On this day in 1945, at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world’s first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout.
U.S. President Harry S. Truman, discouraged by the Japanese response to the Potsdam Conference’s demand for unconditional surrender, made the decision to use the atom bomb to end the war in order to prevent what he predicted would be a much greater loss of life were the United States to invade the Japanese mainland. And so on August 5, while a “conventional” bombing of Japan was underway, “Little Boy,” (the nickname for one of two atom bombs available for use against Japan), was loaded onto Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbets’ plane on Tinian Island in the Marianas. Tibbets’ B-29, named the Enola Gay after his mother, left the island at 2:45 a.m. on August 6. Five and a half hours later, “Little Boy” was dropped, exploding 1,900 feet over a hospital and unleashing the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT. The bomb had several inscriptions scribbled on its shell, one of which read “Greetings to the Emperor from the men of the Indianapolis” (the ship that transported the bomb to the Marianas).
There were 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima before the bomb was dropped; only 28,000 remained after the bombing. Of the city’s 200 doctors before the explosion; only 20 were left alive or capable of working. There were 1,780 nurses before-only 150 remained who were able to tend to the sick and dying.
According to John Hersey’s classic work Hiroshima, the Hiroshima city government had put hundreds of schoolgirls to work clearing fire lanes in the event of incendiary bomb attacks. They were out in the open when the Enola Gay dropped its load.
There were so many spontaneous fires set as a result of the bomb that a crewman of the Enola Gay stopped trying to count them. Another crewman remarked, “It’s pretty terrific. What a relief it worked.”
Are we sure? A lot of evidence tends to suggest both Nagasaki and Hiroshima were firebombed, a la Tokyo:
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Firebombing appears to have been quite the rage at the time..
One of the more remarkable facts about August 6th in Hiroshima is that only half a dozen photographs are known to exist that were taken that day and they were taken by one photographer.
There is a picture of some of those Japanese schoolgirls in their uniforms. They are standing and sitting by the road applying vegetable oil to the burns on their exposed skin. This was why the death toll was so high. The Japanese did not think this was a bomber attack. Only 3 B-29’s came and at very high altitude. It looked more like a routine photo recon or weather mission. The incendiary bombings from earlier that year involved hundreds of B-29s that came in low, under 10,000 feet.
Had the people of Hiroshima simply gotten off the streets and away from the ‘flash’ and intense radiation released as the fission reaction took place many if not most would have survived but the air raid warning sirens didn’t go off and as it was early morning and people on the way to their jobs thousands were outside fully exposed to the effects of the bomb.
I once read the story of a little girl who was vaporized by the blast, her image burned onto an adjacent concrete wall. Her mother kept that section of the wall as a remembrance. I wonder if the Enola Gay had a decal on it that read “God is my copilot”.
I grew up in Los Alamos, where the atomic bombs were built, and graduated from Los Alamos High School. There is a small corner of the local museum devoted to questions and outright protests about the use of the bombs in Japan. And that’s it, the only place where questions were raised about the ethics and morality of the bomb. It was never discussed in school, and while there may have been the occasional discussion among local residents, I don’t remember any in which I participated. My father did above-ground nuclear tests in southern Nevada in the 1950s, and he, like most everyone else, never talked about it. Los Alamos is filled with extremely bright people, it has the highest per capita concentration of PhDs in the world. But they, like most everyone else, do what they’re told. If any of the original Manhattan project scientists had qualms, they quietly left town. Oppenheimer drew the line at the much more deadly hydrogen bomb, and he was forced out. Everyone else learned their lesson.
There is no morality in war other than that involved in winning it.
Had Germany or Japan developed the atom bomb first, neither of them would have had any qualms about immediately using it against us.
Anon you beat me to it. A country wins wars by killing their enemies by score until they surrender or run out of people to fight. If dropping the bomb saved the life of one GI it would have been worth it.
