essay on hiroshima and nagasaki day

National Archives News

The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 1945

Photograph of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. (National Archives Identifier 22345671 )

The United States bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 1945, were the first instances of atomic bombs used against humans, killing tens of thousands of people, obliterating the cities, and contributing to the end of World War II. The National Archives maintains the documents that trace the evolution of the project to develop the bombs, their use in 1945, and the aftermath.

Online Exhibits

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.

[Photograph: The atomic cloud rising over Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945. National Archives Identifier 535795 ]

A People at War looks at the 509 Composite Group, the unit selected to carry the atomic bomb to Hiroshima.

[Photograph: Col. Paul Tibbets, Jr., waves from the cockpit of the Enola Gay before departing for Hiroshima, August 6, 1945. National Archives Identifier  535737 ]

Photograph Gallery

"Little Boy" atomic bomb being raised into plane on Tinian Island before the flight to Hiroshima. National Archives Identifier  76048583

Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. National Archives Identifier  22345671

Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. National Archives Identifier  22345679

Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. National Archives Identifier  22345680

Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. National Archives Identifier  148728174

Nuclear weapon of the "Fat Man" type, the kind detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. National Archives Identifier  175539928

The atomic cloud rising over Nagasaki, Japan. National Archives Identifier  535795

Nagasaki after the atomic bomb. National Archives Identifier  39147824

Nagasaki after the atomic bomb. National Archives Identifier  39147850

Additional Photographs

Atomic Bomb Preparations at Tinian Island, 1945

Photographs used in the report Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan

Manhattan Project Notebook

Atomic bomb/Enola Gay preparations for the bombing missions

Post-bombing aerial and on-the-ground images of Hiroshima

Empty bottle of Chianti Bertolli wine signed by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project

Archival Film

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Effects, 1945

The Last Bomb ,  a 1945 film, done in Technicolor, by the Army Air Forces Combat Camera Units and Motion Picture Units covering the B-29 bombing raids on Japan

Effects on the human body of radiation from the atomic bomb

Additional Records

Photos: Atomic Bomb Preparations at Tinian Island, 1945

Atomic bomb/ Enola Gay preparations for the bombing missions

Post-Hiroshima bombing aerial and on-the-ground images

Color image of Hiroshima after bombing

Manhattan Project records from Oak Ridge, TN

Blogs and Social Media Posts

Unwritten Record:  Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Unwritten Record:  Witness to Destruction: Photographs and Sound Recordings Documenting the Hiroshima Bombing

Forward with Roosevelt:  Found in the Archives: The Einstein Letter

Pieces of History:  Little Boy: The First Atomic Bomb

Pieces of History:  Harry Truman and the Bomb

Pieces of History:  Morgantown Ordnance Works (part of the Manhattan Project) Panoramas, 1940–1942

Today's Document:  Petition from Manhattan Project Scientists to President Truman

For Educators

Docs Teach resources on the atomic bomb

Teaching with Documents:  Photographs and Pamphlet about Nuclear Fallout

Kennedy Library: “The Presidency in the Nuclear Age”

At the Presidential Libraries

Roosevelt Library: Albert Einstein’s letter to FDR regarding the atomic bomb

Truman Library: “The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb ”

Truman Library: Additional records on the bombing of Hiroshima

Truman Library:  President Truman's Diary Entry for July 17, 1945 (the day before Truman learned that the United States had successfully tested the world's first atomic bomb)

Truman Library: Memo for the Record, Manhattan Project, July 20, 1945

Truman Library: Petition from Leo Szilard and other scientists to President Truman

Eisenhower Library: Atoms for Peace

Kennedy Library: “ The Presidency in the Nuclear Age: The Race to Build the Bomb and the Decision to Use It”

The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II

A Collection of Primary Sources

Updated National Security Archive Posting Marks 75th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings of Japan and the End of World War II

Extensive Compilation of Primary Source Documents Explores Manhattan Project, Eisenhower’s Early Misgivings about First Nuclear Use, Curtis LeMay and the Firebombing of Tokyo, Debates over Japanese Surrender Terms, Atomic Targeting Decisions, and Lagging Awareness of Radiation Effects

Washington, D.C., August 4, 2020 –  To mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the National Security Archive is updating and reposting one of its most popular e-books of the past 25 years. 

