decided to involve Albert Einstein in the problem. Einstein shared Szilard's concerns and drafted an appeal to the American president. The appeal was made to German, Szilard, along with the rest of the physicists, translated the letter and added his comments. Now they are faced with the issue of sending this letter to the President of America. At first they wanted to convey the letter through the aviator Charles Lindenberg, but he officially issued a statement of sympathy for the German government. Szilard faced the problem of finding like-minded people who had contacts with the President of America, so Alexander Sachs was found. It was this man who handed over the letter, albeit with a delay of two months. However, the president's reaction was lightning fast, as soon as possible A council was convened and the Uranium Committee organized. It was this body that began the first studies of the problem.

Here is an excerpt from that letter:

The recent work of Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard, whose handwritten version caught my attention, leads me to believe that elemental uranium may become a new and important source of energy in the near future […] opened up the possibility of realizing a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, due to which a lot of energy […] thanks to which you can create bombs ..

Hiroshima now

The restoration of the city began in 1949, most of the funds from the state budget were allocated for the development of the city. The recovery period lasted until 1960. Little Hiroshima has become a huge city, today Hiroshima consists of eight districts, with a population of over a million people.

Hiroshima before and after

The epicenter of the explosion was one hundred and sixty meters from the exhibition center, after its restoration of the city, it is included in the UNESCO list. Nowadays Exhibition Center is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.

Hiroshima Exhibition Center

The building partially collapsed, but survived. Everyone in the building was killed. For the preservation of the memorial, work was carried out to strengthen the dome. This is the most famous monument to the consequences of a nuclear explosion. The inclusion of this building in the list of values ​​of the world community caused heated debate, two countries opposed it - America and China. Opposite the Peace Memorial is the Memorial Park. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park has an area of ​​more than twelve hectares and is considered the epicenter of the nuclear bomb explosion. The park has a monument to Sadako Sasaki and a monument to the Flame of Peace. The flame of peace has been burning since 1964 and, according to the Japanese government, will continue to burn until all nuclear weapons in the world are destroyed.

The tragedy of Hiroshima has not only consequences, but also legends.

The Legend of the Cranes

Every tragedy needs a face, even two. One face will be a symbol of the survivors, the other a symbol of hatred. As for the first person, it was the little girl Sadako Sasaki. When America dropped the nuclear bomb, she was two years old. Sadako survived the bombing, but ten years later she was diagnosed with leukemia. The reason was radiation exposure. While in the hospital room, Sadako heard a legend that cranes give life and healing. In order to get the life she so needed, Sadako had to make a thousand paper cranes. Every minute the girl made paper cranes, every piece of paper that fell into her hands took on a beautiful shape. The girl died before reaching the required thousand. According to various sources, she made six hundred cranes, and the rest were made by other patients. In memory of the girl, on the anniversary of the tragedy, Japanese children make paper cranes and release them into the sky. In addition to Hiroshima, a monument to Sadako Sasaki was erected in the American city of Seattle.

Nagasaki now

The bomb dropped on Nagasaki claimed many lives and almost wiped the city off the face of the earth. However, in view of the fact that the explosion occurred in the industrial zone, this is the western part of the city, the buildings of another area were less affected. Money from the state budget was directed to the restoration. The recovery period lasted until 1960. The current population is about half a million people.

Nagasaki Photos

The bombardment of the city began on August 1, 1945. For this reason, part of the population of Nagasaki was evacuated and not subjected to nuclear impact. On the day of the nuclear bombing, an air raid alert was issued at 07:50 and stopped at 08:30. After the end of the air raid, part of the population remained in shelters. An American B-29 bomber that entered Nagasaki airspace was mistaken for a reconnaissance aircraft and the air raid alert was not issued. No one guessed the purpose of the American bomber. The explosion in Nagasaki occurred at 11:02 in the air, the bomb did not reach the ground. Despite this, the result of the explosion claimed thousands of lives. The city of Nagasaki has several places of memory for the victims of the nuclear explosion:

Sanno Jinja Shrine Gate. They represent a column and part of the upper ceiling, all that survived the bombardment.

nagasaki peace park

Nagasaki Peace Park. Memorial complex built in memory of the victims of the disaster. On the territory of the complex there is a Statue of Peace and a fountain symbolizing contaminated water. Until the bombing, no one in the world had studied the consequences of a nuclear wave of this magnitude, nor did anyone know how long harmful substances. Only years later, people who drank water discovered that they had radiation sickness.

