Bombs Away!

The dropping of the atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not justified. Prior to the bombing, the Japanese surrendered with the condition that they get to keep their Emperor. He was seen as a God to them so they wanted to keep him in position. As this did not comply with America’s wanting of total, unconditional surrender, the surrender was denied and they dropped the first bomb on Hiroshima. After the first bomb, all communications were cut from Hiroshima as it was destroyed so, the Emperor (and the rest of the country) had not know of the event. It does not help  that the U.S. had fire-bombed 67 other cities prior to the whole event, so the chance of the Emperor getting word on time was small. Three (3) days later the Americans dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki. This was done as the Americans thought the Japanese would just never give up as they were known to have the samurai-like mentality “death before honour.” In reality they were just unaware of the bombing. I can see why the Americans dropped the bombs though. The taxpayers had paid a lot of to fund the bomb, 200 million dollars actually, so they did not want all their money to go to waste. The poor treatment of POW(beatings, being fed the bare minimum, and being forced to do hard labour all day) led Americans to harbour a stronger hatred towards them, so this led them to want to drop the bomb. On top of that, the U.S feared the USSR. They thought that by dropping these two bombs on Japan(well, they only knew the power after the first), it would be a display of power and scare them, but I digress. The dropping of the war morally and illegally wrong. Killing civilians is a great war crime, as is wanton distraction and the killing of a surrendered enemy(which, they were denied. Also wrong). Almost all the casualties were civilian.

Extension: Canada’s involvement

Canadian scientists were the first who discovered Uranium 235, they helped develop the first chain reaction with it, and the first to discover how to purify it. From the beginning of the Manhattan project, the Canadian government cooperated with the US and British governments to ensure that the Allies would be able to develop a nuclear bomb before the Axis powers. As all other uranium sources were under Nazi control, the only other source for the Allies was at the Eldorado Refinery in Port Hope, Ontario, Canada. All the uranium used in the Manhattan Project was refined here and came from mines on the shores of the Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories. The “Heavy water” was used in the development of the Plutonium bomb(Fat Man) came from the Consolidating Mining and Smelting Co. in Trail, British Columbia. Beyond supplying the raw materials for the development of the bombs, Canada also provided a safe working environment far from the battlefield for the scientists to work at. Canadian scientists were also part of the team that assembled the core of the first plutonium bomb in New Mexico. Many Canadians unknowingly helped in the development of the bombs. Those of the Sahtugot’ine tribe, who lived around the Great Bear Lake, were hired as transporters of Uranium. These tribe members were not given any protective gear and exposed lots of other people to the radiation; many families ended up developing cancer due to those who hired them not warning them and providing them the right gear. Members barely live past 65 opposed to the usual 90-100. As the tribe felt awful for their indirect role of the bombings, they travelled to Hiroshima in August, 1998 and apologized to survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Canadians may celebrate their participation of such a scientific and technological breakthrough as it was such an achievement, while others may feel ashamed of Canada’s contribution to the weapons of mass destruction. Either opinion is fine, but they need to know the importance of the role Canada held in the coming of the nuclear age. (excellent job blake. i noticed that you couldn’t really pick a side when discussing canadas involvement. including the native perspective was important to include as well. feel free to publish your post. well done)