All the bleeding hearts pissing and moaning about Atom bombs forget…
Pearl Harbour
Death March from Bataan
Rape of Nanking
Treatment of POW’s
Japan started it. The bombs ended it.
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Some pictures are worth a thousand thousand words. This is one of them. MacAurthur standing there Lording over the only God Japan ever knew.
Shows the totality of the defeat of Japan.
Unconditional Surrender is the BOMB!
Those pissing and moaning bleeding hearts would include Generals MacArthur, Eisenhower, and LeMay, Admirals Nimitz and Leahy, Herbert Hoover, Under Secy. of State Joseph Grew, Asst. Secy. or War John McCloy, Under Sec. of the Navy Ralph Bard, Vice Chairman, U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Paul Nitze, Albert Einstein, and Leo Szilard, among many prominent critics of the decision to drop the bomb at that time. For my sources see: http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm and
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-07/dropping-bomb-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-was-never-justified
The only condition the Japanese requested for a surrender was that they be allowed to retain the emperor, which the US allowed after the bombs and Japan’s unconditional surrender. The history Americans are fed about the atomic bomb is largely myth. The bomb was probably not even what prompted Japan’s surrender, but rather the Soviet Union’s preparations to invade Japan. See “The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan…Stalin Did,”
(paywall).
Dropping the bomb had little to do with defeating Japan, although Truman may have been bamboozled by his advisors, and everything to do with advertising US capabilities and staking a claim to post-war dominance and empire.
Using the Argument from Authority does not make you right. Everyone agrees that the Japs were beat. Yeah they would have surrendered soon. I go into it further but Bill Whittle does much better job explaining why it was right decision.
https://youtu.be/ylMbvf3sn_g
MacArthur for one thought War as a noble endeavour. He liked Wading in the Water rather than fighting to the death in muck and shit.
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The Japs deserved everything they got. And moar! They shouldn’t have been cashing cheques their asses couldn’t cash. One GI’s life was worth more than a million Japanese. Further more those bombs were meant as a deterence to Uncle Joe to having any notions of invading Hokkaido. Don’t think they wouldn’t have once the Marines invaded main Islands. They were already in the Kurils. What would have stopped them from moving along. Geeze they had already seized half of Korea. I wonder if they would have done that if those hombs were ready. And look how well that has turned out. Imagine the shit show if there had been a division of Japan.
The Monday Mourning QuarterBacks can cast their regrets. I for one think it was right thing done at the right time.
Let me see if I have this straight. Quotes from MacArthur are no good because he was a water wader, and contemporaneous quotes from other people who were actually involved in WWII are dismissed as arguments from authority and Monday morning quarterbacking. Yet, I’m supposed to burn 16 minutes listening to an “authority” on You Tube who wasn’t even alive during WWII, as he Monday morning quarterbacks the decision to drop the bomb (just because he agrees with the decision doesn’t mean he’s not Monday morning quarterbacking it–sometimes the Monday and Sunday quarterbacks are in agreement). Got it.
You got that right Jake. MacArthur felt war was a noble pursuit. He’d rather lead a million men from the rear and have a parade paid for with the lives of a million dead GI’s in the Streets of Tokyo. He knew that the war was won.
Dropping the Bomb spoiled the parade which to him wasn’t sporting and fair.
At the time.
What is really fucken’ hilarious is when the Chinese marched across the Yalu River the ole blowhard MacArthur pleaded and contradicted Truman. Worried about defeat and his precious legacy he decided that now’s the time to drop an A-bomb on the Reds.
He ended up relieved of Command. Yet here you are using him as a reference to back your argument. I guess Japs are worth more than Chinks.
They deserved it. Prod the bull and you get the horns.
Feed the bull & you get the shit. This case that includes making the land of the free shit army & the home of the knave the china shop. Pots’ll be happy again, once they’re sherds.
Robert Gore, I’ve seen your contributions on a number of occasions, and while this post you wrote was short, it’s packed with truth for anybody who is willing to see it. The Foreign Policy article you quoted is extremely informative.