While U.S. leaders hailed the bombings at the time and for many years afterwards for bringing the Pacific war to an end and saving untold thousands of American lives, that interpretation has since been seriously challenged.  Moreover, ethical questions have shrouded the bombings which caused terrible human losses and in succeeding decades fed a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union and now Russia and others.

Three-quarters of a century on, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain emblematic of the dangers and human costs of warfare, specifically the use of nuclear weapons.  Since these issues will be subjects of hot debate for many more years, the Archive has once again refreshed its compilation of declassified U.S. government documents and translated Japanese records that first appeared on these pages in 2005.

*    *    *    *    *

Introduction

By William Burr

The 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 is an occasion for sober reflection. In Japan and elsewhere around the world, each anniversary is observed with great solemnity. The bombings were the first time that nuclear weapons had been detonated in combat operations.  They caused terrible human losses and destruction at the time and more deaths and sickness in the years ahead from the radiation effects. And the U.S. bombings hastened the Soviet Union’s atomic bomb project and have fed a big-power nuclear arms race to this day. Thankfully, nuclear weapons have not been exploded in war since 1945, perhaps owing to the taboo against their use shaped by the dropping of the bombs on Japan. 

Along with the ethical issues involved in the use of atomic and other mass casualty weapons, why the bombs were dropped in the first place has been the subject of sometimes heated debate. As with all events in human history, interpretations vary and readings of primary sources can lead to different conclusions.  Thus, the extent to which the bombings contributed to the end of World War II or the beginning of the Cold War remain live issues.  A significant contested question is whether, under the weight of a U.S. blockade and massive conventional bombing, the Japanese were ready to surrender before the bombs were dropped.  Also still debated is the impact of the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria, compared to the atomic bombings, on the Japanese decision to surrender. Counterfactual issues are also disputed, for example whether there were alternatives to the atomic bombings, or would the Japanese have surrendered had a demonstration of the bomb been used to produced shock and awe. Moreover, the role of an invasion of Japan in U.S. planning remains a matter of debate, with some arguing that the bombings spared many thousands of American lives that otherwise would have been lost in an invasion.

Those and other questions will be subjects of discussion well into the indefinite future. Interested readers will continue to absorb the fascinating historical literature on the subject.  Some will want to read declassified primary sources so they can further develop their own thinking about the issues. Toward that end, in 2005, at the time of the 60th anniversary of the bombings, staff at the National Security Archive compiled and scanned a significant number of declassified U.S. government documents to make them more widely available. The documents cover multiple aspects of the bombings and their context.  Also included, to give a wider perspective, were translations of Japanese documents not widely available before.  Since 2005, the collection has been updated. This latest iteration of the collection includes corrections, a few minor revisions, and updated footnotes to take into account recently published secondary literature.

2015 Update

August 4, 2015 – A few months after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General Dwight D.  Eisenhower commented during a social occasion “how he had hoped that the war might have ended without our having to use the atomic bomb.” This virtually unknown evidence from the diary of Robert P. Meiklejohn, an assistant to Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, published for the first time today by the National Security Archive, confirms that the future President Eisenhower had early misgivings about the first use of atomic weapons by the United States. General George C. Marshall is the only high-level official whose contemporaneous (pre-Hiroshima) doubts about using the weapons against cities are on record.

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. This update presents previously unpublished material and translations of difficult-to-find records. Included are documents on the early stages of the U.S. atomic bomb project, Army Air Force General  Curtis LeMay’s report  on the firebombing of Tokyo (March 1945), Secretary of War Henry  Stimson’s requests  for modification of unconditional surrender terms,  Soviet documents  relating to the events, excerpts from the Robert P. Meiklejohn diaries mentioned above, and selections from the diaries of Walter J. Brown, special assistant to Secretary of State James Byrnes.

