On this day, August 6th, at this spot

[gary]

Some years ago, I stood in front of a plaque outside of a car-park in a little side-street in
Japan. There was nothing particularly distinguished about the street. It could
have been a lane way anywhere in the world. Apart from the plaque, there was
no visual indication that anything out of the ordinary had ever happened there.

Here is a picture of the street -
http://www.nextstopworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/IMG_2966-hypocenter-plaque-WS.jpg

You can never really say you have been to some particular place, only that you have
been to that place at a particular moment in time.

As I read the words on the plaque I pondered what it must have been like at this place
at that instant in time only a few short decades earlier.

Some of the words read that the heat rays had reached approximately 3000C to 4000C.
Temperatures that I associated with the surfaces of some stars.

The words in full read -


The plaque here -
http://www.nextstopworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/IMG_2965-hypocenter-plaque-text.jpg

[Steffen]

One of the greatest war crimes never punished.

[TrevorW]

On Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., the Atomic Bomb (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Bomb) "Little Boy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy)" was dropped on Hiroshima by an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_Gay), flown by Paul Tibbets, directly killing an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought total casualties to 90,000–140,000. The population before the bombing was around 340,000 to 350,000. Approximately 69% of the city's buildings were completely destroyed, and another 79% severely damaged.

A now deceased friend of mine who served in the British Occupation Forces after the end of the war once showed me photo's of peoples shadows etched for eternity into the pavement and sides of buildings from these bombings, lets hope we never see the likes of this again.

However stating it as a war crime is dubious when you consider that the Japanese were responsible for around 20-30 million civilian deaths during WW2.

[Nightshift]

Hmmm, interesting take on this.

It isnt a crime to drop a bomb on an industrial city when you are at war with the country that the city is in, that indeed is "war", no crime was commited, the Germans did it for months on London, the nature of the weapon is irrelevant. However, the real question is, did the bomb dropped on Nagasaki occur before or after the Japanese surrendered? Some say the Japs had offered a surrender but the Yanks dropped it anyway, payback for Pearl, we may never know but if this is true then that would be a war crime. Google this subject and you will find equal arguements for both cases so I dont know.

[gary]

In the 1960's a group of Japanese historians interviewed surviving witnesses to
the Japanese surrender decision. They published a book "Nihon no Ichiban Nagai Hi"
(Japan's Longest Day) in 1965 that provides the account.

Despite the bombing of Hiroshima on the 6th, the Supreme War Council didn't
do anything until the morning after the Russians declared war on the 8th.
They met on the morning of the 9th and they were still split on the decision
to surrender. During the meeting, news came through that Nagasaki had also
been bombed.

in the early hours of the 10th, they were still arguing amongst themselves but
by 4am had drafted a formal note of surrender for cabinet approval. It
included wording to the effect that the allies pay respect to the Emperor.

It is important to keep in mind that the Allies back on July 26th issued
the Potsdam Declaration which spelt out the terms of surrender including that
those in authority who had led Japan into war would be removed.

Later on August 10th, B-29's fire bombed Tokyo.

The US reply came in th early hours of the 12th but they changed the wording
so that the the Emperor would be under their control.

In Japan, Hirohito accepted the US terms on the 14th, but even then there was
an attempt at a coup. On the 15th, the Japanese people heard Hirohito's voice for
the very first time when he broadcast the surrender on radio.

Amazon still has copies of the English translation of "Japan's Longest Day".
Given it is based on original sources, it remains amongst the most credible
of accounts for students of history -
http://www.amazon.com/Japans-Longest-Day-Kazutoshi-Hando/dp/0870114220/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1375760727&sr=8-3&keywords=japan%27s+longest+day

[AstralTraveller]

I was in town this morning for the commemoration ceremony. The address was given by a very old friend, with her mostly in tears - she visited Hiroshima last year. The bombing occurred 68 years ago. I really hope that humanity can say in 168, 268, 1068 years time that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only two cities ever to have that crime inflicted upon them. And yes it was a crime, just as all war is a crime and failure of humanity.

My mother-in-law was an infant in Duisburg when the allies were bombing the Ruhr night and day. She wasn't even born when Hitler came to power, none of her family supported Hitler or wanted war. Her grandfather risked the death penalty by listening to allied radio. Yet she sometimes spent days underground while the earth shook and when she was allowed out whole city blocks she once knew were rubble. The trauma of those events is still being felt today - it's being felt by people who were not even alive at the time. How is that not a crime?

My understanding is that after the Battle of the Phillipines, and especially after the Battle of the Sea of Japan (which was more turkey shoot than battle), Japan was a spent force. Its air force was destroyed and, as was seen in Europe, once that happens the war is over. My belief is that the bombs were not needed to make Japan surrender, nor were they dropped in vengeance. Those explosions were to show to the world in general and to the USSR in particular the might of the USA, and were the first act of the cold war. If I'm right some hundreds of thousands of people were killed to make a military/political statement.

