Was the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Justified? – Part 3

3. Reasons Why the Atomic Bomb May Have Been Used

1.  To Justify Its Cost
2.  As A Warning to the Soviet Union
3.  Anti-Japanese Racism

1. To Justify Its Cost

The Manhattan Project cost approximately 2.2 billion dollars. In terms of 2009 dollars, the equivalent cost would be 24 billion dollars. Had the bomb not been used it is possible (although not provable) that President Truman would have faced a congressional inquiry and asked to explain the misappropriation of 2 billion dollars. He might then have had to explain to the American people why a weapon that could have conceivably shortened the war was put on a shelf and not used. Facing an upcoming election, his chances would have been nil had he been known to waste American dollars and risked additional American lives. Truman was asked by his Secretary of  War what he would say in his impeachment hearing if he shelved a weapon that could bring the war to a rapid conclusion. It is a matter of speculation, but some historians believe that Truman made his decision to use the bomb upon hearing that question from his War Secretary.

 

It must be pointed out that the Manhattan Project was authorized not by President Truman, but by President Roosevelt. By the time Truman took office,  the Trinty test only loomed a few months in the future.

 

2. As A Warning to the Soviet Union

 

At the Yalta conference, Joseph Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Imperial Japan 90 days after the allies had defeated Germany.  The Allies defeated Germany in May of 1945 which would have put a Soviet entry into the war to begin in August. Truman knowing that the Soviet Union had installed communist governments in Eastern Europe following the German surrender, had incentive to bring the war to a swift conclusion before the Soviet Union could figure too prominently into the war settlement.

 

Using the atomic bomb was a clear demonstration of American military superiority and would thus make the Soviet Union more manageable in the post World War II political climate.

At Potsdam, Truman told Stalin that the United States had developed a new weapon of immense destructive capabilities.  This was not news to Stalin. Due to successful spying efforts, he had known that the United States was attempting to build a bomb since 1943.

The Soviet Union declared war on the Empire of Japan on August 9, 1945, the same day that Nagasaki was bombed. Soviet troops stormed into Manchuria, easily besting war weary Imperial Japanese troops. While the bombs were undeniably destructive, firebombing campaigns had left similar destruction, albeit without the legacy of radiation sickness. It has been postulated that the Japanese were more encouraged to surrender due to the Soviet entry into the war than by the bombings. Recall that the Japanese and Soviets had signed a non-aggression pact  in 1941 and had only a few weeks previous had hoped to enlist the Soviets in an effort to bring the war to an end.

 

3. Anti-Japanese Racism

 

Anti-Japanese sentiment began to accelerate with the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. With the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, American sentiment against the Japanese immediately spiked. The United States fueled that brand of racism by publishing numerous propaganda posters which depicted the Japanese in exagerated stereotypes.

News of Japanese atrocities during the war exacerbated the situation, leading to even more virulent racism. While not as widely publicized as Nazi Germany war crimes, Imperial Japanese was equally guilty of crimes, including mass killing, rape, forced labor, medical experimentation, chemical and biological warfare, and cannibalism.

 

Pictures below are some examples of anti-Japanese propaganda posters, published by the United States government and select corporations. They are shocking and disturbing, especially by today’s standards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The United States government even sponsored a propaganda film My Japan, which depicts the Japanese population as hard working and industrious in contrast to a hedonistic America. It was a form of reverse propaganda. That film can be viewed today at the Internet Archive, within the Content Advisory of “Explicit Racism and Extreme Violence.”

An opinion poll  conducted in 1944 showed that an astonishing 14% of the American public was in the favor of the complete extermination of the Japanese race.

Even President Truman was not immune to making racist remarks. Writing with incredulous language, he  made this comment in his dairy the very same day that the Trinity test took place.

This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new.

On the second day after the Nagasaki bomb, Truman stated:

“The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him like a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true.”

