Atomic Bomb Facts – Interesting Facts About Nuclear Weapons
Interesting Facts About Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombing
“Enola Gay” is the plane that carried the bomb to Hiroshima.
The Enola Grey crew carried cyanide tablets with them. If the mission failed they were supposed to take those.
Only 3 of the 12 people aboard the Enola Gay knew the real purpose of the mission to Hiroshima.
Harry Truman, U.S. President was prepared to drop more bombs if Japan didn’t surrender.
Hirohito, Japan’s emperor, surrendered on radio and it was for the first time his voice was heard publicly.
The bomb was actually assembled in the air while flying.
A heavy cruiser that delivered the bomb was sunk by torpedoes from Japanese submarines. The loss wasn’t discovered for almost 4 days as it was secret mission. 300 crewmen went down with the ship, about 575 died in water mainly due to shark attacks. And only 317 survived.
Hiroshima bomb used 141 pounds of uranium, and when the bomb exploded most of it was blown apart before the bomb reached the supercritical phase. The explosion was caused by mere 0.7g of Uranium.
A vault at the Teikoku bank survived the Hiroshima explosion. It was intact while much of the city was white washed.
In the Cold War arms race, America tested hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands on 1 March, 1954.
