10: Effects of the Atomic Bombings on the Inhabitants of the Bombed Cities
<< 9: General Description of Damage Caused by the Atomic Explosions || Eyewitness Account
In both Hiroshima and Nagasaki the tremendous scale of the disaster largely
destroyed the cities as entities. Even the worst of all other previous
bombing attacks on Germany and Japan, such as the incendiary raids on
Hamburg in 1943 and on Tokyo in 1945, were not comparable to the paralyzing
effect of the atomic bombs. In addition to the huge number of persons who
were killed or injuried so that their services in rehabilitation were not
available, a panic flight of the population took place from both cities
immediately following the atomic explosions. No significant reconstruction
or repair work was accomplished because of the slow return of the
population; at the end of November 1945 each of the cities had only about
140,000 people. Although the ending of the war almost immediately after
the atomic bombings removed much of the incentive of the Japanese people
toward immediate reconstruction of their losses, their paralysis was still
remarkable. Even the clearance of wreckage and the burning of the many
bodies trapped in it were not well organized some weeks after the bombings.
As the British Mission has stated, "the impression which both cities make
is of having sunk, in an instant and without a struggle, to the most
primitive level."
Aside from physical injury and damage, the most significant effect of the
atomic bombs was the sheer terror which it struck into the peoples of the
bombed cities. This terror, resulting in immediate hysterical activity and
flight from the cities, had one especially pronounced effect: persons who
had become accustomed to mass air raids had grown to pay little heed to
single planes or small groups of planes, but after the atomic bombings the
appearance of a single plane caused more terror and disruption of normal
life than the appearance of many hundreds of planes had ever been able to
cause before. The effect of this terrible fear of the potential danger
from even a single enemy plane on the lives of the peoples of the world in
the event of any future war can easily be conjectured.
The atomic bomb did not alone win the war against Japan, but it most
certainly ended it, saving the thousands of Allied lives that would have
been lost in any combat invasion of Japan.
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