EDIT: I hadn't seen Gary's very useful contribution when I wrote the last paragraph above. I'm still considering how that affects my position on the bombing. Perhaps it did affect Japan's surrender. However the fundamentals don't change: killing innocent people is still murder and I still think there was at least one eye on the USSR and the coming cold war.

[sjastro]

And who you think decides it wasn't a crime?

Along with the spoils of victory, the victors decide on the dispensation of justice.
The Soviet Union was never prosecuted for being Germany's ally and co- invader of Poland in 1939, nor for its mass extermination of Polish officers at Katyn.
It wasn't brought to trial for its crimes against humanity when it annexed Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia where tens of thousands were sent to labour camps in the Soviet Union never to be seen again. Nor was it prosecuted when it went to war with Finland, all at a time when it was Germany's ally.

Then there were the atrocities committed by the Soviets against civilian populations in Eastern Europe and Germany as an "ally" of the West.
Lets not forget the million odd German POWs that died at the hands of the Soviets.

Steven

[gary]

Hi David,

Thanks for the post and stories like that of your mother-in-law bring home how
relatively recent this chapter in history is. There will be some IIS members who were
in the armed forces during the war or were part of the war effort or who were
young and lived through it.

The making of the A-bomb, the decision to drop it, the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer
and subsequent development of the H-bomb are topics I have read widely on simply
as a background interest spanning a period on and off of over 35 years. Unlike
the authors of the books I have read, I am no expert. :) However, I have certainly
read a few thousand pages on the topic and distilled in my head what I see as the
salient factors that lead to the decision to drop the bombs on Japan.

Now and then in after-dinner conversation someone will raise the hypothesis that
the primary motivation was to deter the Soviet Union. Though it was a factor
that was considered by the decision makers, my distillation of the works
of authors who have interviewed these people and other witnesses does not see
the "deter the Soviets" motive as the primary reason.

The topic is large and it has many branches and sub-branches. The decision makers
were essentially a group called the Interim Committee and Harry S. Truman.
Two key players on the Interim Committee were Henry Stimson, Secretary of War,
and James Byrnes, a US Senator.

If this were a high school history assignment, in approximate order of priority,
here are my list of the salient bullet points.
This attempts to be in the context of what I've interpreted in my readings as
being important inside the heads of the actual decision makers rather than what
was the right decision to make from some strategic or moral view as an outsider.

* Motivation to build the bomb was fear Germans were building the bomb.
(US were surprised after VE Day that Germany was not even close).

* Truman had not signed off on invasion and in weighing up options would
judge them "with the purpose of economizing to the maximum extent
possible the loss of American lives".

* US invasion of Okinawa - 12,500 US killed, 62,000 US casualties.
130,000 Japanese killed. Japanese were shown to be resilient and "dug-in".
Estimates for a mainland invasion of Japan varied widely but Joint Chiefs
study estimated 90 day plan would result in 456,000 US casualties including
109,000 dead. Study done by Stimson's office estimated 400,000 to 800,000
US deaths and five to ten million Japanese in protracted war with civilian population.
Japanese diplomats made some communications via the Russians and Stalin
conveyed to Truman that the last of these said that Japan would "fight to the death
rather than accept unconditional surrender".

* Precedent of bombing of cities involving large numbers of civilian casualties
had already been set. It was found that in successive waves of Allied bombers, crews
had a habit of dropping their bombs a little earlier than the previous wave so they
could get out of their quicker. This phenomena was referred to as "creep-back"
and it brought about the creation of fire storms on German cities and then
became incorporated into the strategy to create a city-wide conflagration with
temperatures up to 800C. Already in cities such as Hamburg, raids involving
over 700 aircraft with 40,000 casualties in a single night had become "accepted".
Tokyo firestorm 100,000 killed and a million casualties.

* US could demo bomb to Japanese at Trinity but if it did not work, decision
makers thought it might strengthen Japanese resolve.

* US could warn that they were about to hit a Japanese city with new bomb.
Decision makers considered what if they moved POWs into the city.

* Interim Committee wants industrial target. Nature of Japanese war industry is
worker's houses around factories and equipment such as small drill presses operated
by families in these houses. Interim Committee recommends to "use against
Japan as soon as possible; that it be used on a war plant surrounded by worker's
homes; and that it be used without prior warning".

* Secretary of State Hull sees A-bomb as ensuring unconditional surrender will not
be compromised and that US will not require Soviet Union to aid in the Pacific.
Byrnes and Truman also not anxious to have Soviets enter the war on the
back of the Trinity test success.

* Szilard's attempts to put the toothpaste back in the tube with the petition came too
late with Roosevelt's death in April. Truman flicked him to Byrnes and Byrnes
dismissed him.