Conclusion: this three part blog post has taken many hours to research and write. During this effort, I have realized how complex and involved this subject is and feel I have barely did a credible job including everything that was essential. I have not intended to portray Imperial Japan as a victim. While I believe that the deliberate targeting of civilian populations is without excuse and justification, the defeat and dismantlement of such a morally reprehensible regime was essential to world peace.

If you have stayed with me and read it all, and found information you have not seen before I ask that you examine it with an open mind.  History is not always what it seems to be and I believe there is little advantage in clinging to myths and misperceptions.

Of course the years since World War II have been much kinder to the Japanese. The occupation was benevolent for the most part. Two laws were immediately enacted. No occupation force was to assualt any Japanese national. No occupation force was to eat any of the scarce food supply. General Douglas  MacArthur ruled Japan as the defacto national leader and left Japan as a well loved figure. Japan regained her sovereignty in 1952 with the signing of the San Francisco Treaty. The occupation ended and Japan forged an economic powerhouse second only to the United States economy.

As we should all know, despite thousands of nuclear weapons being built in the years since 1945, no atomic weapon has ever been exploded in anger since Nagasaki was attacked. My prayer is that those two horrible bombings taught the world a lesson that cannot be ignored.

Was the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Justified – Part 2

2. Arguments Against Using the Atomic Bomb

I will present three primary arguments against using the atomic bomb

1. The Use of the Bomb Violated Internationally Accepted Standards of War
2. The Japanese Had Been Attempting to Surrender Long Before August 6, 1945
3. U.S. Military and Civilian Leaders Believed the Atomic Bomb was Unnecessary

1. The Use of the Bomb Violated Internationally Accepted Standards of War

The targeting of civilian non-combatants was illegal under international law. Article 25 of Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague, II) which was ratified by the United States Senate in 1902 specifically forbids it.

The attack or bombardment of towns, villages, habitations or buildings which are not defended, is prohibited.

The United States Senate also ratified an updated version (Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague, IV),  in 1908.

Article 24 of the Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare, The Hague, was drafted in 1923 though not adopted, it was supported by the United States. It contained the following language:

(1) Aerial bombardment is legitimate only when directed at a military objective, that is to say, an object of which the destruction or injury would constitute a distinct military advantage to the belligerent.

(2) Such bombardment is legitimate only when directed exclusively at the following objectives: military forces; military works; military establishments or depots; factories constituting important and well-known centres engaged in the manufacture of arms, ammunition or distinctively military supplies; lines of communication or transportation used for military purposes.

(3) The bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings not in the immediate neighborhood of the operations of land forces is prohibited. In cases where the objectives specified in paragraph 2 are so situated, that they cannot be bombarded without the indiscriminate bombardment of the civilian population, the aircraft must abstain from bombardment.

In 1938, only a year prior to the formal beginning of World War II, the League of Nations issued a unanimous resolution that directly addressed the targeting of civilians. It stated:

(1) The intentional bombing of civilian populations is illegal

(2)  Objectives aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be identifiable;

(3) Any attack on legitimate military objectives must be carried out in such a way that civilian populations in the neighbourhood are not bombed through negligence;

President Roosevelt himself drafted a letter on September 1, 1939, the day war formally began in Europe, admonishing all combatants to refrain from bombing civilian populations.

The ruthless bombing from the air of civilians in unfortified centers of population during the course of the hostilities which have raged in various quarters of the earth during the past few years, which has resulted in the maiming and in the death of thousands of defenseless men, women, and children, has sickened the hearts of every civilized man and woman, and has profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity.

If resort is had to this form of inhuman barbarism during the period of the tragic conflagration with which the world is now confronted, hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who have no responsibility for, and who are not even remotely participating in, the hostilities which have now broken out, will lose their lives. I am therefore addressing this urgent appeal to every government which may be engaged in hostilities publicly to affirm its determination that its armed forces shall in no event, and under no circumstances, undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations or of unfortified cities, upon the understanding that these same rules of warfare will be scrupulously observed by all of their opponents. I request an immediate reply.

