Eighty years ago today the US Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima resulting in 140,000 deaths. Three days later they dropped a different type of nuclear weapon on another Japanese city. 40,000 were killed immediately in Nagasaki and tens of thousands more died in the aftermath.
Those who justify the bombings claim it saved US lives by quickly ending the war. But, Tokyo had already been devastated and had delivered multiple pleas for a surrender agreement. The bombings were largely a warning to the Soviet Union about US military capabilities amidst post-war negotiations.
Canada was not an innocent bystander in the nuclear bombing. Uranium from Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories was used in the bombs and Canada spent millions of dollars (tens of millions in today’s money) to help research the bombs’ development. Immediately after successfully developing the technology, the US submitted its proposal to drop the bomb on Japan to the tri-state World War II Combined Policy Committee meeting, which included powerful Canadian minister C.D. Howe and a British official. Apparently, Howe supported the US proposal. When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Howe immediately praised the military action. “It is a distinct pleasure for me to announce that Canadian scientists have played an intimate part, and have been associated in an effective way with this great scientific development,” he told the press. (Reflecting the racism in Canadian governing circles, in his (uncensored) diary King wrote: “It is fortunate that the use of the bomb should have been upon the Japanese rather than upon the white races of Europe.”) (more...)
Canada’s contribution to bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki
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