Something I’ve written here before (namely, on a thread regarding the hatred North Korea has towards the United States – https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/04/18/the-historic-and-factual-basis-of-n-koreas-hatred-of-the-us/) is that the true historian is he who does not allow political biases to prevent him from directly facing facts which may challenge his longstanding views.
One of the URLs you posted has a quote from Admiral William D. Healy. Below is the longer text from which that quote is taken.
“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.”
It must be noted that Healy was the Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief and the highest-ranking active duty U.S. military officer during World War II.
In response to Japanese atrocities:
Pearl Harbor – certainly an infamous attack, but the Japanese targeted a military installation. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities. And there is evidence indicating that the U.S. knew the Japanese were planning an attack, yet FDR did nothing to stop it or to at least warn the Navy about it.
Bataan Death March – indeed, the Japanese were not kind to POWs. Ditto for all armies during that war.
Rape of Nanking – an incident stupefying in its hellish horror. But why did Japanese women and children need to be fried alive as payback for what Japanese soldiers did to Chinese civilians?
Treatment of POW’s – already dealt with.
Regarding the use of the bomb as deterrence against the USSR, the USSR was not dissuaded from invading Manchuria and Korea, which were then under Japanese control. It must be noted that the August 8th attack by the Soviets, which happened after Moscow declared war, was Stalin keeping his word to Harry Truman at Yalta that the USSR would join the fight vs. Japan 3 months after the Germans surrendered – which they did on May 8th. The Soviets kept their promise to the day.
If the question of “deserving punishment” will be mentioned as justification for the detonation of a nuclear weapon over a city, Japan, not Korea, should have been divided. The Soviets could have easily taken all of Korea as their armies crushed Japanese troops in both Manchuria and in northern Korea, but it was at the request of the U.S. that the Soviets stopped at the 38th parallel.
As for Bill Whittle: I have seen a lot of his videos and tend to agree with him on most things, but he’s dead wrong on this issue. I would rather defer to Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, and other wartime heroes who were there and lived it all than someone who by virtue of ideological agenda (an agenda which I tend to agree with on other issues, at least for the most part) wants to justify actions which constitute a war crime simply because the actor was his own government.
Thanks for the intellectual support, and thanks for taking the time to post this well thought out post.
The Crusader for Just Wars must have had a change of heart
In an interview with Jim G. Lucas and Bob Considine on 25 January 1954, posthumously published in 1964, MacArthur said
Of all the campaigns of my life, 20 major ones to be exact, [Korea was] the one I felt most sure of was the one I was deprived of waging. I could have won the war in Korea in a maximum of 10 days…. I would have dropped between 30 and 50 atomic bombs on his air bases and other depots strung across the neck of Manchuria…. It was my plan as our amphibious forces moved south to spread behind us—from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea—a belt of radioactive cobalt. It could have been spread from wagons, carts, trucks and planes…. For at least 60 years there could have been no land invasion of Korea from the north. The enemy could not have marched across that radiated belt.”
Of course in his mind they are all Military targets. I realize that I am straying from original argument but using that blowhard to back an argument on the injust use of atomic weapons does not help make a case.
Just sayin’
Oh yeah I really like your comment about superior intellect.
MacArthur was a mastermind, but not a perfect one. The same MacArthur who said he could have won the Korean War in 10 days had told Truman in mid-Oct. 1950 China would have stayed out of that war. Weeks later, the Chinese People’s Volunteers (hundreds of thousands of them) forced the X Corps and the 8th Army to flee.
Furthermore, the “belt of radioactive cobalt” would have made northern Korea, Manchuria, the extreme east of the USSR (the tip touching China and Korea), and possibly Japan uninhabitable; at the very least, millions of Koreans, Chinese, Russians, and Japanese would have died outright or slowly suffered over decades due to radiation.
