Japanese commentators have various theories but few think the US annihilated Urakami by mistake. Then, its next target, Nagasaki, was concealed by cloud cover. Three times, it tried to target Kokura but couldn’t eyeball the hit. It wasted inflight time waiting for a camera plane that never showed.
Nagasaki atomic bomb series#
Persistent American accounts of the second bombing mission posit a series of unfortunate events: The B-29 carrying Big Boy had fuel pump problems. According to historian Alex Wellerstein who first highlighted the document, the hand that added Nagasaki is unidentified. Allied POW camps in Nagasaki argued against obliterating it, too.Īt the very last minute, Nagasaki appears as a potential target on a draft strike order dated July 24-as a handwritten add-on, coinciding with the July 24 Stimson-Truman meeting on targets.Ī typed, Top Secret document commands that the US “will deliver its first special bomb” to “Hiroshima, Kokura, and Niigata in the priority listed.” In pen, someone struck “and” as well as “in the priority listed,” inserting with an arrow “and Nagasaki” after “Niigata.” The amended strike, order with Nagasaki added, was officially circulated the next day.
Nagasaki atomic bomb full#
Top-tier A-bomb targets escaped firebombing so the catastrophic blast would get full credit for destruction. Instead, the city was subjected to five rounds of brutal incendiary attacks.
Its mountainous, irregular terrain failed target committee preferences. Nagasaki did not show up on hit lists generated in May and June. Stimson reported in his diary, the president concurred. Eisenhower explained later, “Japan was already defeated and…dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary.”ĭeclassified documents portray Stimson as ambivalent: He decried civilian casualties of incendiary bombings, telling Truman on June 6 he didn’t want the US “to get the reputation of outdoing Hitler in atrocities.” While in Potsdam, he went directly to the president to request protection for the ancient city of Kyoto based on cultural value. Yet, experienced war hands such as Dwight David Eisenhower, General of the Army, and General Omar Bradley, opposed their use. The only port continuously open to foreign trade, it was a stronghold of secret faith during the long suppression of Christianity (1614-1873). Twenty-six martyrs were crucified in the city’s hills in 1597. The new religion spread so quickly it was outlawed as a threat to local rulers. The ties between Nagasaki and the Catholic Church go way back: A lord donated land to Jesuit missionaries from Portugal in 1580. The second atomic attack was a near-direct hit on Asia’s largest cathedral, in the country’s renowned Catholic settlement, Urakami, a residential district of Nagasaki-significantly north of the city’s commercial center and Mitsubishi’s shipyard. They provide a rationale rarely discussed, in the face of general puzzlement over unexplained aspects of the tragedy. Step outside the American explanatory cloud-we bombed military installations to force unconditional imperial surrender-defining public understanding to see: the US Government explicitly targeted civilian populations, a violation of international law and codes of military conduct.ĭiplomats and archivists at the Vatican are convinced the attack against Nagasaki was a strike against Japan and the Catholic Church. The closer we look at decisions to deploy a second atomic weapon against Japan on August 9, 76 years ago, the more morally audacious the tactic appears.
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