President Harry Truman, radio address:
"The British, Chinese, and United States Governments have given the Japanese people adequate warning of what is in store for them. We have laid down the general terms on which they can surrender. Our warning went unheeded; our terms were rejected. Since then the Japanese have seen what our atomic bomb can do. They can foresee what it will do in the future.
The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. But that attack is only a warning of things to come. If Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped on her war industries and, unfortunately, thousands of civilian lives will be lost. I urge Japanese civilians to leave industrial cities immediately, and save themselves from destruction.
I realize the tragic significance of the atomic bomb. Its production and its use were not lightly undertaken by this Government. But we knew that our enemies were on the search for it. We know now how close they were to finding it. And we knew the disaster, which would come to this Nation, and to all peace-loving nations, to all civilization, if they had found it first. That is why we felt compelled to undertake the long and uncertain and costly labor of discovery and production. We won the race of discovery against the Germans.
Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.
We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan's power to make war. Only a Japanese surrender will stop us".
NAGASAKI
The Nagasaki Experience - "The Forgotten City"
There was considerable US determination to drop the next atomic bomb soon after Hiroshima, to give an impression of a plentiful supply of the atomic bombs and thus give the peace camp in the Japanese government as much impetus as possible. The plan was that Fat Man be dropped five days after Little Boy - i.e. on 11th August, but because of the forecast of bad weather, the mission was brought forward by two days. Fat Man was a plutonium-based atomic bomb, with an implosion design. This involved 64 separate explosive elements which were carefully positioned around an inner metal ball of solid plutonium-239, about the size of a grapefruit. As the explosives are detonated, they evenly compressed the plutonium ball to the size of an egg, which became hypercritical.
There was considerable US determination to drop the next atomic bomb soon after Hiroshima, to give an impression of a plentiful supply of the atomic bombs and thus give the peace camp in the Japanese government as much impetus as possible. The plan was that Fat Man be dropped five days after Little Boy - i.e. on 11th August, but because of the forecast of bad weather, the mission was brought forward by two days. Fat Man was a plutonium-based atomic bomb, with an implosion design. This involved 64 separate explosive elements which were carefully positioned around an inner metal ball of solid plutonium-239, about the size of a grapefruit. As the explosives are detonated, they evenly compressed the plutonium ball to the size of an egg, which became hypercritical.
Major Charles W. Sweeney commanded the B-29 Superfortress bomber Bockscar which was to deliver the third nuclear bomb in history. The primary target was not Nagasaki, but actually the heavily industrialized city of Kokura, selected because it was the site of a gigantic military arsenal. Bockscar was to be escorted by a second B-29 bomber The Great Artiste, which was once again tasked with dropping the three instrument packages, and a third B-29 bomber assigned for the photographic role.
The mission was plagued with difficulties. For a start, during the pre-flight checks the flight engineer Master Sergeant John Kuharek identified a fuel pump failure within Bockscar. This prevented the reserve fuel tank situated in the rear bomb bay from transferring its contents into the main tanks during the mission, so depriving the aircraft of 600 gallons of back-up fuel. After some hurried discussions with Col. Tibbets, Sweeney decided to press on with the mission without spending valuable time repairing the problem.
A great many B-29’s had crashed on take-off. Fat Man was nestled in the forward bomb bay of Bockscar. It was a completed bomb at the time, and was fitted with impact fuses and contained high explosives that often detonate following an impact, so a crash could potentially have detonated the atomic bomb. As with the Hiroshima mission, the bomb weighed down the aircraft very substantially, and every inch of the runway was needed to allow the aircraft to take to the air. As the aircraft swooped over the ocean and gently climbed away from Tinian Island, Sweeney breathed a sigh of relief. It was 0256 HRS on the 9th August 1945, and they were only slightly behind schedule.