* Limited fissionable material available so psychological effect is to make Japanese
believe the US has enough to make many more bombs.



In summary, Truman's resolve to weigh up a decision whether to invade Japan
or use the bomb is primarily based on estimates of US casualties for a full-scale
invasion of the mainland.

[Kunama]

Excellent post Gary!

I guess the sense of it all depends on the viewpoint from which one is looking,
I have a dear friend who was a POW near Hiroshima at the time of the bombing and his view was it saved his life.
His friends were being killed by the Japanese on a daily basis and he always felt he would not have survived another week.

[BPO]

One historical fact that is seldom mentioned, if ever, is that large numbers of Japanese troops were being recalled to the mainland due to a very real fear that the Japanese populace was at the point of revolt. This began well before Japanese forces were being driven out of the central-southern Pacific region.

[wasyoungonce]

Hot topic indeed, good post Gary!

I am absolutely devastated at the death and destruction these weapons caused. However, without them, it is absolutely certain that more people would have died (both sides) if an invasion of Japan had to be undertaken.

In perspective.....More people died in the fire bombings of Tokyo or at the hands of the Japanese in Nanking!

The biggest crime was that the Emperor was not tried for war crimes. History is written by the victors. McNamara mentions this and the decisions to drop the atomic bombs in the "The Fog of War" a very good doco.

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

It is indeed a hot topic. I've often wondered whether Truman had any real alternative other than dropping at least one A-bomb. Maybe one of them could have been dropped on a less populated area, but it was not initially known how stubborn the Japanese command would be.

I have read that

- there were more than 1.3 million Japanese troops on Formosa and the Chinese mainland at the time of surrender. Many of these would have been brought back to the home islands, albeit against determined American interdiction.

- Harry Truman was worried about domestic unrest over American casualties, especially after Okinawa and the Ardennes battle. The frightful casualty list that must have resulted in an invasion of the Japanese home islands would have been a factor. In WWII, American deaths have been put at 0.32% of the population, which was less than Australia and Great Britain, and far less than Germany or the Soviet Union, but large enough in absolute numbers - 418000 approx.

- it is often said the Americans only had 3 A-bombs in total at the time. However they did have another ready in August 1945, and their capacity to produce more, once the designs were proven, was estimated by Gen Groves at 3 per month.

I have never read Harry Truman's own words in lengthy detail on his decision. He must have released his reasons though.

I can't say cheers..........

[LewisM]

Far from it. As already pointed out, the 2 bombs SAVED more lives than they ended. Japan was going for an all or nothing war, and if the war had ended up being an invasion of Japan, well, the death toll on all sides would have been absolutely shocking - far in excess of the Japanese death toll at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Both of my Grandfathers were WW2 pacific veterans - some, perhaps many of us would not even have been conceived if the war had continued. Think of it that way.

Tragedy - definitely. Crime? NO.

[LewisM]

In a similar vein to the original posters comments.

I stood at the War Memorial in Honolulu and witnessed Japanese tourists taking photos of each other doing victory signs. I then witnessed the same behaviour at the Arizona Memorial.

That day caused me to rethink some values I held.

[wavelandscott]

While I do not know with certainty, I suspect the the intention was to show a Peace Sign and not a Victory Sign...I know many of my Japanese Colleagues often flash a friendly Peace Sign in photos...

Growing up in the USA offers a different insight into the hows and whys but I was taught the determining factor as to drop/don't drop was directly related to the expectations by Truman of the large number of casualities and death a homeland invasion would generate. After bomb one, the clear message heard in the USA was one of defiance and so it was believed that bomb two was necessary.

[Barrykgerdes]

I don't remember any publicity in Australia about the dropping of the A-Bomb but I do remember the end of the war because we all went home from school as soon as it was announced.

Like many others I have stood on the deck of the USS Missouri at the spot (clearly marked) where the surrender was signed.

Barry

[TrevorW]

A couple of good articles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_ Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

[hickny]

Thanks Barry for the original post.

Gary raises some very interesting points from memory these were all outlined in Paul Ham's book ...
http://www.harpercollins.com.au/books/hiroshima
along with many others.

Although not old enough to have lived through WWII my parents often spoke of the hardship experienced here at home in OZ and of the troops serving overseas.

As a teenager and young man I held strong beliefs that dropping the Abomb was the correct thing to do. I am not so sure now.

In April 2012 I was fortunate enough to spend two weeks in Japan and would dearly love to go back. At that time I visited the Hiroshima Peace Park ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_Peace_Memorial_Park

This visit was life changing for me. To this day I cannot think about my visit to Hiroshima without a tear welling up in my eyes. I will never enter into a conversation debating war crime or not re August 6, 1945. The whole concept is far too difficult to resolve and agreement would never be reached.