While it is clear through examination of internationally accepted warfare rules, that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of questionable legality, in the interest of fairness it must be pointed out that the United States was not the only nation to target a civilian population.

Beginning in December 1939, Imperial Japanese troops murdered an estimated 12,000 Chinese civilians in what has become known as the Nanking Massacre. By war’s end Imperial Japan would be responsible for the killing of around six million civilians in the territories they occupied.

Nazi Germany bombed London relentlessly between September 1940 and May 1941, including a 57 day stretch where bombings occurred nightly. An estimated 43,000 civilians perished in the Blitzkreig. Later in 1944, German rockets killed almost 9,000 civilians. In all German bombing campaigns against Poland, the USSR, Great Britain, and Yugoslavia was responsible for 600,000 civilian deaths.

Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo were firebombed by allied forces. The bombing of Hamburg caused caused over 50,000 deaths, mostly civilian, and left over one million German citizens homeless. The well known bombing of Dresden killed anywhere between 25,000 and 35,000 civilians.

The firebombing of Tokyo, in March 0f 1945, resulted in the complete destruction of 16 square miles worth of the city and over 100,000 killed, more than the immediate death tolls from either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Napalm was the incendiary agent used for the bombing. By the end of the war some 50% of Tokyo had been destroyed. Some historians believe the fugure of 100,000 might be drastically low. Both sides had something to gain by under-reporting the death toll. It was that bombing raid that caused Emperor Hirohito to become personally involved in the peace process.

2. The Japanese Had Been Attempting to Surrender Long Before August 6, 1945

By 1945, Imperial Japanese forces had suffered a nearly two year long streak of defeats. Having already lost in the Marianas and the Phillipines, the first half of 1945 would see the Japanese lose battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The Imperial Japanese Navy was no longer an effective fighting force having reduced numbers of ships, and no way to fuel them due to an effective Allied Naval blockade. Strategic bombing of Japanese industry had crippled her ability to fight any sort of effective war. Realization began to set in the defeat was inevitable.

By the end of January 1945, some elements in the Japanese government that were close to Emperor Hirohito began to seek out surrender term which would preserve the status of the Emperor. General MacArthur assembled a 40 page dossier and gave it to President Roosevelt on February 2, 1945, two days during leaving for Yalta. President Roosevelt reportedly dismissed the dossier out of hand since the Allied policy was “Unconditional Surrender”. It must also be pointed out that while some Japanese officials favored an early end to the war through a negotiated surrender, that was not the position of all Japanese wartime officials.

In February of 1945 Emperor Hirohito was advised by Prince Fumimaro Konoe that the imperial house might be in more danger from internal threats than allied defeats. The Emperor at that point wanted the war to continue, hoping to win a small military advance, making the chances for a conditional surrender better. That same month Japan’s treaty division postulated how the allies might treat a defeated Japan. Since the status of the Emperor was in question, the terms were unacceptable.

On April 5, 1945, the Soviet Union informed Japan that it did not intend to renew the Neutrality Pact signed in 1941. Significant concessions had been made to the Soviets at Yalta whereupon they agreed to enter the Pacific War three months after the defeat of Germany.

In May 1945  the Japanese Big Six began high level talks where the possibilty of ending the war was seriously discussed for the first time. The Big Six consisted of:

Prime Minister: Admiral Kantarō Suzuki

Minister of Foreign Affairs: Shigenori Tōgō

Minister of the Army: General Korechika Anami

Minister of the Navy: Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai

Chief of the Army General Staff: General Yoshijirō Umezu

Chief of the Navy General Staff: Admiral Koshirō Oikawa (later replaced by Admiral Soemu Toyoda)

As a result of these meetings Tōgō was authorized to approach to Moscow in order to convince the Soviets to maintain their neutrality. He carried this message:

It should be clearly made known to Russia that she owes her victory over Germany to Japan, since we remained neutral, and that it would be to the advantage of the Soviets to help Japan maintain her international position, since they have the United States as an enemy in the future.

