EFFECTS OF THE ATOMIC BOMBINGS ON THE INHABITANTS OF THE BOMBED CITIES

EFFECTS OF THE ATOMIC BOMBINGS ON THE INHABITANTS
OF THE BOMBED CITIES
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.