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The Japanese government didn’t really know what had happened in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. In fact, no one in the country knew. What the surviving residents of the decimated city did know was that they had lived through one of the most horrific events in the history of warfare. Tokyo had been fire-bombed back in March (as had numerous other cities), but this was different. The burns were different, the deaths were different, the destruction was different.
Shortly after Little Boy had done its damage, the Truman Administration had reiterated to the Japanese government its call for unconditional surrender. But the Japanese still waffled. They desperately wanted the Emperor to remain in power, they didn’t want an occupation force in the homeland to oversee disarmament, and they wanted to be in charge of war crimes trials. But much like the end of the war in Europe, a conditional surrender was unacceptable.
And so another B-29, Bockscar, was loaded, this time with the same Plutonium-239 weapon tested just weeks before at Alamogordo. Called “Fat Man“, it utilized a small Plutonium sphere, surrounded by explosives, which in turn was surrounded by detonators. The detonators would fire the explosives simultaneously, compressing the Plutonium onto itself, causing a nuclear reaction. Well, that’s the layman’s description.
The designated target was the city of Kokura, with Nagasaki as the secondary. When Bockscar arrived over Kokura (late due to a rendevouz mishap), the once visible city was blanketed with clouds. Unable to drop the device and getting low on fuel, the B-29 crew made its way to Nagasaki, where clouds also obscured the target. After flying around for a bit, a break in the clouds allowed the target to be seen and, at 11:02am on August 9, 1945, Nagasaki became the 2nd (and hopefully last) city to feel the effects of atomic destruction, as Fat Man exploded with the force equivalent to 42,000,000 pounds of TNT. Like Hiroshima, death counts are impossible to pinpoint, but 60,000 immediate deaths is not far from the mark. And like Hiroshima, thousands more would die later from radiation poisoning.
And still the Japanese military government waffled, but this time the Emperor, sensing the Allied terms included the possibility of him remaining in power, decided enough was enough. His message of surrender was recorded, he narrowly escaped death when a coup (from military personnel determined to continue fighting) sought to eliminate him, and Japan capitulated on August 15th.
Offering opinions is not generally my way. I’m too new to writing, and lack the insight to really speak to the morality of the atomic bombs dropped. I don’t know Japanese history or culture well enough to know if, given more time, they would have ended the conflict without the need for WMD’s. It’s possible, though their methods of fighting throughout the Pacific certainly argue against that.
Maybe the U.S. government lacked the patience to wait. An impending invasion of Japan, based again on prior experience, looked to be horrifically expensive in terms of lives lost. And the U.S. certainly had conventional means to inflict tremendous suffering. The Tokyo bombing we looked at in March proved that. In fact, nearly as many people died or were injured then as were in both atomic attacks combined.
At the end of it (and this will sound really trite), war is sometimes necessary. But even if the ends are moral, the means never are. Whether by bullet to the head, or sword across the neck, or cyanide in the chamber, or by bombs from the air, or by microscopic bits of matter being converted directly to energy, the same terrible result occurs…man’s inhumanity to man.
Today's History Lesson 