In June 1945 Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko advised the Emperor of the dire situation that Japan found herself in. The Emperor’s hope of achieving a final military victory faded. Hirohito was known to have said:

I was told that the iron from bomb fragments dropped by the enemy was being used to make shovels. This confirmed my opinion that we were no longer in a position to continue the war.

He also said in that month:

I desire that concrete plans to end the war, unhampered by existing policy, be speedily studied and that efforts made to implement them.

An effort was made to enlist the Soviet Union to bring about a surrender. The Japanese hope was that the Soviet Union might use her influence on the Western Allies in securing a peace. In an exchange between the Japanese Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Naotake Satō, and Tōgō it was made clear that any surrender agreed upon by Japan would necessarily include the preservation of the Imperial House.

The United States had long ago broken the Japanese code, so any communication between Japanese officials and any thrid party was known to the United States nearly as quickly as it was to the intended recipient.

On July 2, 1945, United States Secretary of War Henry Stimson advised President Harry S Truman that allowing for the retention of the Emperor might make peace more likely.

I personally think that if in saying this we should add that we do not exclude a constitutional monarchy under her present dynasty, it would substantially add to the chances of acceptance.

Stimson’s advice was ignored and the surrender demand known as the Postdam Declaration (July 26, 1945) did not include language which described what the status of the Imperial Throne would be. Instead the declaration called for an unconditional surrender.

The Japanese surrender which came a few weeks later was an acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. In the final analysis, Hirohito remained as Emperor of Japan, a position he enjoyed until his death in 1989.

It is befuddling to imagine that the Allies desired to prolong a war that a clearly defeated Japan was seeking to end. The retention of the Emperor, which was their one demand, was ultimately met. United States officials, including President Truman knew that the war could come to a swift conclusion if the Allies had only made that single concession.

But rather than bring the war to a hasty conclusion earlier in 1945, the war continued. A defeated and desperate Japan suffered the indignity of unnecessary nuclear destruction. While  Hiroshima and Nagasaki did contain some legitimate military targets, the nature of the bomb made the destruction of those particular targets and only those targets without civilian casulaties an impossibilty.  And Japan was left with a lasting legacy of the hibakusha, the atomic bomb survivors, many who would die shortly of radiation sickness, and many who still linger to this day having suffered the effects of the bomb. There is evidence to suggest that some of them have been discriminated against by their own people and many do not want their status as hibakusha known.

3. U.S. Military and Civilian Leaders Believed the Atomic Bomb was Unnecessary 

Rear Admiral Ellis M. Zacarias:  I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds. I contend that the A-bombing of Japan is now known to have been a mistake and that we should admit it if we are to regain our traditional position as a leader among humanitarian nations.

 

Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard: Ever since I have been in touch with this program I have had a feeling that before the bomb is actually used against Japan that Japan should have some preliminary warning for say two or three days in advance of use. The position of the United States as a great humanitarian nation and the fair play attitude of our people generally is responsible in the main for this feeling.

 

Leo Szilard: Atomic bombs are primarily a means for the ruthless annihilation of cities. Once they were introduced as an instrument of war it would be difficult to resist for long the temptation of putting them to such use. The last few years show a marked tendency toward increasing ruthlessness. At present our Air Forces, striking at the Japanese cities, are using the same methods of warfare which were condemned by American public opinion only a few years ago when applied by the Germans to the cities of England. Our use of atomic bombs in this war would carry the world a long way further on this path of ruthlessness.

 

Dwight D. Eisenhower:  Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent. “During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude…”

 

Admiral William D. Leahy:  “It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. “The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

 

Herbert Hoover: “The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul.” ….”the Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945…up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; …if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs.”

 

General Douglas McArthur:  Norman Cousins, a consultant to General MacArthur wrote of the general. “MacArthur’s views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed.” He continues, “When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.”