Not the way to win a war, unless winning is defined by killing everybody nearby – including millions of the ethnic brethren (including separated family members) of the people & nation (in this case, South Korea) whom you are ostensibly fighting for.
That may not be true. The Japanese had developed a deadly biological weapon and tested it against chinese civilians. They never deployed it.
When you start a war you must be prepared for the consequences of actions for or against and being prepared is just wishful thinking at best . As for morality , I grew up knowing a nurse who survived the Bataan death march ! Her only comment was The God Dam Japanese ! She worked the emergency room in a popular hospital in Baltimore till she passed away from cancer in 1969 . Funny after her experiences she always carryed a gun ! May you Rest In Peace Miss Helen a survivor !
I’d be careful all you slaughter apologists and arm chair strategists, the atrocities you point out made by Imperial Japan can now easily be compared to those the u. s. government is guilty of; preemptive war, millions of murdered innocents, millions more displaced, brutal rule over subjugated nations that had no real defense against attack, torture; a list every bit as immoral as anything Tojo was hung for. Just what’s happening in Yemen alone is enough justification to restart the Nuremberg trials with your dear old uncle sam’s ass in the witness stand.
Check out the opinions of admirals Leahy, King and Halsey, generals MacArthur, Bradley and Ike on the subject. Knowing war 1st hand and the misery and horror it brings adds a context much more prescient and wise than the comic book version heard here.
CC Rider the things done in WW2 do not compare to today’s carnage by Americans . I have posted multiple times what foolish endevours my nation has embarked on in my life time from Vietnam to now and had family and friends pay the ultimate price . There service and duty deserve my respect and the politicians and military industrial complex that made fortunes from their sacrifices deserve nothing less than our hatred and resolve . Our kids fight and die or are damaged for life so some rich prick can shed a tear at a ball game from a box seat with his kids near by as the national anthem is played .
It so discourages me that the inane drivel heard on above comments come from TBP contributors. I expect it from the average dope getting his ‘news’ from tv.
I would caution the use of ‘we’ and ‘us and ‘my’ when talking about the actions of the federal gov’t. It’s THEM not us.
I come down on the side of those who say we were justified in dropping the bomb.
However,we should not have had to use it.The Japs had been trying to surrender for well over a year and the Russian spies in the govt(Alger Hiss & others)rebuffed them because it was not to Russia’s advantage for Japan to surrender.
We lost a hellacious amount of blood and treasure taking some of those islands that we took in the Pacific,after the Japs were trying to surrender.Probably north of 75,000 kia s and innumerable injuries and head cases.
Total war, subtotal people. Net negative people. Perdue school of social engineering graduates, all. “We.”
Vonnegut. Smedley Butler. Lot’s of experience-taught. But even a smattering of imagination, thought-experimentation is enough to reach experience’s conclusions, albeit less viscerally. Inference is there’s not gobs of imagination, thought-experimentation, distributed across the bell-toll curve. Or maybe it’s love that’s thin. Not the word “love,” tho, of course.
“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, ‘It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.’ It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: ‘if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?’ There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.
Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.” ― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five
There are plenty of good reasons for fighting…but no good reason to ever hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty hates with you, too. Where’s evil? It’s that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It’s that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive….it’s that part of an imbecile that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
The war was merely the excuse for using the bomb. Nagasaki and Hiroshima had been deliberately spared conventional bombing so that virgin targets would be available. The military wanted to study their effects on a civilian populace. It was a monumental war crime.
War crimes are determined by the winners. If you are involved in a war , you had better make damned sure you win.
Hopefully God has something to say about that.
The bomb in all actuality saved my uncles life. He piloted a LST which the GI’s said it stood for Large Stationary Target but really meant Landing Ship Troops. So my uncle got to be a tourist of sorts instead of being shot at while landing his troops on the beach. One aspect of dropping the bomb, that I haven’t seen mentioned yet, was to avoid splitting Japan in two like Germany was and having to share the occupational duties with the Soviets.