Transcript Japan During World War II

The Manhattan Project
What was the US plan for
ending the Pacific War?
Did Japan commit war crimes during WWII?
YES!
Rape of Nanking (300,000 civilians killed)
NO!
Pearl Harbor (2,300 military killed)
YES!
Bataan Death March (1,600 POWS die)
Developing the A-Bomb
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1939: Nazis begin to develop an A-Bomb
1940: US learns of this, and begins their own A-Bomb program
The program was called “The Manhattan Project”
It was led by General Leslie R. Groves & physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer
•Their work was conducted at
the Los Alamos National
Laboratory, New Mexico
•The new weapon could
release more energy than
20,000 tons of TNT
•New US Pres. Harry Truman would have to decide if the US should use this
weapon on Japan, or invade Japan
•Four bombs were developed at a cost
of about $5 billion a piece
•The first bomb called Gadget was
tested in a controlled explosion in
New Mexico desert
Trinity Test
• The second bomb was named “Little Boy”
•On August 6, 1945, a plane named the Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” on
the city of Hiroshima, Japan
•Japan doesn’t surrender. Aug. 9, 1945, a plane named Bockscar dropped the
third bomb named “Fat Man” on Nagasaki, Japan
•Japan surrenders on August 13th, 1945
My older aunt, my dah ahiee (big aunt), is actually very small. Her wrists are the size of
napkin rings, as delicate as rice paper--and the clothes we pass around in our family do
not fit her small frame. She is shy, especially in English. And during one heated family
discussion on the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a San Franciscoarea Sizzler, she kept quiet. I had pointed out to her rather talkative husband that the
U.S. government was still the only government that had dropped the atomic bomb on
human beings. Hiroshima, I could maybe see, but Nagasaki too? At this point, my petite
aunt spoke up. "I think they should have bombed the whole country!" she bellowed, and
then lapsed back into silence.
It was the first time I realized how profoundly the Chinese were affected
by World War II. Even then, I was not familiar with what had happened
in the country of my mother's birth during the war.
As Americans, we are almost all familiar with the Nazi-sponsored
Holocaust, which spread its dark wings across the face of Europe during
World War II, spawning unspeakable horrors, starvation and genocide.
We know six million Jewish people were killed in the Nazi death
machine--along with almost as many gypsies, Poles, gays, communists
and resistors. Even as Allied troops marched in victory to the gates of the
death camps, the Germans continued to commit war crimes. Many will
never forgive the Nazis. But now I see how the Chinese feel about their
Holocaust. The lesson of a Holocaust is to never forget. (From Iris
Chang’s The Rape of Nanking)
For
Pros & Cons of dropping the Atomic Bomb
Against
The two targeted cities would have
been firebombed anyway.
Conventional bombing prevents the
US from using such a horrible weapon
Japanese showed fanatical resistance
to the end. Including suicide
kamikazes
With only two bombs ready it would
be a waste not to use both of them
Japan was ready to call it quits. Japan
home islands were being blocked.
Soviets entered Manchuria
One bomb could have been used over
Tokyo Harbor to show Japan’s leaders
how serious this weapon was
Those deaths would have mostly been
military and not civilian.
An invasion of Japan would have
caused casualties on both sides that
could easily have exceeded the toll at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After the first bomb, Japan refused to
surrender.
America did give enough time for
news to filter about the destruction
The bomb's use impressed the Soviet
Union enough that the USSR did not
demand joint occupation of Japan.
Japanese lives were sacrificed simply
for power politics between the U.S.
and the Soviet Union.
For
Pros & Cons of dropping the Atomic Bomb
Against