“I realize the tragic significance of the atomic bomb … it is an awful responsibility which has come to us … We thank God that is has come to us, instead of our enemies; and we pray that he may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.”
August 6, 1945 – Tinian, North Field Aribase. The Enola Gay is taking to the skies, flanked by The Great Artiste and the then-unnamed, but later (arguably) appropriately named Necessary Evil. This is no routine flight, however. There is a six-hour flight time to reach the Japanese Islands. The target city this morning is Hiroshima. The men aboard the Enola Gay have been tasked with using the most powerful weapon of war ever devised.
Weather reconnaissance flights already circle Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Kokura, the alternative targets. But Hiroshima is the primary. For the last many months, the United States had run fire-bombing campaigns against several Japanese cities. Tokyo had, for all intents and purposes, been reduced to a heap of ash. The Target Committee had been tasked with selecting a city. So many had already been attacked in an effort to force the Japanese armed forces into surrender, but the armies fought on. So the committee narrowed their selection to four cities. Hiroshima was an industrial city that housed a military headquarters. It was also an embarkation port for Japan’s naval forces.
Hiroshima was also noted for the surrounding hills, which the Target Committee felt would focus the effect of the blast, thus damaging a larger portion of the city. Since Hiroshima was located on the delta of the Ota River, incendiary raids would not be nearly as effective. The Target Committee hopes earnestly that the use of the Atomic Bomb one time would force Japan into an unconditional surrender, in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration.
Issued on 26 July 1945, the Potsdam Declaration was an ultimatum to Japan. Surrender, it said, or face the full force of the Allied armed forces. Without surrender, the Japanese faced the “inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.” Neither the potential use of the Atomic Bomb, nor its very existence, was even mentioned in the Declaration. The Japanese government ignored the Declaration, as Emperor Hirohito steeled his army and his government for Allied invasion.
As one of the cities largely unaffected from the fire-bombing campaign, the officials in Hiroshima had taken to knocking down long rows of buildings in an effort to create city-wide firebreaks, should the Americans turn their attention south. Tokyo had burned because of the campaign. Hiroshima officials were determined to not let that happen to their city.
With the target chosen, the pilots were left to wait. The day was marked, and the Enola Gay took off. The bomb was not armed until the plane was in flight over the ocean. No risk would be taken. Thirty minutes prior to being over the city, the safety mechanisms were removed. It was now all or nothing.
Just a few minutes prior to the safeties being removed from the Little Boy, Japanese radar detected the incoming flight and raised an air raid warning. Radio broadcasts throughout the southern tip of Japan ceased instantly. Moments later, the radar operator determined the number of planes to be small, too small for an incendiary raid or otherwise. Likely believing it was nothing more than a reconnaissance flight, the air raid alert was lifted.
At 8:15am, Hiroshima time, the Enola Gay crossed over the original target, the Aioi Bridge, and released the bomb from an altitude of over 31,000 feet. The plane streaked away as gravity pulled the bomb inexorably toward its bitter, but intended, end. The bomb detonated at just less than 2,000 feet. For a brief moment, Hell seemed to reign on Earth. Total destruction was noted for one mile in every direction of the blast origin. Fires sprang up throughout the affected area. Nearly 70 percent of the building in Hiroshima were destroyed while another nearly ten percent were damaged in some way. The blast, and the resulting firestorm that swept the city, caused nearly 80,000 deaths, mixed between civilian, military, and government officials. Due to crosswinds beings stronger than accounted for, the bomb missed its intended target, Aioi Bridge, and detonated instead over the Shima Surgical Clinic. As a result, almost every doctor and nurse in Hiroshima was killed in the blast.
The Japanese 2nd General Army was training in Hiroshima at the time. At the time of detonation, they were undergoing physical training on the grounds of Hiroshima Castle, less than 2,000 feet from the hypocenter of the bomb’s blast. They died in less than a second. Among the dead were twelve American airmen who were prisoners of the Japanese. Their holding cell was only 1500 feet or so from ground zero.
In ruined Tokyo, the Broadcasting Corporation of Japan noted that Hiroshima had dropped off the air. The control operator attempted to contact Hiroshima via telephone, but was greeted with static. The Imperial Japanese Army General Staff quickly organized their own reconnaissance flight. No contact was coming from Hiroshima. The flight was scrambled and in the air as quickly as they could. From 100 miles out, the flight could already see the smoke cloud from Hiroshima. They drove on, flying in shocked disbelief while circling the city. Broad devastation greeted them. Fires burned bright in the afternoon sun. After assessing the damage, Japan began to mount relief efforts.
And this attack was not enough. The Japanese vowed to fight on. It was not within their nature as a people to surrender. Given that only eighty years previous, Japan had been a feudal society, and by 1945 had expanded to control vast swaths of the Pacific and even mainland China and Korea. A degree of ‘manifest destiny’ is understandable. So they fought on.
After the bombing, President Harry Truman took to the airwaves to announce the attack. He stated, while we were grateful to providence that the Germans never succeeded with their atomic program, the US and its allies had undertaken the “greatest scientific gamble in history – and won.” He also sternly warned the Japanese military and government: Accept our terms (Potsdam) or face a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.
The Japanese, though, continued to ignore the Potsdam Declaration. They began to discuss a conditional surrender that would preserve Japanese national polity (kokutai), no occupation of the homeland, internal punishment of war criminals, and personal responsibility for disarmament.
Japan had been reaching out to the Soviet Union since before the attack on Hiroshima, attempting to determine if peaceful existence was possible between them. The Soviet Union, on 5 April 1945, had informed Japan that they were unilaterally abrogating the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact. Just after midnight on the 9th of August, Soviet Union armed forces launched the Manchurian Strategic offensive. With the Americans closing in from the south and east, and the Soviets now closing in from the north and west, Japan was caught in a deadly pincer. But instead of offering surrender, condition or otherwise, the Japanese government sought to impose martial law on the country to keep anyone from making peace with the enemy.
On the morning of August 9, the B-29 Superfortress Bockscar took off from Tinian. It carried Fat Man, the second, and last, atomic bomb used for purposes of war in human history, toward Kokura. Kokura, however, was spared utter destruction because of unfavorable cloud conditions. The flight turned toward Nagasaki. Were it not for a last-minute break in the clouds there, Nagasaki would also have escaped fate, at least for a time. But the clouds broke, and Fat Man was dropped. Death tolls from the immediate impact of the Nagasaki explosion ranged as high as 75,000.
Seeing the awesome power of the weapons now in the control of the American armed forces, Emperor Hirohito saw no option other than surrender. Both sides knew that occupying the Japanese homeland would cost millions of lives. The Emperor was in a very unfavorable spot. His people did not want to surrender, but he knew that continuing the war was a lost cause that, as President Truman had noted, would result in the “rain of ruin” that would doom his nation. He announced to his family on August 12 that he had decided that surrender was the only real option.
On 14 August 1945, Emperor Hirohito addressed the Japanese people and announced the capitulation of Japan: “Moreover, the enemy now possesses a new and terrible weapon with the power to destroy many innocent lives and do incalculable damage. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects, or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers.”
This episode remains the only example of nuclear weapons used in global warfare. Of the belligerent nations, both leaders recognized the importance and the heavy sorrow with which such weaponry was used. As noted above, Emperor Hirohito saw the terrible power of this new weapon. Below is a full quote from President Harry S. Truman about the dangers, and the potential abuses, of such a power.
“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…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…It is an awful responsibility which has come to us. We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.”
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