[50]. This account, prepared by Director of Information Shimomura, conveys the drama of the occasion (as well as his interest in shifting the blame for the debacle to the Army). Quotation and statistics from Thomas R. Searle, `It Made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers: The Firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945,The Journal of Military History55 (2002):103. The United States Government's decision to attack Russia with the atomic bomb ultimate proved to scare the Russians. Additional bombs will be delivery on the [targets] as soon as made ready by the project staff., RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. Pumpkins referred to bright orange, pumpkin-shaped high explosive bombsshaped like the Fat Man implosion weapon--used for bombing run test missions. More than seventy years after the end of World War II, the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains controversial. That is why, on August 8, Japanese newspapers first reported that the enemy used a new type of bomb in attacking Hiroshima, but the details are still under investigation., The phrasing a new type of bomb ( shingata bakudan) was used because the expression atomic bomb ( genshi bakudan) was prohibited by the Japanese government during the war. [61], Documents 73A-B: Ramsey Letter from Tinian Island, Library of Congress, J. Robert Oppenheimer Papers, box 60, Ramsey, Norman. Barton J. Bernstein has suggested that Trumans comment about all those kids showed his belated recognition that the bomb caused mass casualties and that the target was not purely a military one.[64]. Since the 1960s, when the declassification of important sources began, historians have engaged in vigorous debate over the bomb and the end of World War II. On August 6, 1945, a B-29 "superbomber" dropped a uranium bomb over Hiroshima in an attempt to force Japan's unconditional surrender. This includes a number of formerly top secret summaries of intercepted Japanese diplomatic communications, which enable interested readers to form their own judgments about the direction of Japanese diplomacy in the weeks before the atomic bombings. For Hirohito' surrender speech--the actual broadcastand a translation--seeJapan Times,August2015. As McCloy observed the most contentious issue was whether the proclamation should include language about the preservation of the emperor: This may cause repercussions at home but without it those who seem to know the most about Japan feel there would be very little likelihood of acceptance.. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, and the following day the United States dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing an additional 100,000 people. After the first successful test of the atomic bomb in 1945, U.S. officials immediately considered the potential non-military benefits that could be derived from the American nuclear monopoly. The diary entries cover July 16, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26, and 30 and include Trumans thinking about a number of issues and developments, including his reactions to Churchill and Stalin, the atomic bomb and how it should be targeted, the possible impact of the bomb and a Soviet declaration of war on Japan, and his decision to tell Stalin about the bomb. What did senior officials know about the effects of atomic bombs before they were first used. 77 (copy from microfilm). RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 21 (copies courtesy of Barton Bernstein). The atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He believed it essential that the United States declare its intention to preserve the institution of the emperor. Why were alternatives not pursued? According to Robert S. Norris, this was the fateful decision to turn over the atomic project to military control.[8]. [14], Firebombing raids on other cities followed Tokyo, including Osaka, Kobe, Yokahama, and Nagoya, but with fewer casualties (many civilians had fled the cities). Japanese kamikaze pilots could turn planes into guided missiles. Responding to this threat, the United States placed an embargo on scrap metal, oil, and aviation fuel heading to Japan and froze Japanese assets in the United States. [20]. With respect to the point about assembling the weapons, Groves and Stimson informed Truman that the first gun-type weapon should be ready about 1 August 1945 while an implosion weapon would also be available that month. Truman read Stimsons proposal, which he said was powerful, but made no commitments to the details, e.g., the position of the emperor. However, the Department of the Interior opposed the disclosure of the nature of the weapon. The Japanese were vicious fighters, however, and every victory cost more time, material, and, sadly, lives. According to Bix, Hirohito's language helped to transform him from a war to a peace leader, from a cold, aloof monarch to a human being who cared for his people but what chiefly motivated him was his desire to save a politically empowered throne with himself on it.