http://www.theenolagay.com/event.html
The day the first atomic bomb was detonated in battle, August the 6th, 1945 (and that site clearly has an error in the 1953 date given for the letter).
Right or wrong? A question that splits opinion even now, and since the only good thing about war is it's ending, the shock and destruction that brought about the rapid ending probably saved more lives than it took.
The warmongers among us would probably say that Japan "had it coming to them", after their undeclared war entry with the attack on Pearl Harbour.
The consequences in the shape of increased background radiation, are a price we still do not know the full cost of.
It was probably inevitable, that having developed the atomic bomb, it would have been used somewhere, and only seeing that destruction, and the inevitable reprisal if a foe was similarly armed, has kept the lid on any subsequent conflicts from "going nuclear".
So entered the era of the "cold war", with the finger on the button stayed by the prospect of mutually assured destruction.
Today, of course, the power blocks have shifted yet again, with perhaps the greatest threat being nuclear material unaccounted for in former soviet states. China sabre-rattles, but they would surely not be insane enough to provoke a nuclear conflict?
The day the first atomic bomb was detonated in battle, August the 6th, 1945 (and that site clearly has an error in the 1953 date given for the letter).
Right or wrong? A question that splits opinion even now, and since the only good thing about war is it's ending, the shock and destruction that brought about the rapid ending probably saved more lives than it took.
The warmongers among us would probably say that Japan "had it coming to them", after their undeclared war entry with the attack on Pearl Harbour.
The consequences in the shape of increased background radiation, are a price we still do not know the full cost of.
It was probably inevitable, that having developed the atomic bomb, it would have been used somewhere, and only seeing that destruction, and the inevitable reprisal if a foe was similarly armed, has kept the lid on any subsequent conflicts from "going nuclear".
So entered the era of the "cold war", with the finger on the button stayed by the prospect of mutually assured destruction.
Today, of course, the power blocks have shifted yet again, with perhaps the greatest threat being nuclear material unaccounted for in former soviet states. China sabre-rattles, but they would surely not be insane enough to provoke a nuclear conflict?
