Topic > America's Resilient Response to Pearl Harbor - 1348

This one was larger than the first and had the nickname "Fat Man" in reference to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Nagasaki was not initially a city targeted by America due to its geographic location. Nagasaki was located on an expanse of hills and valleys, and was determined to be problematic as the landscape would dampen the impact of the bomb by not allowing maximum impact to be achieved. An article on the History Learning Site, "The Bombing of Nagasaki", provided the following explanation for why it was a secondary target, as well as some of the supposed problems with it as an attack target. “Nagasaki was an important shipbuilding city and a large military port. But it was not a prime target as it had been bombed five times in the previous twelve months and any damage caused by an atomic bomb would have been difficult to assess. Furthermore, the way Nagasaki had grown as a port meant that the impact of a powerful bomb could have been dissipated as the city grew through hills and valleys (Trueman, 2000).” Following this bombing it was determined that approximately 74,000 were killed and approximately the same amount of people were injured. After Japan was hit by these blows from America, it surrendered to the Allies shortly thereafter, the 14