[70], Hirohito said that he would make a recording of the surrender announcement so that the nation could hear it. As Farrell observed in his discussion of Hiroshima, Summaries of Japanese reports previously sent are essentially correct, as to clinical effects from single gamma radiation dose. Such findings dismayed Groves, who worried that the bomb would fall into a taboo category like chemical weapons, with all the fear and horror surrounding them. [12]. This set of documents concerns the work of the Uranium Committee of the National Academy of Sciences, an exploratory project that was the lead-up to the actual production effort undertaken by the Manhattan Project. After President Roosevelt died on April 12th, 1945, it became Harry Trumans job to decide how to end the war. [36]. Japan was already a day late in responding to the Byrnes Note and Hirohito agreed to move quickly. At the outset, three possibilities were envisioned: radiological warfare, a power source for submarines and ships, and explosives. [40], L.D. In a long and impassioned message, the latter argued why Japan must accept defeat: it is meaningless to prove ones devotion [to the Emperor] by wrecking the State. Togo rejected Satos advice that Japan could accept unconditional surrender with one qualification: the preservation of the Imperial House. Probably unable or unwilling to take a soft position in an official cable, Togo declared that the whole country will pit itself against the enemy in accordance with the Imperial Will as long as the enemy demands unconditional surrender., Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, James Forrestal Diaries, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal was a regular recipient of Magic intercept reports; this substantial entry reviews the dramatic Sato-Togo exchanges covered in the 22 July Magic summary (although Forrestal misdated Satos cable as first of July instead of the 21st). The United States, then, dropped the bombs to end the war that Japan had unleashed in Asia in 1931 and extended to the United States at Pearl Harborand thereby probably avoided an invasion that. 153-154, 164 (n)). The reference to our contact may refer to Bank of International Settlements economist Pers Jacobbson who was in touch with Japanese representatives to the Bank as well as Gero von Gvernitz, then on the staff, but with non-official cover, of OSS station chief Allen Dulles. [57], How influential the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and later Nagasaki compared to the impact of the Soviet declaration of war were to the Japanese decision to surrender has been the subject of controversy among historians. Moreover, he may not have known that the third bomb was still in the United States and would not be available for use for nearly another week. Hoover proposed a compromise solution with Japan that would allow Tokyo to retain part of its empire in East Asia (including Korea and Japan) as a way to head off Soviet influence in the region. By contrast, Herbert P. Bix has suggested that the Japanese leadership would probably not have surrendered if the Truman administration had spelled out the status of the emperor. However, the Department of the Interior opposed the disclosure of the nature of the weapon. Aftermath of the August 6, 1945 Atomic Bomb blast in Hiroshima, 1946. While post-war justifications for the bomb suggested that an invasion of Japan could have produced very high levels of casualties (dead, wounded, or missing), from hundreds of thousands to a million, historians have vigorously debated the extent to which the estimates were inflated. To what extent had Emperor Hirohito prolonged the war unnecessarily by not seizing opportunities for surrender? See also Malloy, A Very Pleasant Way to Die, 539-540. The total destruction of that city, and the instant incineration of 40,000 mostly civilian people, occurred just three days after the destruction of Hiroshima by a 15-kiloton uranium bomb, which instantly killed 70,000. Concerned with the long-run implications of the bomb, Franck chaired a committee, in which Szilard and Eugene Rabinowitch were major contributors, that produced a report rejecting a surprise attack on Japan and recommended instead a demonstration of the bomb on the desert or a barren island. Arguing that a nuclear arms race will be on in earnest not later than the morning after our first demonstration of the existence of nuclear weapons, the committee saw international control as the alternative. The Soviet source reported that the weight of the device was 3 tons (which was in the ball park) and forecast an explosive yield of 5 kilotons. The U.S believed the bomb was the only way to send out a warning.When the bombs were dropped on Japan, it was world shocking news which was what the U.S wanted from the start. The second, which hit Nagasaki on 9 August, killed around 50,000 people. The total area devastated by the atomic strike on Hiroshima is shown in the darkened area (within the circle) of the photo. Noteworthy publications since 2015 includeMichael D. Gordin and G. John Ikenberry, eds., The Age of Hiroshima (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019); Sheldon Garon, On the Transnational Destruction of Cities: What Japan and the United States Learned from the Bombing of Britain and Germany in the Second World War, Past and Present 247 (2020): 235-271; Katherine E. McKinney, Scott Sagan, and Allen S. Weiner, Why the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima Would Be Illegal Today, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 76 (2020); Gregg Mitchell, The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood and America Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (New York: The New Press, 2020); Steve Olson, The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age (New York: W.W. Norton, 2020); Neil J. Sullivan, The Prometheus Bomb: The Manhattan Project and