The Japanese city of Nagasaki suffered the same fate as Hiroshima on 9 August 1945, just three days after Hiroshima was hit by American atom bomb.
Japan was crushed and essentially rendered to their yielding knees as the United States, under the orders of the then President Harry S. Truman, dropped another atom bomb on Nagasaki, while the country was still trying to cope with the shock and trauma of the Hiroshima attack.
The two nuclear bombs– the first of its kind ever used in history, were dropped as a consequences of World War II, which the Japanese empire was facing due to its attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1944 – an event that pulled the United States into the great war.
Here are top 10 interesting facts related to the second attack in August 1945:
1. The bomb, which was used on Hiroshima, was called 'Little Boy' and the one dropped on Nagasaki was called 'Fat Man'. These two were the only nuclear bombs ever used in history to destroy a human settlement.
2. The "Fat Man" had the weight of 4,898kgs (4.8 tons) and measured 10 feet and 8 inches in length and 60 inches in diameter. The device was filled with highly enriched plutonium 239, with the plutonium core reduced to size of a tennis ball.
3. The efficiency of the weapon was 10 times that of "Little Boy".
4. The force of explosion of the bomb was equivalent to 21,000 tons of TNT explosion.
5. Nagasaki was not America's primary target. The three potential targets for a second bomb were Kokura, Koto and Niigata. But the bomb was ultimately dropped in Nagasaki as weather and fate allowed the mission to end only in Nagasaki.
6. After the first Hiroshima atomic bombing in Japan, a Hiroshima policeman went to Nagasaki to teach police about ducking after the atomic flash. As a result of this warning, not a single Nagasaki policeman died when the city was attacked.
7. In 1945, Japanese radar had, in fact, detected a small number of incoming US Planes (one of which carried the nuclear bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki). But they decided not to intercept them as small numbers of planes were not thought to be a threat.
8. While the aircraft carrying "Little boy" was called 'Enola Gay', the plane carrying the bomb in Nagasaki (Fat Man) was called 'Bockscar'.
9. "Fat Man" was not a gun-type bomb but used the implosion method. It had a circle of 64 detonators that would drive pieces of plutonium together into a supercritical mass, the History Learning Site notes.
10. By the time 'Bockscar' got near its primary target, Kokura, it became clear that the weather had saved the city as it was covered with vast swathe of cloud. They then decided to move to their only other feasible target – Nagasaki.
