Stueyb

Those of you interested in all things nuclear may find this interesting reading.

Its basically about the real story of the immediate aftermath of the atomic bomb

Check it out

Its genuinly a very interesting read.

davegtt

this is a very interesting read froma survivor of the bombing. hard to believe it happened really.

http://www1.city.nagasaki.nagasaki.j...wa/yosida.html

StickyMicky

holy **** i thought it just blew stuff up, never relised it made peoples skin fall off and stuff

brickboy

What's worrying is the Nagasaki bomb was around a 15 - 20 kiloton yield -- tiny compared to most modern devices.

Dracoro

There was a prog last night about french nuclear testing in the pacific under de-gaulle. French defence bloke quoted being asked "how can you be expected to keep up with the US / Russia who have enough weapons to destroy the world 100 times over" to which he replied that you only need to destroy the world once! Rather a valid point although some dodgy goings on by the french out there in the pacific buy I doubt they care.

Leslie

Nuclear weapons are particularly evil devices and it is to be hoped they never get used again.

There were certainly grounds for criticism of the use of the atom bombs by the US over Nagasaki and Hiroshima and killing so many civilians. They could have been demonstrated easily enough in the fist place.

It is possible that the US wanted to see the actual effects of the weapons on the population and that this was the perfect excuse.

Les

SJ_Skyline

Les,

Quite true. I believe one of the grounds for dropping them on cities was that there was no certainty that a "demonstration" (dropping it out at sea) would have the desired effect (complete destruction of morale).

Sickening things as they are you can't undo the knowledge of how to make them, you can however attempt to regulate the proliferation and development of them.

messiah

Suprised no-ones mentioned that the Nagasaki bomb's target was Mitsubishi... (among others)

davegtt

so they say.... they claimed nagasaki was targetted because of its industrial factories there but they just happened to dropped on the centre.... the US wanted to see the effects of the bomb on a heavy population. not attack an industrial est IMO

and actually mitsubishi was targetted in Kokura, on the northeast corner of Kyushu, this was aborted due to weather conditions IIRC and so Nagasaki was bombed instead which was also one of Japan's leading shipbuilding and repair centers but not targetted for Mitsubishi.....