This week marks eighty years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attacked with American atomic bombs. Why did the only two used nuclear bombs fall on these Japanese cities? Various factors were involved. NU.nl lists them.
First, the war situation in early August 1945. Japan is losing ground on all sides, but also still holds a significant part of East Asia. The atomic bombs fall on August 6 and 9. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union has also declared war on Japan. On August 15, the surrender ordered by Emperor Hirohito is a fact.
War Minister Doesn’t Want a Bomb on Kyoto
Three months before ‘the bomb’ falls, Nagasaki is not even on the list of potential targets. Kyoto is, as is Kokura. After the war, the rumor goes that American War Minister Henry Stimson wanted Kyoto off the list because he had been there on his honeymoon with his wife.
This version, which is told in the film Oppenheimer, does not appear in the documents in any case. Stimson has indeed been to Kyoto, but has another reason to spare the city. Apparently, it is difficult to convince a specially appointed target committee.
Higher Educated Residents with Better Awareness
But why is Kyoto at the top of the list? The target committee even calls the former Japanese capital an ‘AA target’ in May 1945.
In addition to the industrial importance and the large number of inhabitants, there is another reason: “From a psychological point of view, there is the advantage that Kyoto is the intellectual center of Japan and the people there are therefore more suitable to see the significance of such a weapon.” In short: the highly educated residents of Kyoto better realize that an atomic bomb is not comparable to the weapons with which Japan has been hit until then.
Stimson does not agree and talks to the man with the final verdict: President Harry S. Truman. He does this on July 24, only two weeks before the attack on Hiroshima. “We talked about the program and I explained to him my reasons for removing one of the proposed targets (Kyoto, ed.)”, Stimson writes in his diary.
According to Stimson, Truman very much agrees with the suggestion that the Japanese population would become so “embittered” by the destruction of the old capital that it could become impossible for the Americans to strengthen ties after the war.
An undesirable scenario: the Soviets are now also knocking on the door. In his diary, Stimson anticipates this by pointing to American policy: namely, a Japan that is sympathetic to the US if the Russians attack in Manchuria. The North Chinese region is then still in the hands of Japan.
Hiroshima Lies Well Between the Hills
So Kyoto is removed from the list, bringing the next ‘AA target’ to the top: Hiroshima. According to the target committee, the port city is “an important army depot in a densely populated industrial region.”
The dimensions of Hiroshima also play a role. “The size is such that a large part can be significantly damaged.” There are also hills around the city that encapsulate the explosion, making the damage even greater. And that damage is easily measurable, because the port city has so far escaped the major American attacks with incendiary bombs.
On July 25, Air Force General Carl Spaatz receives his orders: the four goals are Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki.
On August 6, the first atomic bomb dropped on enemy territory explodes, so above Hiroshima and not above Kyoto. At least 70,000 of the 255,260 inhabitants do not survive the explosion. By the end of 1945, a total of 140,000 people – so 55 percent of the original inhabitants of the port city – had died from the consequences of the atomic bomb Little Boy.
Nagasaki is Also Not the Target on August 9
Three days later, the bomb falls on Nagasaki, a city that was initially barely mentioned by the target committee. Even on August 9, Nagasaki is not the target, but the Kokura Arsenal. Yet that last place hardly enjoys fame outside Japan. Nagasaki does, because of the atomic bomb. And the city owes that to a series of causes.
Other potential targets, such as Yokohama and the palace of Emperor Hirohito, have disappeared from the list. Niigata turns out to be no longer a logical option when Kyoto is removed from the list, because the port city is too far north to be combined with other secondary targets.
No, on August 9, a group of six B-29 bombers take off from the island of Tinian with the intention of bombing the Kokura Arsenal with plutonium bomb Fat Man. The bomb is loaded on board the Bockscar, flown by Charles Sweeney. But due to several causes, Fat Man eventually explodes above Nagasaki.
Delay, Clouds and a Fuel Shortage
Firstly, the mission is already half an hour delayed at the assembly point on the Japanese south coast. From a forward-sent aircraft (remarkably enough the Enola Gay, which dropped the bomb on Hiroshima) comes the message that the conditions above Kokura are good enough.
When the Bockscar arrives at Kokura an hour later, a cloud cover obscures the view of the target. There are theories that smoke clouds from an American bombardment a day earlier played a role, but these have never been proven.
Because Sweeney has to drop the bomb with a clear view, the clouds are a problem. Three times Bockscar initiates a bomb run, but the Kokura Arsenal never comes into view properly. Then a problem that arose before the mission begins to play a role.
A fuel pump in the Bockscar does not work, so 2,400 liters of fuel in one of the B-29’s tanks is not available. There is not much time left, because the Bockscar still has to be able to reach Okinawa. Then to Nagasaki. Kokura escapes the deadly dance.
Gap in the Clouds
Also in Nagasaki, the conditions are not ideal for aiming the bomb. At the last moment, there is still a gap in the clouds, allowing Fat Man to be dropped. The bomb detonates above the Mitsubishi munitions factory in Nagasaki. Not much later, black radioactive rain falls on the city. The Bockscar barely manages to reach Okinawa.
At that time, 250,000 to 270,000 people live in Nagasaki. By the end of 1945, an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 people had died from the consequences of the explosion. Together with Hiroshima, the bitter sum that is the result of policy, coincidence, problems and circumstances is well over 200,000 victims.