The original 2005 posting included a wide range of material, including formerly top secret "Magic" summaries of intercepted Japanese communications and the first-ever full translations from the Japanese of accounts of high level meetings and discussions in Tokyo leading to the Emperor’s decision to surrender. Also documented are U.S. decisions to target Japanese cities, pre-Hiroshima petitions by scientists questioning the military use of the A-bomb, proposals for demonstrating the effects of the bomb, debates over whether to modify unconditional surrender terms, reports from the bombing missions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and belated top-level awareness of the radiation effects of atomic weapons.

The documents can help readers to make up their own minds about long-standing controversies such as whether the first use of atomic weapons was justified, whether President Harry S. Truman had alternatives to atomic attacks for ending the war, and what the impact of the Soviet declaration of war on Japan was. 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. Drawing on sources at the National Archives and the Library of Congress as well as Japanese materials, this electronic briefing book includes key documents that historians of the events have relied upon to present their findings and advance their interpretations.

The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II: A Collection of Primary Sources

Seventy years ago this month, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and the Japanese government surrendered to the United States and its allies. The nuclear age had truly begun with the first military use of atomic weapons. With the material that follows, the National Security Archive publishes the most comprehensive on-line collection to date of declassified U.S. government documents on the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific. 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. Moreover, the collection includes for the first time translations from Japanese sources of high level meetings and discussions in Tokyo, including the conferences when Emperor Hirohito authorized the final decision to surrender. [1]

Ever since the atomic bombs were exploded over Japanese cities, historians, social scientists, journalists, World War II veterans, and ordinary citizens have engaged in intense controversy about the events of August 1945. John Hersey’s  Hiroshima , first published in the New Yorker  in 1946 encouraged unsettled readers to question the bombings while church groups and some commentators, most prominently Norman Cousins, explicitly criticized them. Former Secretary of War Henry Stimson found the criticisms troubling and published an influential justification for the attacks in  Harper’s . [2] During the 1960s the availability of primary sources made historical research and writing possible and the debate became more vigorous. Historians Herbert Feis and Gar Alperovitz raised searching questions about the first use of nuclear weapons and their broader political and diplomatic implications. The controversy, especially the arguments made by Alperovitz and others about “atomic diplomacy” quickly became caught up in heated debates over Cold War “revisionism.” The controversy simmered over the years with major contributions by Martin Sherwin and Barton J. Bernstein but it became explosive during the mid-1990s when curators at the National Air and Space Museum met the wrath of the Air Force Association over a proposed historical exhibit on the Enola Gay. [3] The NASM exhibit was drastically scaled-down but historians and journalist continued to engage in the debate. Alperovitz, Bernstein, and Sherwin made new contributions as did other historians, social scientists, and journalists including Richard B. Frank, Herbert Bix, Sadao Asada, Kai Bird, Robert James Maddox, Sean Malloy, Robert P. Newman, Robert S. Norris, Tsuyoshi Hagesawa, and J. Samuel Walker. [4]

The continued controversy has revolved around the following, among other, questions:

