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Preface

Targets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2020

Nil Santiáñez
Affiliation:
St Louis University, Missouri
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Summary

At 8:15 local time on the sunny morning of August 6, 1945, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Code-named “Little Boy,” the bomb slowly descended on a parachute towards its target until it went off at the height of 580 meters above sea level, its blast wiping out 90 percent of the city and killing 80,000 people. Three days later, on August 9, another B-29, flown by Major Charles W. Sweeney, dropped an atomic weapon on Nagasaki. It was 11:02 a.m. Nagasaki time when “Fat Man” (the bomb’s code name) detonated, completely razing to the ground 63 percent of the city, destroying 90 percent of its buildings and constructions, and causing the instant death of approximately 45,000 men and women. By November 1945, the combined death toll of those killed outright by the bombs and those who died days, weeks, or months after the blasts as a result of their wounds or the radiation delivered by the atomic weapons surpassed the figure of 200,000. Although scholars have recently argued that the Japanese did not capitulate because of the atomic attacks on their homeland (the Japanese government decided to surrender to the Americans only after learning about the Soviet invasion of Manchuria), the truth is that dropping two atomic weapons on civilian targets put a murderous closure to a war that was, and still is, the deadliest one on record.

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Chapter
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The Literature of Absolute War
Transnationalism and World War II
, pp. 1 - 9
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Preface
  • Nil Santiáñez, St Louis University, Missouri
  • Book: The Literature of Absolute War
  • Online publication: 30 April 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108861144.001
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  • Preface
  • Nil Santiáñez, St Louis University, Missouri
  • Book: The Literature of Absolute War
  • Online publication: 30 April 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108861144.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • Nil Santiáñez, St Louis University, Missouri
  • Book: The Literature of Absolute War
  • Online publication: 30 April 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108861144.001
Available formats
×