The atomic bomb was the scientific and technological exclamation pointĪt the end of this worst-of-all wars that was won by Though no one will ever know for certain, the worldwideĭeath toll for the war from 1931 to 1945 probably reached 60 million. About 300,000 Americans died during the wars against Japanese soldiers and civilians lost their lives during the war, of which perhaps as many asģ00,000, or even more, were as a result of the two atomic bombings. Happened in 1937 in the Chinese city of Nanking where 200,000 or more Chinese civilians may have died. Warfare experiments conducted on civilians, the execution of prisoners of war,Īnd wholesale rape and murder committed against entire cities, such as The numerous war crimes committed by the Japanese Army, including biological The Pacific was psychological as well as physical controversy still rages over Or from the war's attendant starvation and disease. Perhaps 15 million Chinese died at the hands of the Japanese Army Beginning with the invasion by Japan in 1931, Hardest hit, however, was probably China. Suffered terribly, from Korea to the Philippines to Southeast Asia to the islands of the Pacific. The loss of life in the Pacific war was equally horrific. Tens of million more might have died - and WesternĬivilization itself might have been eclipsed - if Germany had proven the victor. The stakes in the race for the bomb were thus Many as two million people may have died during the war. Often forgotten nations suffered horribly. Jews of all nations died during the Holocaust. Suffered terribly as well, including about 600,000 deaths in France and 400,000 deadīritons (including many in the Pacific Theater). Or more lost their lives, and in the Soviet Union, where more than 25 million may have died. Few European nations escaped grievous injury, but nowhere was the suffering worse than in Poland, where six million InĪ war initiated by German aggression and dreams of conquest, tens of Most oppressive and murderous regimes were chilling indeed. The project began as a race to acquire the bomb before Nazi Germany did,Īnd the prospects of an atomic bomb in the hands of one of the world's Wrought are inexplicable outside the context of the Second World The Manhattan Project and the devastation that its successful outcome The most destructive weapon in the history ofĬombat had helped bring an end to the most destructive conflict in human history.
Were the last acts of the Second World War.
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the surrender of Japan
Debate Over How to Use the Bomb, Late Spring 1945.THE MANHATTAN PROJECT AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR Manhattan Project: The Manhattan Project and the Second World War, 1939-1945