• were the atomic strikes necessary primarily to avert an invasion of Japan in November 1945?
• Did Truman authorize the use of atomic bombs for diplomatic-political reasons-- to intimidate the Soviets--or was his major goal to force Japan to surrender and bring the war to an early end?
• 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”?
• To what extent did subsequent justification for the atomic bomb exaggerate or misuse wartime estimates for U.S. casualties stemming from an invasion of Japan?
• Were there alternatives to the use of the weapons? If there were, what were they and how plausible are they in retrospect? Why were alternatives not pursued?
• How did the U.S. government plan to use the bombs? What concepts did war planners use to select targets? To what extent were senior officials interested in looking at alternatives to urban targets? How familiar was President Truman with the concepts that led target planners chose major cities as targets?
• What did senior officials know about the effects of atomic bombs before they were first used. How much did top officials know about the radiation effects of the weapons?
• Did President Truman make a decision, in a robust sense, to use the bomb or did he inherit a decision that had already been made?
• Were the Japanese ready to surrender before the bombs were dropped? To what extent had Emperor Hirohito prolonged the war unnecessarily by not seizing opportunities for surrender?
• If the United States had been more flexible about the demand for “unconditional surrender” by explicitly or implicitly guaranteeing a constitutional monarchy would Japan have surrendered earlier than it did?
• How decisive was the atomic bombings to the Japanese decision to surrender?
• Was the bombing of Nagasaki unnecessary? To the extent that the atomic bombing was critically important to the Japanese decision to surrender would it have been enough to destroy one city?
• Would the Soviet declaration of war have been enough to compel Tokyo to admit defeat?
• Was the dropping of the atomic bombs morally justifiable?

This compilation will not attempt to answer these questions or use primary sources to stake out positions on any of them. Nor is it an attempt to substitute for the extraordinary rich literature on the atomic bombings and the end of World War II. Nor does it include any of the interviews, documents prepared after the events, and post-World War II correspondence, etc. that participants in the debate have brought to bear in framing their arguments. Originally this collection did not include documents on the origins and development of the Manhattan Project, although this updated posting includes some significant records for context. By providing access to a broad range of U.S. and Japanese documents, mainly from the spring and summer of 1945, interested readers can see for themselves the crucial source material that scholars have used to shape narrative accounts of the historical developments and to frame their arguments about the questions that have provoked controversy over the years. To help readers who are less familiar with the debates, commentary on some of the documents will point out, although far from comprehensively, some of the ways in which they have been interpreted. With direct access to the documents, readers may develop their own answers to the questions raised above. The documents may even provoke new questions.

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. The editor has closely reviewed the footnotes and endnotes in a variety of articles and books and selected documents cited by participants on the various sides of the controversy. [5] While the editor has a point of view on the issues, to the greatest extent possible he has tried to not let that influence document selection, e.g., by selectively withholding or including documents that may buttress one point of view or the other. The task of compilation involved consultation of primary sources at the National Archives, mainly in Manhattan Project files held in the records of the Army Corps of Engineers, Record Group 77, but also in the archival records of the National Security Agency. Private collections were also important, such as the Henry L. Stimson Papers held at Yale University (although available on microfilm, for example, at the Library of Congress) and the papers of W. Averell Harriman at the Library of Congress. To a great extent the documents selected for this compilation have been declassified for years, even decades; the most recent declassifications were in the 1990s.

The U.S. documents cited here will be familiar to many knowledgeable readers on the Hiroshima-Nagasaki controversy and the history of the Manhattan Project. To provide a fuller picture of the transition from U.S.-Japanese antagonism to reconciliation, the editor has done what could be done within time and resource constraints to present information on the activities and points of view of Japanese policymakers and diplomats. 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. Moreover, to shed light on the considerations that induced Japan’s surrender, this briefing book includes new translations of Japanese primary sources on crucial events, including accounts of the conferences on August 9 and 14, where Emperor Hirohito made decisions to accept Allied terms of surrender.

[ Editor’s Note: Originally prepared in July 2005 this posting has been updated, with new documents, changes in organization, and other editorial changes. As noted, some documents relating to the origins of the Manhattan Project have been included in addition to entries from the Robert P. Meiklejohn diaries and translations of a few Soviet documents, among other items. Moreover, recent significant contributions to the scholarly literature have been taken into account.]

