In 1942, General Leslie Grove was chosen to lead the project. He brought a site at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. For facilities to separate the necessary uranium-235 from the much more common uranium-238. Robert Oppenheimer was appointed to lead the day to day running of the project. The team of scientists who worked on the atom bomb worked six days a week and often eighteen hours a day.

By 1945, the project has nearly forty laboratories and factories which employed 200,000 people. That was more than the total amount of people employed in the U.S. automobile industry in 1945. The total cost of the Manhattan Project was $2 billion which is about the equivalent of $26

In both cities the blast totally destroyed everything within a radius of 1 mile from the center of explosion, except for certain reinforced concrete frames as noted above. The atomic explosion almost completely destroyed Hiroshima's identity as a city (3). Over a fourth of the population was killed in one stroke and an additional fourth seriously injured, so that even if there had been no damage to structures and installations the normal city life would still have been completely shattered. Nearly everything was heavily damaged up to a radius of 3 miles from the blast, and beyond this distance damage, although comparatively light, extended for several more miles. Glass was broken up to 12 miles.

The casualties sustained by the inhabitants of both cities were due to : "flash" burns, caused directly by the almost instantaneous radiation of heat and light at the moment of the explosion, burns resulting from the fires caused by the explosion, mechanical injuries caused by collapse of building, flying debris, and forceable hurling-about of persons struck by the blasts pressure waves, and radiation injuries caused by the instantaneous penetrating radiation - in many respects similar to excessive X-ray exposure- from the nuclear explosion; all of these effective radiations occurred during the first minute after initiation of the explosion, and nearly all occurred during the first second of the explosion (2).

When Harry Truman, the American president heard of the bombing, he said, "This is the greatest thing in history". But even now people are still dying of the effects of the Atomic Bomb. These effects are so awful it is necessary to ask the question 'Why did they drop the bomb?" when the war was so nearly over.

Possible reasons are: A) Americans believed Japan would never surrender. If the bomb had not been dropped, thousands of American lives could have been lost in an invasion of Japan. B) The bomb had cost a lot of money to develop and the Americans wanted to use it. The bomb cost $200 million. It would have been difficult to justify not using it after such as vast financial investment. C) The Japanese had been very cruel to prisoner of War. Some Americans thought they deserved to be taught a lesson. D) It was used to show the U.S.A's military superiority to the U.S.S.R. (1).

The Americans had pushed Japan out of all the land they had occupied in the Pacific region. In Europe, Hitler was defeated. So why did we drop the bomb?

Some common words found in the essay are:
Hiroshima Nagasaki, British Mission, Germany Japan, American B-29, Hiroshima Total, Robert Oppenheimer, Europe Hitler, Los Alamos, Manhattan Project, Atomic Bomb, atom bomb, atomic bomb, manhattan project, reinforced concrete, atomic bombs, bomb dropped, effect atomic bombs, lives lost, drop bomb, invasion japan, people killed, reinforced concrete frames, atom bomb dropped,
Approximate Word count = 1787
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)