Federal Council of Churches: (1946) As American Christians, we are deeply penitent for the irresponsible use already made of the atomic bomb. We are agreed that, whatever be one’s judgment of the war in principle, the surprise bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are morally indefensible.

Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz: The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan.

If the utter destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been militarily necessary, it could have been accomplished by firebombing in a similar fashion that was employed against Tokyo and other Japanese cities. There was no legitimate military reason to visit Truman’s rain of ruin  upon those two cities.

Was the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Justified? – Part 1

I will be presenting this post in three parts. My original intent was to make it one big post, but as I researched and wrote, it gradually became so big and unwieldy that I think the best thing to do is split it up. Be warned that this series of posts is not very likely to entertain you, but if you will be patient and read the material presented, you will have a deeper understanding of one of the pivotal moments in human history.

Foreword: Any discussion concerning the use of nuclear weapons tends to be spirited at least and openly hostile at worst. The intent of this series of posts is not to smear the American fighting men of World War II who served with honor, with valor, with bravery, and with distinction. What Tom Brokaw has labelled the greatest generation left home as boys and through the hardships and sacrifices of war returned as men, tempered and resolute, to forge the modern society that we still enjoy today. Many have passed from life into history, and the ones who remain bear the wrinkles of time. I humbly thank them for their service.

Introduction:

On August 6, 1945 an American B-29 super-fortress, the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb nicknamed “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, another B-29, Bocks Car, dropped the second atomic bomb, “Fat Man” on the city of Nagasaki. In both cities, unimaginable destruction and horrific death followed. In the years since the bombings, it has been widely believed that dropping the bombs saved lives, both American and Japanese, but is that a factual assessment or an opinion based on repeated tellings, popular sentiment,  and a carefully crafted government “official reason”? It is my contention that the use of these terrible weapons on the civilian population of Japan was unnecessary and unwarranted.

It will be impossible to exhaust a subject such as this with a series of  blog posts, nor will I try. My intent is to provide a summary of the salient events and points, providing links for the interested reader should more information be desired. This topic will be presented in three sections.

1. The History of the Atomic Bomb.
2. Arguments Against Using the Atomic Bomb.
3. Reasons Why the Atomic Bomb May Have Been Used.

“Little Boy” – the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima

1. The History of The Atomic Bomb

The genesis of what would become the atomic age occurred almost 50 years prior to Hiroshima when French physicist Henri Becquerel noticed that uranium gave off a radiation that fogged film. Two years later in 1896, Marie Curie discovered noticed that thorium gave off similar radiation and formally called it radioactivity. In 1903 a chemist from New Zealand, Ernest Rutherford,  began to postulate the possibility of atomic energy. And in 1905 well  known scientist, Albert Einstein, presented his now famous special theory of relativity and explained radioactivity as a mass energy equivalence.

“Fat-Man” – the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki

Beginning in August of 1939,  Albert Einstein and a Hungarian physicist, Leó Szilárd wrote the first in a series of four letters  alerting President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the possibility of  creating atomic bombs. The final letter, dated March 25, 1945, expressed deep concerns over the use of nuclear weapons. It never reached President Roosevelt; he died on April 12, 1945.

Motivated by fears that Nazi Germany had begun to conduct research into the potential for atomic weapons, the United States began her own research into the subject. The Uranium Committee , headed by Lyman Briggs was formed in 1939 at the direction of President Roosevelt.

By mid 1942, with the United States directly involved in World War II, the research committe had become the Manhattan Project, a massive project with 30 over thirty sites although most of the research was conducted at three specific locations: Los Alamos, New Mexico, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. Administered by the Army Corp of Engineers, the Manhattan Project was headed up by General Leslie R. Groves. J. Robert Oppenheimer  was the lead scientist. So secret was the project that the governor of Tennessee was unaware of its existence within his own state.

“The Gadget” Fully assembled and ready to be tested.