I. Background on the U.S. Atomic Project

Documents 1A-C: Report of the Uranium Committee

1A . Arthur H. Compton, National Academy of Sciences Committee on Atomic Fission, to Frank Jewett, President, National Academy of Sciences, 17 May 1941, Secret

1B . Report to the President of the National Academy of Sciences by the Academy Committee on Uranium, 6 November 1941, Secret

1C . Vannevar Bush, Director, Office of Scientific Research and Development, to President Roosevelt, 27 November 1941, Secret

Source: National Archives, Records of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Record Group 227 (hereinafter RG 227), Bush-Conant papers microfilm collection, Roll 1, Target 2, Folder 1, "S-1 Historical File, Section A (1940-1941)."

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. The initial report, May 1941, showed how leading American scientists grappled with the potential of nuclear energy for military purposes. At the outset, three possibilities were envisioned: radiological warfare, a power source for submarines and ships, and explosives. To produce material for any of those purposes required a capability to separate uranium isotopes in order to produce fissionable U-235. Also necessary for those capabilities was the production of a nuclear chain reaction. At the time of the first report, various methods for producing a chain reaction were envisioned and money was being budgeted to try them out.

Later that year, the Uranium Committee completed its report and OSRD Chairman Vannevar Bush reported the findings to President Roosevelt: As Bush emphasized, the U.S. findings were more conservative than those in the British MAUD report: the bomb would be somewhat “less effective,” would take longer to produce, and at a higher cost. One of the report’s key findings was that a fission bomb of superlatively destructive power will result from bringing quickly together a sufficient mass of element U235.” That was a certainty, “as sure as any untried prediction based upon theory and experiment can be.” The critically important task was to develop ways and means to separate highly enriched uranium from uranium-238. To get production going, Bush wanted to establish a “carefully chosen engineering group to study plans for possible production.” This was the basis of the Top Policy Group, or the S-1 Committee, which Bush and James B. Conant quickly established. [6]

In its discussion of the effects of an atomic weapon, the committee considered both blast and radiological damage. With respect to the latter, “It is possible that the destructive effects on life caused by the intense radioactivity of the products of the explosion may be as important as those of the explosion itself.” This insight was overlooked when top officials of the Manhattan Project considered the targeting of Japan during 1945. [7]

Documents 2A-B: Going Ahead with the Bomb

2A : Vannevar Bush to President Roosevelt, 9 March 1942, with memo from Roosevelt attached, 11 March 1942, Secret

2B : Vannevar Bush to President Roosevelt, 16 December 1942, Secret (report not attached)

Sources: 2A: RG 227, Bush-Conant papers microfilm collection, Roll 1, Target 2, Folder 1, "S-1 Historical File, Section II (1941-1942): 2B: Bush-Conant papers, S-1 Historical File, Reports to and Conferences with the President (1942-1944)

The Manhattan Project never had an official charter establishing it and defining its mission, but these two documents are the functional equivalent of a charter, in terms of presidential approvals for the mission, not to mention for a huge budget. In a progress report, Bush told President Roosevelt that the bomb project was on a pilot plant basis, but not yet at the production stage. By the summer, once “production plants” would be at work, he proposed that the War Department take over the project. In reply, Roosevelt wrote a short memo endorsing Bush’s ideas as long as absolute secrecy could be maintained. According to Robert S. Norris, this was “the fateful decision” to turn over the atomic project to military control. [8]

Some months later, with the Manhattan Project already underway and under the direction of General Leslie Grove, Bush outlined to Roosevelt the effort necessary to produce six fission bombs. With the goal of having enough fissile material by the first half of 1945 to produce the bombs, Bush was worried that the Germans might get there first. Thus, he wanted Roosevelt’s instructions as to whether the project should be “vigorously pushed throughout.” Unlike the pilot plant proposal described above, Bush described a real production order for the bomb, at an estimated cost of a “serious figure”: $400 million, which was an optimistic projection given the eventual cost of $1.9 billion. To keep the secret, Bush wanted to avoid a “ruinous” appropriations request to Congress and asked Roosevelt to ask Congress for the necessary discretionary funds. Initialed by President Roosevelt (“VB OK FDR”), this may have been the closest that he came to a formal approval of the Manhattan Project.