A great many B-29’s had crashed on take-off. Fat Man was nestled in the forward bomb bay of Bockscar. It was a completed bomb at the time, and was fitted with impact fuses and contained high explosives that often detonate following an impact, so a crash could potentially have detonated the atomic bomb. As with the Hiroshima mission, the bomb weighed down the aircraft very substantially, and every inch of the runway was needed to allow the aircraft to take to the air. As the aircraft swooped over the ocean and gently climbed away from Tinian Island, Sweeney breathed a sigh of relief. It was 0256 HRS on the 9th August 1945, and they were only slightly behind schedule.
Lt. Colonel James I. Hopkins was in command of the photographic escort plane, which had been unofficially named the Big Stink by the crew. Bizarrely, whilst waiting to take off on the runway at Tinian, he had decided to eject the expert photographer (Dr Robert Serber) from the plane when he discovered the civilian photographer was not wearing a parachute. Dr Serber was the only member of the crew who could operate the sophisticated photographic equipment, so radio silence had to be broken to give basic instructions to the remaining crew on how to operate the cameras.
Several hours later, at the planned rendezvous between the three planes high over the island of Yakoshima, the Big Stink was nowhere to be seen. It was later discovered that Lt. Col. Hopkins had, for reasons best known to himself, decided to circle at 39,000 feet instead of at 30,000 feet as ordered. Meanwhile, on board Bockscar, US Naval Commander Frederick L. Ashworth was having a "lively" discussion with Major Sweeney regarding the field order detailing a maximum wait of 15 minutes before leaving the rendezvous point and proceeding on to the target. Although Major Sweeney was technically in command of the mission, he nevertheless found himself in the invidious position of answering to Commander Ashworth’s criticisms and suggestions, who held a senior rank to him. Ashworth pointed out that the mission could not be seen as a complete success without a photographic record of the bomb’s effects. After circling and anxiously scanning the sky for 40 minutes, they finally agreed to give up and the strike aircraft Bockscar and the escort bomber The Great Artiste turned and flew on to the target, alone.
Once over Kokura, the mission ran into another problem. The firebombing of steel mills in the nearby city of Yawata the previous night had produced a large quantity of smoke. Since the earlier weather reconnaissance there had been a change in wind direction and it had blown over Kokura. A good amount of the smoke as well as haze now hung over the city and obscured the aimpoint, so making it very problematic to bomb visually. But Sweeney’s orders were very clear - they must only bomb visually. They were specifically ordered to not use the radar targeting system, even if their primary target was obscured by smoke. The situation was made even more frustrating because as they flew straight over the city and looked down, they could see the target directly beneath them, but just a few seconds earlier, the smoke cover had prevented them from accurately aiming during the bomb run approach. Worried discussions took place between the Bombardier Kermit Beahan, Commander Ashworth and Sweeney, regarding the best way forward. They could abort the mission, fly on to the secondary target, bomb using radar (which would be directly against orders) or try to bomb visually once more. Ashworth’s views again prevailed, and they decided to try again with another visual bomb run over Kokura. However, this decision flouted a central dictum amongst WWII bomber pilots - that one must virtually never return to "go back over" a target - because the enemy will probably shoot you down.
Several hours later, at the planned rendezvous between the three planes high over the island of Yakoshima, the Big Stink was nowhere to be seen. It was later discovered that Lt. Col. Hopkins had, for reasons best known to himself, decided to circle at 39,000 feet instead of at 30,000 feet as ordered. Meanwhile, on board Bockscar, US Naval Commander Frederick L. Ashworth was having a "lively" discussion with Major Sweeney regarding the field order detailing a maximum wait of 15 minutes before leaving the rendezvous point and proceeding on to the target. Although Major Sweeney was technically in command of the mission, he nevertheless found himself in the invidious position of answering to Commander Ashworth’s criticisms and suggestions, who held a senior rank to him. Ashworth pointed out that the mission could not be seen as a complete success without a photographic record of the bomb’s effects. After circling and anxiously scanning the sky for 40 minutes, they finally agreed to give up and the strike aircraft Bockscar and the escort bomber The Great Artiste turned and flew on to the target, alone.