Government in the Dark (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books, 2016); Alex Wellerstein; Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States,(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming, 2020), a memoir by a Hiroshima survivor, Taniguchi Sumitero, The Atomic Bomb on My Back: A Life Story of Survival and Activism (Montpelier, VT: Rootstock Publishing, 2020), and a collection of interviews, Cynthia C. Kelly, ed., The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2020). At the end, Stimson shared his doubts about targeting cities and killing civilians through area bombing because of its impact on the U.S.s reputation as well as on the problem of finding targets for the atomic bomb. Therefore, it is hard to believe that by November 1945, the Japanese press had any detailed, spontaneous reporting of the effects of the atomic bomb. Russia is very much in the minds of the people who give any thought to world affairs, and distrust and suspicion of her are very widespread. Documents 67A-B:Early High-level Reactions to the Hiroshima Bombing, Gaimusho (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) ed. [7]. [1]. Years of fighting brought the US armed forces closer and closer to Japan as they hopped from one island to another. The original desire of the United States government when they dropped Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not, in fact, the one more commonly known: that the two nuclear devices dropped upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki were detonated with the intention of bringing an end to the war with Japan, but instead to intimidate the Soviet . If ending the war quickly was the most important motivation of Truman and his advisers to what extent did they see an atomic diplomacy capability as a bonus? Moreover, the atrocities of the bombs were not made graphically public to the Japanese people until August 6, 1952, when Asahi Graphpublished the issue titled Genbaku higai no shokkai (the first publication of the damages of the atomic bomb). The "Tsar Bomba," as it became known, was 10 times more powerful than all the munitions used during World War II. Hiroshi [Kaian) Shimomura, Shusenki [Account of the End of the War] (Tokyo, Kamakura Bunko, [1948], 148-152 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]. Dbq help!! As he argued in this memorandum to President Truman, failure on our part to clarify our intentions on the status of the emperor will insure prolongation of the war and cost a large number of human lives. Documents like this have played a role in arguments developed by Alperovitz that Truman and his advisers had alternatives to using the bomb such as modifying unconditional surrender and that anti-Soviet considerations weighed most heavily in their thinking. Third update - August 7, 2017, For more information, contact: The 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 is an occasion for sober reflection. Yonai was upset that Chief of Staff Yoshijiro Umezu and naval chief Suemu Toyada had sent the emperor a memorandum arguing that acceptance of the Brynes note would desecrate the emperors dignity and turn Japan into virtually a slave nation. The emperor chided Umezu and Toyoda for drawing hasty conclusions; in this he had the support of Yonai, who also dressed them down. It is quite apparent that the United States did, in fact, drop the two atomic bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively for the . [74]. On the basic decision, he had simply concurred with the judgments of Stimson, Groves, and others that the bomb would be used as soon as it was available for military use. For detailed background on the Army Air Forces incendiary bombing planning, see Schaffer (1985) 107-127. [69]. In this entry written several months later, Meiklejohn shed light on what much later became an element of the controversy over the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings: whether any high level civilian or military officials objected to nuclear use. 8 devine street north haven, ct what is berth preference in irctc atomic bomb dropped to intimidate russia. On the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the National Security Archive updates its 2005 publication of the most comprehensive on-line collection of declassified U.S. government documents on the first use of the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific. Eisenhowers son John cast doubts about the memoir statements, although he attested that when the general first learned about the bomb he was downcast. [66]. Background on the U. S. Atomic Project, III. The embassy teams included GRU members Mikhail Ivanov and German Sergeev in August, and TASS correspondent Anatoliy Varshavskiy, former acting military attach Mikhail Romanov, and Naval apparatus employee Sergey Kikenin in September. The peace party, however, deftly maneuvered to break the stalemate by persuading a reluctant emperor to intervene. Also important to take into account is John Dowers extensive discussion of Hiroshima/Nagasaki in context of the U.S. fire-bombings of Japanese cities inCultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq(New York, W. Norton, 2010), 163-285. The bomb missed Gregg's house by just 100 yards, and the explosion caused by the TNT trigger created a hole in Walter Gregg's garden that measured 24 feet in depth and 50 feet in width. In later years, those who knew both thought it unlikely that the general would have expressed misgivings