Their fuel is highly enriched in fissile uranium or plutonium. Today, though the large number of non-proliferation treaties and monitoring bodies may not have removed the threat, they have at least brought it to the forefront of the world’s attention.Įmbarked nuclear reactors are used for the propulsion of submarines, aircraft carriers and ice breakers, thereby guaranteeing their ability to travel alone. Even during fifty years of fierce ideological conflict, Damocles’ atomic bomb never fell, though there was the occasional close call. Our focus will instead be on the consequences nuclear weaponry may have on the civilian population the prevailing issue six decades after the end of the Second World War. The discussion of Nagasaki on these pages will be limited to the presentation of a testimony previously unseen in Europe. Everything has doubtless been said on the matter, and it would be overstepping our brief to write any more. Our purpose here, however, is not to dwell on those tragic events which have defined the previous century. Army photo/ courtesy of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. He has always been convinced that the bomb was responsible for saving American lives, and eventually Japanese ones, by removing the necessity for an invasion of Japan. Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the ENOLA GAY (the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on the 6th of August 1945) has never express regrets.