Once over Kokura, the mission ran into another problem. The firebombing of steel mills in the nearby city of Yawata the previous night had produced a large quantity of smoke. Since the earlier weather reconnaissance there had been a change in wind direction and it had blown over Kokura. A good amount of the smoke as well as haze now hung over the city and obscured the aimpoint, so making it very problematic to bomb visually. But Sweeney’s orders were very clear - they must only bomb visually. They were specifically ordered to not use the radar targeting system, even if their primary target was obscured by smoke. The situation was made even more frustrating because as they flew straight over the city and looked down, they could see the target directly beneath them, but just a few seconds earlier, the smoke cover had prevented them from accurately aiming during the bomb run approach. Worried discussions took place between the Bombardier Kermit Beahan, Commander Ashworth and Sweeney, regarding the best way forward. They could abort the mission, fly on to the secondary target, bomb using radar (which would be directly against orders) or try to bomb visually once more. Ashworth’s views again prevailed, and they decided to try again with another visual bomb run over Kokura. However, this decision flouted a central dictum amongst WWII bomber pilots - that one must virtually never return to "go back over" a target - because the enemy will probably shoot you down.
They flew three more unsuccessful bombing runs over the city, each time finding the aiming point obscured. Although they had not been shot down, the anti-aircraft flak had become considerably more accurate, and ten Japanese Zero fighter planes were flying up to intercept them. At this point the crew became distinctly restless, muttering into their intercoms about the secondary target. So, it was finally agreed to abandon the attempt on Kokura and the two planes flew on towards the city of Nagasaki. Ever since, the Japanese saying "Kokura lucky" has been used to describe the oblivious near-miss of bad fortune.
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Nagasaki had been selected by committee as a suitable target because it was a major shipbuilding center, and had two massive Mitsubishi war munitions factories. In fact, these were the very same factories that had produced the bombs and torpedoes dropped on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in 1941.
Once they arrived over Nagasaki, they found to their dismay a good amount of cumulus cloud (like cotton wool) over the city. The fuel level was critically low, but there was just enough to carry out a single bomb run and fly back to the nearest base (Okinawa). Sweeney conferred with Commander Ashworth and together they agreed that they had no choice but to bomb using radar. During the radar-guided run, Bombardier Beahan was intently staring down through his Norden bombsight to try to see the target visually. Suddenly he shouted out "I’ve got it!" as he caught sight of the aiming point through a small gap in the clouds. Sweeney transferred control of the aircraft to Beahan and a few seconds later the bombardier shouted over the intercom "Bombs Away! - sorry bomb Away!" as he pressed the release switch. The B-29 bomber lurched suddenly upwards as the aircraft’s weight was substantially reduced. It was 11:02HRS on the 9th August.
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Maj. Sweeney immediately took back control and put Bockscar into an extreme diving 155 degree left turn to escape the anticipated blast as Fat Man fell by free fall towards the aiming point. Fifteen seconds after release, three of the nine clocks automatically activated the fusing circuits, so making the bomb go "live". On reaching an altitude of 503 meters, one of the six separate radar proximity fuses activated and Fat Man exploded over northwest Nagasaki with a 21 kt yield, substantially greater than the Hiroshima explosion.
However, the detonation was somewhat off-target. Instead of striking the central commercial area of the city, the explosion occurred 1.93 miles away to the northwest, directly over a tennis court in the industrialized Urakami Valley, which was separated from most of the city by Mount Kompira. This hill and its crest (max height 366 meters) protected much of the rest of the city from the blast.