Several years of research resulted in the Trinity test near Alamogordo, New Mexico. On July 16th, 1945, the United States detonated an implosion type plutonium bomb nicknamed “the Gadget.”  (The bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Fat Man, was of the same type.) The resulting explosion was the equivalent of 20 kilotons of  TNT. The resulting fireball was about 600 feet wide and blasted a crater ten feet deep and 1100 feet wide. Sand was instantly turned into radioactive glass. The mushroom cloud rose 7 miles into the atmosphere. In reaction, Oppenheimer quoted a passage from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. He said: “I am become death. The destroyer of worlds. Test director, Kenneth Bainbridge said to Oppenheimer, “Now we are all sons of bitches.”

Fireball from Trinity test, July 16, 1945

Following the successful test of the Gadget, two bombs were prepared.  The order to use Atomic weapons against Japanese cities was issued on July 25, 1945 by General Carl Spaatz who was the commanding general of the United States Army Strategic Air Forces.  Four targets were identified: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. These cities were unscathed from Allied bombing attacks, enabling the United States to better judge the effects of the weapons.

On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, commanded and piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr.,  took off from Tinian in the Western Pacific.  The Enola Gay was accompanied by two other B-29s, The Great Artiste, which carried instrumentation, and Necessary Evil, which carried the photography crew. It was a six hour flight to the target. The bomb was armed in route by Navy Captain William Parsons. The safeties were removed by 2nd Lt. Morris Jeppson about 30 minutes before arrival at the target.

Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr. and the Enola Gay

Enola Gay arrived over the target at 8:15 am local time at an altitude of  32,000 feet, and released “Little Boy”. The aiming point was the Aioi Bridge but due to crosswinds missed by about 800 feet, exploding 1900 feet above the city. Ground zero was the Shima Surgical Center.

“Little Boy” was a gun type fission weapon and  was highly inefficient. Only about 1.38% of the nuclear material fissioned. Even so, the yield was the equivalent of 13 kiltons of TNT. The radius of total destruction was a mile wide. Another 4.4 miles was consumed in fire. The fireball from the blast was 1200 feet in diameter and had a temperature of 7200 degrees F. At least 69% of all Hiroshima’s buildings were completely destroyed. Some 70,000 to 80,000 people were instantly killed. Anyone near ground zero was instantly vaporized or incinerated into carbon. Another 70,000 were injured.

Aftermath of Hiroshima attack

Three days later, on August 9, 1945, Nagasaki was bombed. While the mission to Hiroshima proceeded without a hitch, the deployment and use of “Fat Man” would not be as easily accomplished. The B-29, Bockscar, commanded by Major Charles W. Sweeney failed to rendezous with another B-29, Big Stink, which carried the photographic equipment as well as some scientific instrumentation. Sweeney circled at the rendezous point for thirty minutes before making the decision to proceed without Big Stink. The primary target was Kokura. Upon arriving, the B-29 crews found the city obscured by a heavy cloud cover. After making three passes over the city, Sweeney abandoned Kokura as a target and headed to the secondary target, Nagasaki. A last minute break in cloud cover allowed a visual sighting by Bockscar’s bombadier Captain Kermit Beahan.

 “Fat Man” was dropped at 11:01 am local time and exploded with the equivalent force of 21 kilotons of TNT. Along with the fireball and intense heat, winds were generated that were 624 miles per hour. The bomb missed the planned hypocenter by two miles, exploding between Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south and Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works (Torpedo Works) in the north. Due to the surrounding hills, parts of the city were spared damage with most of it contained within the Urakami Valley.

Anywhere between 40,000 and 75,000 people were instantly killed and 80,000 people may have died as a direct result of the bombing by the end of 1945.

On August 15, 1945 at 12:00 local time Emperor Hirihito broadcast the Gyokuon-hōsō or capitulation announcement. In his speech, he included these words:

“The enemy now possesses a new and terrible weapon with the power to destroy many innocent lives and do incalculable damage.”

Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989)

With the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945, World War II officially came to an end.