Economic effects of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The morning of 6 of August 1945 a single atomic bomb called “Little Boy” exploded over the city of Hiroshima at 8:15, devastating almost the entire metropolis.

“Little Boy” was 10 feet long, weighted 9,000 pounds, and was dropped from a height of 31,600 feet, exploding at 2,000 above Hiroshima with the force of 20K tons of TNT.

A conventional bomb would have destroyed only the wooden structures within a 40 meters radius, but the atomic bomb that smashed Hiroshima was able to affect everything within a radius of 2 kilometers of the point of explosion. Altogether an area of 13 square kilometers was reduced to ashes and 80% of the 76,000 buildings in the city were burned down.

60,000 buildings over 90,000 were completely demolish, leaving about 140,000 citizens homeless, causing, in some cases, even death. 5,000 feet northeast of ground zero great damages could still be seen. To be able to rebuild the city, Japan had to invest many years and billions of dollars.

The “fire-wind”   gave a roughly circular shape of 4.4 square miles which were completely burned. More than half the bridges in the city were destroyed, along with heavy damages to roads and railroads, which impeded communications with other cities, making it really hard to make a recount of the damages and figure out what to do. Transportation systems in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were completely crushed, along with electrical signal systems.

Before the atomic bomb struck the city of Hiroshima, its population was about 310,000 civilians, plus 40,000 military and 20,000 daytime workers, the entire explosion of the atomic bomb killed about 140,000 persons.

For the ones left it was almost impossible to  find a job, so the Japanese economy was stuck on its knees. (This caused the Japanese economy to get stuck on its knees)

Three days after the Hiroshima attack, the B-26 bomber hit Nagasaki with a second atomic bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man”, it had the power of 22 kilotons of TNT and weighted 4, 50 kg.

The bomb exploded about 500m above a residential area, full of schools, factories, and houses. Within a radius of 1 kilometer, the explosion of pressure and heat smashed immediately houses and other structures, turning them into ashes. The Mitsubishi Steel Works complex bent and twisted like jelly and the concrete roofs of the National Schools collapse.

22.7% of the 51,000 buildings in the entire city were completely destroyed or severely damaged.

Such as the Mitsubishi company, many others big corporations were destroyed by this second atomic bomb, leaving Japan with less industry than before and nowhere to rely on.

The surveys done afterwards estimate the number of persons affected by the Hiroshima to be between 70,000 and 80,000, with an equal number injured, while the number of victim at Nagasaki was over 35,000.

The economic impact of both attacks required many decades for Japan to recover the financial status it had always own. It was an expensive rehabilitation but they made it, and now Japan is back into the top ten more economically influent countries.

By: Analucia Castagnino 

Effects of the attack on Pearl Harbor Battle

Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii, was attacked by the Japanese torpedo and bomber planes on December 7, 1941. The sneak attack sparked outrage in the American populace, news media, government and the world. The Japanese raid arrived in two groups, totaling 353 planes, which were assigned to attack different air bases across the island of the Oahu and Pearl Harbor.

“Yesterday December 7th, 1941 The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan”(Franklin D. Roosevelt, December 8, 1941)

The Japanese had developed a shallow running torpedo that would skim the surface of the water in the Pearl Harbor after being dropped from a low-flying aircraft. The primary targets were the aircraft carriers and the battleships that were among 92 naval vessels at anchor in the Pearl Harbor. About 360 Japanese attack planes had launched at dawn from aircraft carriers in an attack force of about 33 ships, causing immediately the destruction of the United States ships.

The Principal effects that this battle caused were that military started to believe in the value of the newly developed radar installation, before then they didn’t have much confidence, but the radar operator had seen a rather large indication of incoming aircraft and blamed it on birds instead of the possibility of the Japanese invasion. By destroying the main fighting power of United States Pacific fleet at Pearl, the Japanese were given free reign for about a year in the pacific. They ran a brilliant campaign and conquered territories.

Pearl Harbor may have been a military disaster for the United States, but it also unified the nation behind the war effort. The US fleet was rebuilt very fast and they started preparing their self for the war. The worst effect that this conflict gave was the United States declaration of war against Japan. US wanted to stay away from the war but with this problem they didn’t have many options. This made them change their neutral status.

This attack also caused the deaths of 2,000 American servicemen and 68 civilians and wounded 1100 other Americans. Making United States military weaker.

A good effect of this is that when the Americans enter to the war, they controlled it a little bit, and they also had the opportunity to save Jewish people in Germany and Poland. They also made an alliance with Great Britain and the most powerful countries against Germany and Japan, and this made Germany weaker causing the end of the Second World War.

We can conclude that this conflict had bad effects like lots of life lost in United States and also Japanese and the declaration of war form US to Japan, but it also had good things like the liberation of Jews in Poland and Germany and also the end of the war, because when US enter to the war, they made alliances with the powerful countries causing the extermination of Germany in the war, and also if Germany was defeated, the countries that had alliances with them like Japan would be out of the war too making the end of it.

By: Andrea Alva

Life of the Jews in Poland during WW2

Before the WWII 3 million, 3 hundred thousand of Jewish people lived in Poland, approximately ten per cent of the total population. For centauries Poland has been one of the largest and most significant Jewish communities in the world. This country was the center of the Jewish culture since the middle Ages. The Jewish population made up about one-third of the population of cities in central Poland.

It started with the invasion of Germany to Poland on September 1 in 1939, when the second WW just begin. After the Soviet army invaded Poland from the east, Jews are liable for forced labor. They can be picked up off the streets for work at manual labors jobs such as digging ditches, cleaning streets and shoveling snow. October 1939, Jews were forbidden form certain areas of major cities. In the past two months things got worse, and they need to wear an indentifying star or clothing that would be easy recognized as a Jew, they can’t change residence and the curfew for Jews enforced from 9 pm to 5 am. The control for the Jews people was getting stricter, they can’t travel by train without a special permission, and they needed to register their properties including furniture, jewelry and clothing. April 1940 the first major ghetto was built, at Lodz. They began sending groups of Jews to the ghettos. Mass deportations of Jews, Gypsies and Poles, because the amount of people star increasing, The Nazis were forced to built new ghettos, Warsaw and Crackow ghettos were built by the year of 1940.

In 1941 all Jews needed to be in the ghettos and they were forbidden to leave, if they escape or somebody would try to help them escape, the punishment would be the death penalty. Its population reached one half of a million people who vegetated under terrible conditions, suffering from hunger and diseases.

December 1941 concentration camps begin their operations. Poland is the site of six major concentration camps set up to kill Jews.

 March 1942, Jews from Lublin ghetto were deported to Belzec death camp. Nazis began sending people from the ghettos to concentration camps. By 1943 many of the ghettos like Crackow, Lvov and Warsaw were liquidate and the people were sent to concentration camps. This pattern is repeated in every Polish city with a ghetto population. 

Germany was losing power and more powerful countries were against them. By 1944 the red army of the Soviet Union crosses Poland. This made a little of stability on Poland. January 17, 1945 Germany evacuate the ruins of Warsaw and the Soviet army start doing alliances with the Polish people and in April 30 begins the battle of Berlin, Soviet Union and some Polish people  against  Germany. This generates a series of problems that made Germany’s priorities change, and some countries like United States and Great Britain, took this as an opportunity to save Jews people.  By the end of this year and the beginning of 1946, lots of Jews people were saved. Poland lost about 6 million dead in WW2, of whom about a half were Jews, with only fifty to seventy thousand surviving. 

By: Andrea Alva