Down on the ground, the effects of the bomb were influenced by the range from the explosion, topography and mass shielding:
400 meters from the hypocenter:
Professor Seiki of Nagasaki Medical School Hospital was busy excavating earth deep in a dugout about 400 meters from the hypocenter when the entire tunnel was suddenly brightly illuminated. Tomita, a student working nearer the entrance was picked up by the blastwave and thrown down the tunnel, striking the professor in his back and knocking him down. As he struggled to his feet he was struck once more in his back by a heavy piece of wood that came flying through the air behind the student. He collapsed and lost consciousness. When he recovered his senses, he rushed outside and found all the large buildings and houses in the area gone; all that was left was a burning wasteland. Tomita also emerged from the dugout and was OK, but the numerous other medical students - all of whom had been working outside the dugout in the open air - were either dying or had already perished.
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1.86 miles from the hypocenter:
At 11 O’clock, Chimoto-san was busy cutting grass with a scythe on Mount Kawabira some 1.86 miles northwest of the Urakami valley. He saw the silver colored B-29 bomber far above, and even spotted a small object being dropped from it. Realizing it was a bomb, he immediately threw himself down on the ground and waited with baited breath. After a prolonged, tortured wait, there was suddenly an incredibly intense flash of light which, strangely, was completely silent. Lifting his head, he watched a gigantic column of white smoke rushing upwards, topped by the fireball. But what really frightened him was an enormous and destructive wave of dust smashing its way up the valley towards his location. It engulfed and smashed trees and buildings and seemed, for all intents and purposes, like a great bulldozer rushing straight at him. He hugged the ground and closed his eyes. When it hit there was deafening roar. He was picked up by the blastwave and thrown against a brick wall five meters away. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked about him to see a destroyed landscape of leafless and broken trees, and a pronounced smell of plant resin.
2 miles from the hypocenter:
Sixteen year old Akira Nagasaka left her home in the Urakami Valley early in the morning and walked over Mount Kompira to spend her day working in a Mitsubushi Steel Works branch factory located in Kami Nagasaki Primary School in central Nagasaki. After a blinding flash and all the windows breaking, the student workers hurriedly rushed to the air-raid shelter. On emerging ten minutes later, they saw a vast billowing column of ash grey smoke rising into the sky. It was arising from a point of origin out of sight somewhere behind Mount Kompira. After getting permission to return home, Akira rushed back over the hill, to see that the entire Urakami Valley had become a sea of flame. For the following few days she searched for her mother amongst the rubble; she picked up a great many human skulls to check for the tell-tale gold teeth she knew her mother had. But to no avail, she never found her mother’s body. |
12.4 miles from the hypocenter:
Some distance down the coast at Omura Naval Hospital, Dr Shiotsuki was giving a clinical presentation to an audience of medical and military dignitaries. He had just made his opening remarks when an extraordinary flash of blue-white light passed through the wide-open windows and dazzled the audience. They were startled and uncertain of the cause or how to respond. Amid the consternation, Dr Shiotsuki glanced down at his watch and made a mental note of the exact time. He maintained his composure and somewhat surreally continued with his clinical presentation, although his audience was not terribly interested by this point. He kept checking his watch and fifty five seconds after the puzzling flash had happened, the blastwave arrived. An enormous boom shook the building, closely followed by a number of weaker concussions which he later concluded were echoes of the primary blast that had reverberated off the hills around Nagasaki. This brought the meeting to an abrupt end, as orders were yelled out and everyone began rushing towards the air-raid shelters. Later that night, Dr Shiotsuki assessed very large numbers of casualties who were transported to the naval hospital from Nagasaki via train.
30 miles from the hypocenter
The Allied Prisoner of War Camp # 17 in Omuta was the largest POW camp in Japan with 1700 American, British, Australian and Dutch POW’s, working as slaves in a coal mine owned by Baron Takaharu Mitsui (1900 -1983). The Japanese Camp Commandant, a Captain Irao Fukuhara, was known as particularly vicious and inhumane. Many POWs there had died from disease, starvation, mining accidents, overwork, torture and being beaten to death by the Imperial Japanese Army guards (as well as some Japanese civilian workers such as "Screaming Demon").
