3. HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI
Was it inevitable? There was some debate about dropping the atomic bomb at the time, among the scientists, government officials, and even some in the military. Certainly, there has been much debate since then, but the facts remain: Two Japanese cities were obliterated, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese people were horribly killed. And what can we learn from those facts, to help us understand our recent history, and make reasoned choices for our future?
After Trinity, there were no doubts about the technology. Atomic bombs worked. There were questions about which of the 2 bomb types would work more reliably, how much damage the different configurations would produce, and which targets would be most effective. There was the question of whether Japan was ready to keep fighting, or surrender. There were external political questions about how soon the Soviet Union would invade Japan, and how much booty they would demand, and internal political questions about how much money the Manhattan Project had cost, and what benefit had been achieved.
About the bomb itself: There were 2 basic configurations, a gun type, in which one U235 core was slammed into another inside a tube, with enough pressure to ignite them both at once; and the implosion type, a spherical arrangement of layers of explosives surrounding a plutonium core. The Trinity test had been of the implosion type. It was decided to deploy a gun type over Hiroshima, and implosion type over Nagasaki.
The targets had been chosen by a committee, from among the few large Japanese cities that had not yet been destroyed by US firebombing. There were no strictly military targets left, but factories, administrative offices, transportation terminals, and large residential areas were grouped together densely enough in several cities to make single bomb strikes effective. Also under consideration was terrain: Hiroshima was especially suitable, because it lay in a shallow valley surrounded by hills that would concentrate the blast effect. Finally the cities were ranked in order of potential destruction, weather-related availability, and how much terror and loss of morale each one’s destruction would produce among the Japanese population.
Japan was nearing complete collapse. There were divisions in the government and military, some hardliners determined to go on fighting until the last soldier died, and others who recognized the war was already lost, and wished to salvage whatever was left of their country. At the time of the Potsdam Conference, the last two weeks of July 1945, Japan had made offers of surrender, contingent only on the US agreeing to allow the Emperor to survive and retain his title. The US war plan called for an invasion of Japan, to begin as soon as the firebombing of the major cities was complete. This invasion plan predicted high US casualties, as it expected that the Japanese would fiercely defend their homeland and fight to the last man. The Soviet Army was assembling in Manchuria, because the European war was already over, and had announced its readiness to invade Japan. It was clear that if they landed on the Japanese mainland first, they would claim victory, and demand a large share of control, to make up for their having such a small part of the spoils in Germany. At the Potsdam Conference, Stalin announced that the Red Army would attack immediately, while Truman, proud of his new weapon of mass destruction, became convinced that the Russians needed to be properly intimidated. The bomb would certainly do that. General Eisenhower advised against dropping the bomb, but to no avail.
August 6, 1945, at 8:16 AM local time, the twelve man crew of the B-29 Enola Gay detonated the first atomic bomb 1900 feet above Shima Hospital, in the middle of Hiroshima. It exploded with the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT. Of Hiroshima’s 400,000 residents, by 9:00 AM, 140,000 were dead or dying. The blast waves and firestorm incinerated everything and everybody within a half mile of the explosion center. The rest of the city burned over the next few days, and victims of radiation burns and poisoning continued dying for many years.
Journalist John Hersey went to Hiroshima days after the explosion, to witness the destruction and interview survivors, and his book Hiroshima is still the most accurate and humane description of what befell that city. I personally recommend that if you want to understand this tragedy, this book should be your first to read, and if you have read it, like me, many years ago, read it again. There are many more excellent books, and some of my favorites are listed in the booklist.
The Japanese government did not immediately surrender. It is unclear what President Truman had expected, but it took several days for the Emperor and his government to find out just how badly Hiroshima had been damaged, and because they had been experiencing the firebombing of other cities for several months, it was most surprising to discover that this attack was the work of a single plane dropping a single bomb. Before they had time to digest this information and make new plans, another attack came.
August 9, 1945, at 11:02 AM local time, the second atomic bomb was dropped, on Nagasaki. This one was an implosion device fueled with plutonium; it detonated 1600 feet above the city, with the explosive force of 22,000 tons of TNT. The results were just as ghastly. 70,000 people were destroyed immediately, and another 70,000 over the next few years, from severe burns and radiation sickness. The Japanese Emperor surrendered. There was another bomb on its way to the Pacific, but President Truman had had enough, too. It was never deployed.
Treating the severely burned and battered survivors, finding and burying the dead who had not been immediately vaporized, and rebuilding the structures and infrastructure of both these devastated cities, took many years, but healing the psychic and emotional shock-wounds is still underway. We cannot imagine the pain, the sorrow, the deep sense of loss that Japanese people have suffered. Our own sense of outrage and shared guilt has yet to be healed as well. Can they forgive us? Can we forgive ourselves? And how can we ensure that this madness is never repeated?
next: since 1945 >
Was it inevitable? There was some debate about dropping the atomic bomb at the time, among the scientists, government officials, and even some in the military. Certainly, there has been much debate since then, but the facts remain: Two Japanese cities were obliterated, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese people were horribly killed. And what can we learn from those facts, to help us understand our recent history, and make reasoned choices for our future?