I hope and pray that mankind have learnt from the experience and that atomic weapons are never used again.

[bojan]

Personally, I believe it is actually very easy.
No need for any historical/tactical/whatever/issues discussions...

One just needs to put an effort and imagine themselves in a situation, where bomb(s) are falling on a city full of other people and kids. And there is nothing that can be done about it..

Thankfully, I was never directly involved in such a situation.. but I could have been.. together with my family.. and I still shiver on the thought.

[gary]

Hi Geoff,

Thanks for the post.

Groves of course never did anything in half measures.

When he was briefed by Oppenheimer about the idea of a U235 bomb and the
various enrichment alternatives - thermal diffusion, gaseous diffusion and
electromagnetic separation - and was also briefed about a Plutonium implosion
device with enrichment coming from reactor piles, rather than picking one he said
they would do all of them simultaneously, much to the surprise of many of the
scientists.

The motivation for pulling out all the stops, of course, was the fear that German
scientists were also building a bomb.

When looking for a site for the U235 enrichment, Grove's site selection requirement
was 200 square miles of land with 100,000kW to 150,000kW of available
electrical power and 370,000 gallons/minute water supply somewhere between the
Allengheny Mountains in the east of the US and the Rockys in the west.

In the end they settled on just 94 square miles at Oak Ridge in Tennessee and gave
the 3,000 local residents a couple of weeks to pack their bags, abandon their
houses and move out as part of their contribution to the war effort.

The first enrichment plants were built there in under six months.
One ended up being the largest building with a continuous roof on earth.
Construction activity was so feverish that the place was one big field of mud.

Groves even commissioned a group from the Corps of Engineers to maintain
an official, albeit classified, history, which they did and it consists of 36 volumes
in 8 books. Only part of it has ever been declassified. When one browses through it,
one is overwhelmed by the minutiae of detail. Whether it is through the mind
of a bureaucrat with an attention to detail or that of one being prepared to cover
his backside if an appropriations committee ever asks after the war where all the money
went, I don't know. But I will give you an example. When it details the
land purchase at Oak Ridge, it is typed in as saying $1,659,179.50 except
someone has crossed out the last 0 by hand and changed it to 59 cents.

In fact all figures in it are always to the nearest cent.

Oak Ridge of course required thousands of workers to operate the plant.

The offical history sets out not only things like how big the local hospital would be, but how
many beds would be required in outpatients and the size requirements of the
nurses dormitory. Along with schools, fire department, water supply and so on,
it even details that six movie theaters were constructed including one drive in.

Here is one section of the official history and browsing it highlights the logistics
of the undertaking. They are building an entire new town.
http://www.osti.gov/includes/opennet/includes/MED_scans/Book%20I%20-%20General%20-%20Volume%2012%20-%20Clinton%20Engineer%20Work%20-%20Centr.pdf

According to Richard Rhodes in "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", as at January
1945, Oak Ridge was producing 204g per day of 80% enriched U235 which is sufficient
enrichment to make a bomb. The Little Boy gun-bomb design required about 42kg
and so they determined they would have enough for one by July 1 1945.

At Hanford, by the end of Dec 1944, plutonium production in quantity had begun and
Groves reported at the time he expected to have eighteen 5kg plutonium Fat Man
bombs on hand in the second half of 1945. In the end, both "The Gadget"
Trinity device and the Fat Man device used 6.2kg of plutonium each.

They were very confident that the gun design would work and in any case they
didn't have enough U235 to test it and have enough for Fat Man. So Hiroshima
was the first time a U235 device was detonated.

The design of the plutonium implosion device was more complex and uncertain
and hence the test at Trinity before it being used at Nagasaki.

In any case, facilities such as Oak Ridge and Hanford were vast industrial undertakings
and Groves certainly ensured that they would not just have a bomb, but that they
could make the first ones as fast as possible. That also left the legacy of a vast
industrial complex that could make them on demand.

[Barrykgerdes]

I would like to add something to my earlier post.

It is quite common and normal for the younger generation to have thoughts on what should have been done after the event but you must remember that during the war only sanitised versions of the good news were ever released to the public, disasters were quickly swept under the carpet.

As far as local war doings we were told very little about the bombing of Darwin and nothing about other air raids by Japanese bombers on other targets of northern and western Australia. Getting news from these places was not available because of restrictions in travel and to other communication media.

The only reasonably unsanitised news of the war was the submarine attack on Sydney harbour and that was because so many of us had first hand information from our own observations.

My friend Elva was the morning announcer on 2GF Grafton during the war years and as a reader of the news she had very strict guidelines as to what she could say. The punishment for disclosing "the truth" could be very severe.

Barry

[BPO]

Japanese people do indeed display what they think of as the peace sign in almost every picture. It definitely isn't a "V for Victory" pose.