An Australian, Lieutenant Reginald Howel and a number of other POW’s happened to be on the surface on both August 6th and 9th. They witnessed both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions, and although filled with amazement, they did not immediately grasp the significance of the events. They reported that the white Hiroshima cloud (NE at a range of 130 miles) was the wider with prominent orange fire throughout, whilst the white Nagasaki cloud (WSW at a closer range of 30 miles) had a much narrower stem, and the fireball was colored crimson-red. After the Nagasaki detonation, the camp buildings and the ground were felt to tremble, but no noise was heard. On the day Japan surrendered, the POWs awoke to find the camp no longer guarded. Later, prior to the arrival of the allied troops, Baron Mitsui attempted to ingratiate himself with allied POW officers in what they scornfully and sarcastically described as a case of "atomic love". |
Surrender
At noon on 15th August 1945, Emperor Hirohito broadcast an address "Gyoku-on Hoso" to the Japanese Empire, declaring acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration and the unconditional surrender of the Japanese forces. In Fukuoka (Kyushu) 16 American prisoners of war were beheaded by furious Imperial Japanese Army officers, so finally bringing to completion an impressive tally of Japanese war crimes. These included:- innumerable atrocities in Manchuria, the Rape of Nanking, the Sook Ching Massacre, the sexual enslavement of at least 200,000 "ianfu" women, the Bataan Death March, the Bangka Island Massacre, the Los Banos and Batangas Massacres, Unit 731, the Sandakan Death March, the Rape of Manila, the POW Hell Ships and the Burmese-Siam Death Railway. Thus, with the atomic bombings and the sixteen beheadings, the murderous, living nightmare of the Japanese Empire throughout the Far East finally came to a horrifying close.
At noon on 15th August 1945, Emperor Hirohito broadcast an address "Gyoku-on Hoso" to the Japanese Empire, declaring acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration and the unconditional surrender of the Japanese forces. In Fukuoka (Kyushu) 16 American prisoners of war were beheaded by furious Imperial Japanese Army officers, so finally bringing to completion an impressive tally of Japanese war crimes. These included:- innumerable atrocities in Manchuria, the Rape of Nanking, the Sook Ching Massacre, the sexual enslavement of at least 200,000 "ianfu" women, the Bataan Death March, the Bangka Island Massacre, the Los Banos and Batangas Massacres, Unit 731, the Sandakan Death March, the Rape of Manila, the POW Hell Ships and the Burmese-Siam Death Railway. Thus, with the atomic bombings and the sixteen beheadings, the murderous, living nightmare of the Japanese Empire throughout the Far East finally came to a horrifying close.
Peace at Last!
On the 3rd September, the day after the Japanese forces and government signed the Instrument of Surrender at Tokyo Bay, the scientists of the Manhattan Project were to be taken to the bombed cities to study the effects of the explosions. Col. Tibbets, Maj. Sweeney and a number of the crew decided to fly them out in one of their C-54 transport planes, so grabbing the opportunity to take a look around themselves. After stopping off at Okinawa, they flew on to Tokyo with the atomic physicists and picked up Professor Masao Tsuzuki from Tokyo Medical School. They then flew down to Omura Naval Base which had the closest suitable runway and drove the final stretch by Japanese Army truck to Nagasaki.
They drove for hours through verdant countryside, and upon reaching the Urakami valley were struck by the contrasting sight of the valley floor - a flat, rubble-strewn wasteland. The twisted skeletons of the gigantic industrial roof trusses looked as if they had been struck by a giant hand. |
Although only a few weeks after the bombing, there were no bodies whatever to be seen, just the ruins of the industrial and urban buildings. They spent three days in the area, exploring not just the devastated Urakami Valley, but also the docks and the main city area, which was largely undamaged. As they strolled through the bustling streets of downtown Nagasaki in uniform and wearing their pistols, they found the locals sullen, but polite. Needless to say, they were careful not to reveal themselves as the bomber crews who had actually carried out the atomic missions.
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