about using the bomb to a civilian superior. The museum has justfinished a massive renovation of the museum and its exhibitions, the first major renovation in more than 20 years and the largest since the museum opened its doors in 1957. The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki features a letter written by Luis Alvarez, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, on August 6, 1945, after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Explain your answer. [77], Harry S. Truman Library, President's Secretary's Files, Speech Files, 1945-1953, copy on U.S. National Archives Web Site, On 15 December, President Truman spoke about the atomic bombings in his speech at the annual dinner of the Gridiron Club, organized by bureau chiefs and other leading figures of print media organizations. It would force the Japanese to surrender, shorten the war, save lives and money, and avoid us from asking the Soviet Union to get involved. [59]. National Archives and Records Administration, Newspaper clipping, Japanese planes destroy US fleet at Pearl Harbor, December 8, 1945, Excerpts of Franklin Roosevelts speech to Congress, December 8, 1941, Excerpt of Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, July 26, 1945, Letter from Henry Stimson to Harry S. Truman, April 24, 1945, Letter from Harry S. Truman to Richard Russell, August 9, 1945, Translation of leaflet dropped on the Japanese, August 6, 1945, Petition to the President of the United States, July 17, 1945, Minutes of meeting held at the White House, June 18, 1945. Drawing on contemporary documents and journals, Masuji Ibuses novelBlack Rain(Tokyo, Kodansha, 1982) provides an unforgettable account of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath. Sadao Asada, The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japans Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration,Pacific Historical Review67 (1998): 101-148; Bix, 523; Frank, 348; Hasegawa, 298. The documents may even provoke new questions. The result was approximately 80,000 deaths in just the first few minutes. [27]. The discussion of available targets included Hiroshima, the largest untouched target not on the 21st Bomber Command priority list. But other targets were under consideration, including Yawata (northern Kyushu), Yokohama, and Tokyo (even though it was practically rubble.) The problem was that the Air Force had a policy of laying waste to Japans cities which created tension with the objective of reserving some urban targets for nuclear destruction. 60 inches in diameter and 128 inches long, the weapon weighed about 10,000 pounds and had a yield approximating 21,000 tons of high explosives (Copy from U.S. National Archives, RG 77-AEC), Taken at Tinian Island on the afternoon of August 5, 1945, this shows the tail of the Enola Gay being edged over the pit and into position to load "Little Boy" into the bomb bay. Barton J. Bernsteins 1987 article, Ike and Hiroshima: Did He Oppose It?The Journal of Strategic Studies10 (1987): 377-389, makes a case against relying on Eisenhowers memoirs and points to relevant circumstantial evidence. [67], National Archives, RG 165, Army Operations OPD, Executive Files 1940-1945, box 12, Exec #2. If the Japanese decided to keep fighting, G-2 opined that Atomic bombs will not have a decisive effect in the next 30 days. Richard Frank has pointed out that this and other documents indicate that high level military figures remained unsure as to how close Japan really was to surrender. [29]. On August 9th, 1945, Truman declared that the use of the A-bomb had saved THOUSANDS of American lives. Besides material from the files of the Manhattan Project, this collection includes formerly Top Secret Ultra summaries and translations of Japanese diplomatic cable traffic intercepted under the Magic program. In destructive power, the behemoths of the Cold War dwarfed the American atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The target is and was always expected to be Japan., These documents have important implications for the perennial debate over whether Truman inherited assumptions from the Roosevelt administration that the bomb would be used when available or that he madethedecision to do so. Pages 12 through 15 of those notes refer to the atomic bombing of Japan: You know the most terrible decision a man ever had to make was made by me at Potsdam. "Nobody should allow themselves to forget the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," declared Sergey Naryshkin on August 5, 2015, at an event at Moscow's State Institute of International Relations commemorating the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings on the Japanese cities. For the distances, see Norris, 407. [26]. Contributors to the historical controversy have deployed the documents selected here to support their arguments about the first use of nuclear weapons and the end of World War II. Taking the Americans by surprise, the Japanese planes destroyed or damaged 18 ships . 24, tab D, Soon after he was sworn in as president following President Roosevelts death, Harry Truman learned about the top secret Manhattan Projectfrom briefingsbySecretary of War Stimson and Manhattan Project chief General Groves (who went through the back door to escape the watchful press). For a useful discussion of the firebombing of Tokyo and the atomic bombings, see Alex Wellerstein, Tokyo vs. Hiroshima,Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog,22 September 2014.