After Trinity, there were no doubts about the technology. Atomic bombs worked. There were questions about which of the 2 bomb types would work more reliably, how much damage the different configurations would produce, and which targets would be most effective. There was the question of whether Japan was ready to keep fighting, or surrender. There were external political questions about how soon the Soviet Union would invade Japan, and how much booty they would demand, and internal political questions about how much money the Manhattan Project had cost, and what benefit had been achieved.
About the bomb itself: There were 2 basic configurations, a gun type, in which one U235 core was slammed into another inside a tube, with enough pressure to ignite them both at once; and the implosion type, a spherical arrangement of layers of explosives surrounding a plutonium core. The Trinity test had been of the implosion type. It was decided to deploy a gun type over Hiroshima, and implosion type over Nagasaki.
The targets had been chosen by a committee, from among the few large Japanese cities that had not yet been destroyed by US firebombing. There were no strictly military targets left, but factories, administrative offices, transportation terminals, and large residential areas were grouped together densely enough in several cities to make single bomb strikes effective. Also under consideration was terrain: Hiroshima was especially suitable, because it lay in a shallow valley surrounded by hills that would concentrate the blast effect. Finally the cities were ranked in order of potential destruction, weather-related availability, and how much terror and loss of morale each one’s destruction would produce among the Japanese population.
Japan was nearing complete collapse. There were divisions in the government and military, some hardliners determined to go on fighting until the last soldier died, and others who recognized the war was already lost, and wished to salvage whatever was left of their country. At the time of the Potsdam Conference, the last two weeks of July 1945, Japan had made offers of surrender, contingent only on the US agreeing to allow the Emperor to survive and retain his title. The US war plan called for an invasion of Japan, to begin as soon as the firebombing of the major cities was complete. This invasion plan predicted high US casualties, as it expected that the Japanese would fiercely defend their homeland and fight to the last man. The Soviet Army was assembling in Manchuria, because the European war was already over, and had announced its readiness to invade Japan. It was clear that if they landed on the Japanese mainland first, they would claim victory, and demand a large share of control, to make up for their having such a small part of the spoils in Germany. At the Potsdam Conference, Stalin announced that the Red Army would attack immediately, while Truman, proud of his new weapon of mass destruction, became convinced that the Russians needed to be properly intimidated. The bomb would certainly do that. General Eisenhower advised against dropping the bomb, but to no avail.
August 6, 1945, at 8:16 AM local time, the twelve man crew of the B-29 Enola Gay detonated the first atomic bomb 1900 feet above Shima Hospital, in the middle of Hiroshima. It exploded with the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT. Of Hiroshima’s 400,000 residents, by 9:00 AM, 140,000 were dead or dying. The blast waves and firestorm incinerated everything and everybody within a half mile of the explosion center. The rest of the city burned over the next few days, and victims of radiation burns and poisoning continued dying for many years.
Journalist John Hersey went to Hiroshima days after the explosion, to witness the destruction and interview survivors, and his book Hiroshima is still the most accurate and humane description of what befell that city. I personally recommend that if you want to understand this tragedy, this book should be your first to read, and if you have read it, like me, many years ago, read it again. There are many more excellent books, and some of my favorites are listed in the booklist.
The Japanese government did not immediately surrender. It is unclear what President Truman had expected, but it took several days for the Emperor and his government to find out just how badly Hiroshima had been damaged, and because they had been experiencing the firebombing of other cities for several months, it was most surprising to discover that this attack was the work of a single plane dropping a single bomb. Before they had time to digest this information and make new plans, another attack came.
August 9, 1945, at 11:02 AM local time, the second atomic bomb was dropped, on Nagasaki. This one was an implosion device fueled with plutonium; it detonated 1600 feet above the city, with the explosive force of 22,000 tons of TNT. The results were just as ghastly. 70,000 people were destroyed immediately, and another 70,000 over the next few years, from severe burns and radiation sickness. The Japanese Emperor surrendered. There was another bomb on its way to the Pacific, but President Truman had had enough, too. It was never deployed.
Treating the severely burned and battered survivors, finding and burying the dead who had not been immediately vaporized, and rebuilding the structures and infrastructure of both these devastated cities, took many years, but healing the psychic and emotional shock-wounds is still underway. We cannot imagine the pain, the sorrow, the deep sense of loss that Japanese people have suffered. Our own sense of outrage and shared guilt has yet to be healed as well. Can they forgive us? Can we forgive ourselves? And how can we ensure that this madness is never repeated?
next: since 1945 >