Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 “Enola Gay” was being loaded

Post by fredup » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 5:57 PM UTC

switchbak wrote: post #188

fredup wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wrote that "they were incinerated along with the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians", which implies that at least 200,000 Japanese civilians were incinerated in the bombings. The 129,000–246,000+ killed figure you cite covers 2-4 months after the bombings. I am confident that no one was incinerated 2 or more months after the bombing. Wikipedia gives an immediate death toll of 70,000–80,000 people, of who…

I'm sure you're trying to make a point here. But the fact is upwards of 80 THOUSAND people died immediately. Not sure what this hair splitting accomplishes.

Post by gambiting » Thu, Oct 02, 2014, 2:05 PM UTC

eltoozero wrote: post #186

shangxiao wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Immediately, all eight scientists in the room felt a wave of heat accompanied by a blue glow as the plutonium sphere vomited an invisible burst of gamma and neutron radiation into the room. As the lab's Geiger counter clicked hysterically, Louis used his bare hand to push the upper plutonium hemisphere off and onto the floor, which terminated the supercritical reaction moments after it began." Nit pick: What you h…

> which he immediately lifted up due to the intense heat. Had he not made this instinctive move, everyone present would have perished and the area would have remained deadly until some other poor soul came upon the tragedy to stop the reaction. The first-hand accounts of those present are in the thorough official report, which just happens to be collected in John Coster-Mullen's Atom Bombs book.