Today (6 August) is the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb (nick-named 'Little Boy') in warfare. The bomb exploded over the Japanese city of Hiroshima at 8:16am, with an initial death toll of around 70000 people and a similar number injured to varying degrees.

The bomb had originally begun development in response to Nazi attempts to similarly develop an atomic device. While the German efforts failed, the US/British effort, led by some of the greatest minds of the age, solved the myriad problems around converting the atom to energy.

Although the US strategists assumed that the bomb would cause an immediate surrender, within days they were reading decoded messages showing that the Japanese high command had decided to continue to fight. But the combination of the Soviet Union declaring war and the second bombing of Nagasaki forced a surrender.

It is estimated that, had the war continued, it would have resulted in 100000 further allied deaths and 1-2 million Japanese deaths. Thus it can be argued that, despite the significant death toll, the bombs actually saved lives. Still the argument will probably go on forever over the merits of the bombing.

Mans inhumanity to man. Some tell us that atomic weapons are only a deterrent, never to be used. Hiroshima, and the later attack on Nagasaki gives the lie to that falsehood.

Nothing in history has saved more lives than the dropping of those 2 bombs. The idea that the defeating of the Japanese on home soil could have been achieved with as few as 100,000 loses to the attacking force is kidding themselves.

Anyone with any knowledge of the death toll among Japanese citizens on Okinawa, particularly the suicide rate would know an estimate of 1 to 2 million civilian casualties among the civilian population of Japan is an underestimate by an order of magnitude at least.

Phil,

What about penicillin?

I would have thought that penicillin would go down in history as a bigger saver of lives than the A-bombs of 1945.

Well, the second bomb certainly proved to be a deterrent and, horrible though the strikes were for the Japanese, it produced an excellent result for the Free World. It is fortunate that we had people prepared to make tough decisions then; the sort of people we do not have these days, I fear. We are now stuck with gutless wonders not prepared to defend us. The Chinese Communist Party is aware of this.

ttbn,

You wrote: "We are now stuck with gutless wonders not prepared to defend us."

Something tells me you meant to write "We are now stuck with gutless wonders not prepared to defend ME."