How many died hiroshima and nagasaki

The causes of many of the deaths can only be surmised, and of course many persons near the center of explosion suffered fatal injuries from more than one of the bomb effects. The proper order of importance for possible causes of death is: burns, mechanical injury, and gamma radiation. Early estimates by the Japanese are shown in D below:.

The Manhattan Engineer District's best available figures are: TABLE A: Estimates of Casualties Hiroshima Nagasaki Pre-raid population , , Dead 66, 39, Injured 69, 25, Total Casualties , 64, The relation of total casualties to distance from X, the center of damage and point directly under the air-burst explosion of the bomb, is of great importance in evaluating the casualty-producing effect of the bombs.

This relationship for the total population of Nagasaki is shown in the table below, based on the first-obtained casualty figures of the District: TABLE B: Relation of Total Casualties to Distance from X Distance from X, feet Killed Injured Missing Total Casualties Killed per square mile 0 - 1, 7, 1, 9, 24, 1, - 3, 3, 1, 1, 6, 4, 3, - 4, 8, 17, 3, 29, 5, 4, - 6, 11, 28 12, 6, - 9, 9, 17 9, 20 No figure for total pre-raid population at these different distances were available.

Previous Next. These figures are based on information given us in Tokyo and on a detailed study of the air reconnaissance maps. They may be somewhat in error but are certainly of the right order of magnitude. W as Japan already beaten before the atomic bomb?

The answer is certainly "yes" in the sense that the fortunes of war had turned against her. The answer is "no" in the sense that she was still fighting desperately and there was every reason to believe that she would continue to do so; and this is the only answer that has any practical significance.

General MacArthur's staff anticipated about 50, American casualties and several times that number of Japanese casualties in the November 1 operation to establish the initial beachheads on Kyushu. After that they expected a far more costly struggle before the Japanese homeland was subdued. There was every reason to think that the Japanese would defend their homeland with even greater fanaticism than when they fought to the death on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

No American soldier who survived the bloody struggles on these islands has much sympathy with the view that battle with the Japanese was over as soon as it was clear that their ultimate situation was hopeless.

No, there was every reason to expect a terrible struggle long after the point at which some people can now look back and say, "Japan was already beaten. That this was not an impossibility is shown by the following fact, which I have not seen reported. We recall the long period of nearly three weeks between the Japanese offer to surrender and the actual surrender on September 2. This was needed in order to arrange details: of the surrender and occupation and to permit the Japanese government to prepare its people to accept the capitulation.

It is not generally realized that there was threat of a revolt against the government, led by an Army group supported by the peasants, to seize control and continue the war. For several days it was touch and go as to whether the people would follow their government in surrender. The bulk of the Japanese people did not consider themselves beaten; in fact they believed they were winning in spite of the terrible punishment they had taken.

They watched the paper balloons take off and float eastward in the wind, confident that these were carrying a terrible retribution to the United States in revenge for our air raids. We gained a vivid insight into the state of knowledge and morale of the ordinary Japanese soldier from a young private who had served through the war in the Japanese Army.

He had lived since babyhood in America, and had graduated in from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This lad, thoroughly American in outlook, had gone with his family to visit relatives shortly after his graduation. They were caught in the mobilization and he was drafted into the Army. This young Japanese told us that all his fellow soldiers believed that Japan was winning the war.

To them the losses of Iwo Jima and Okinawa were parts of a grand strategy to lure the American forces closer and closer to the homeland, until they could be pounced upon and utterly annihilated. He himself had come to have some doubts as a result of various inconsistencies in official reports.

Also he had seen the Ford assembly line in operation and knew that Japan could not match America in war production. Russian armies were occupying most of Eastern Europe. Truman and many of his advisers hoped that the U. In this fashion, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan can be seen as the first shot of the Cold War. By , the Soviets had developed their own atomic bomb and the nuclear arms race began.

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