Atomic Bomb Museum

Museum of the atomic bomb. The museum was opened in 1996. On the territory of the museum there are things and photographs of the victims of the nuclear bombing.

Urakami column. This place is the epicenter of the explosion; there is a park area around the preserved column.

The victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are commemorated every year with a moment of silence. Those who dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki never apologized. On the contrary, the pilots adhere to the state position, explaining their actions by military necessity. Remarkably, the United States of America has not issued a formal apology to date. Also, a tribunal to investigate the mass destruction of civilians was not created. Since the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only one president has paid an official visit to Japan.

According to a survey conducted in Japan by Populus for the international news agency and radio Sputnik as part of the Sputnik.Opinions project, the majority of Japanese respondents (61%) believe that the US should apologize for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the same time, 74% of respondents believe that these bombings cannot be justified by war, since many civilians died.

Only 11% believe that it is not necessary to apologize. Almost 30% were unable to answer the question, the share of doubters among young people aged 18 to 24 is especially high: more than 40% of respondents of this particular age found it difficult to answer the question.

Historian: Schoolchildren in the US are being told about the need to attack HiroshimaAmerican historian Robert Jacobs from the Institute of Peace at Hiroshima University spoke about how US citizens see their country's role in World War II.

The survey was conducted by Populus for the Sputnik news agency and radio from July 29 to August 2, 2015, the methodology is online interviews. The sample was 1004 people in Japan from 18 to 64 years old. The sample represents the population by gender, age, and geography. Confidence interval for the data as a whole for the country +/- 3.1% at a confidence level of 95%.

Valery Kistanov, head of the Center for Japanese Studies at the Institute of the Far East of the Russian Academy of Sciences, commenting on the results of the survey on Sputnik radio, noted that in the United States the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is still justified by military necessity.

"It was a completely inhuman, barbaric act - dropping nuclear bombs on civilian cities. And, of course, there is no justification for this. As for the US attitude to this historical fact: unfortunately, the prevailing opinion in the United States is that these bombings were "are caused by military necessity. They allegedly saved tens of thousands of lives of American soldiers. Since the landing of the American army on Japanese territory was planned," Valery Kistanov said on Sputnik radio.
In his opinion, one should not expect any apologies from the US leadership.

“America is always right, they never apologize for anything, and they will not apologize for the atomic bombings. spirit, mentality of the ruling American circles," the expert believes.

At the same time, in Japan itself, according to Valery Kistanov, the fact that it was the United States that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is being hushed up in every possible way.

"The Japanese media, when talking about these bombings, try not to pedal the question of who carried out them. You can look at the Japanese press and you will see such expressions as the atomic bombing of Japan, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But without specifying who "I did it. As if these terrible bombs came from the moon. But this is not done by chance. Japanese propaganda deliberately hushed up who dropped the atomic bombs," the expert said.

According to him, Japan is interested in cooperation with the United States and is unlikely to make claims to Washington.

"The Japanese are trying not to irritate their main military-political ally, older brother, patron. Because America is now extremely important for Japan in terms of ensuring its national interests. Japan clings to the United States. And the current Prime Minister (of Japan, Shinzo) Abe is heading for strengthening military cooperation with the Americans. Therefore, of course, the Japanese authorities will not pedal the question of who dropped these bombs and how justified it was. And ordinary residents, of course, have a different opinion, a different feeling. But, I think, there will be no changes in Japanese-American relations," Valery Kistanov concluded.

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