Document 3 : Memorandum by Leslie R. Grove, “Policy Meeting, 5/5/43,” Top Secret

Source:  National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Army Corps of Engineers (hereinafter RG 77), Manhattan Engineering District (MED), Minutes of the Military Policy Meeting (5 May 1943), Correspondence (“Top Secret”) of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1109 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), Roll 3, Target 6, Folder 23, “Military Policy Committee, Minutes of Meetings”

Before the Manhattan Project had produced any weapons, senior U.S. government officials had Japanese targets in mind. Besides discussing programmatic matters (e.g., status of gaseous diffusion plants, heavy water production for reactors, and staffing at Las Alamos), the participants agreed that the first use could be Japanese naval forces concentrated at Truk Harbor, an atoll in the Caroline Islands. If there was a misfire the weapon would be difficult for the Japanese to recover, which would not be the case if Tokyo was targeted. Targeting Germany was rejected because the Germans were considered more likely to “secure knowledge” from a defective weapon than the Japanese. That is, the United States could possibly be in danger if the Nazis acquired more knowledge about how to build a bomb. [9]

Document 4 :   Memo from General Groves to the Chief of Staff [Marshall], “Atomic Fission Bombs – Present Status and Expected Progress,” 7 August 1944, Top Secret, excised copy

Source: RG 77, Correspondence ("Top Secret") of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, file 25M

This memorandum from General Groves to General Marshall captured how far the Manhattan Project had come in less than two years since Bush’s December 1942 report to President Roosevelt .  Groves did not mention this but around the time he wrote this the Manhattan Project had working at its far-flung installations over  125,000 people  ; taking into account high labor turnover some 485,000 people worked on the project (1 out of every 250 people in the country at that time). What these people were laboring to construct, directly or indirectly, were two types of weapons—a gun-type weapon using U-235 and an implosion weapon using plutonium (although the possibility of U-235 was also under consideration). As the scientists had learned, a gun-type weapon based on plutonium was “impossible” because that element had an “unexpected property”: spontaneous neutron emissions would cause the weapon to “fizzle.” [10]  For both the gun-type and the implosion weapons, a production schedule had been established and both would be available during 1945. The discussion of weapons effects centered on blast damage models; radiation and other effects were overlooked.

Document 5 : Memorandum from Vannevar Bush and James B. Conant, Office of Scientific Research and Development, to Secretary of War, September 30, 1944, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, Harrison-Bundy Files (H-B Files), folder 69 (copy from microfilm)

While Groves worried about the engineering and production problems, key War Department advisers were becoming troubled over the diplomatic and political implications of these enormously powerful weapons and the dangers of a global nuclear arms race. Concerned that President Roosevelt had an overly “cavalier” belief about the possibility of maintaining a post-war Anglo-American atomic monopoly, Bush and Conant recognized the limits of secrecy and wanted to disabuse senior officials of the notion that an atomic monopoly was possible. To suggest alternatives, they drafted this memorandum about the importance of the international exchange of information and international inspection to stem dangerous nuclear competition. [11]

Documents 6A-D: President Truman Learns the Secret:

6A : Memorandum for the Secretary of War from General L. R. Groves, “Atomic Fission Bombs,” April 23, 1945

6B : Memorandum discussed with the President, April 25, 1945

6C : [Untitled memorandum by General L.R. Groves, April 25, 1945

6D : Diary Entry, April 25, 1945

Sources: A: RG 77, Commanding General’s file no. 24, tab D; B: Henry Stimson Diary, Sterling Library, Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress); C: Source: Record Group 200, Papers of General Leslie R. Groves, Correspondence 1941-1970, box 3, “F”; D: Henry Stimson Diary, Sterling Library, Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress)

Soon after he was sworn in as president following President Roosevelt’s death, Harry Truman learned about the top secret Manhattan Project from a briefing from Secretary of War Stimson and Manhattan Project chief General Groves, who went through the “back door” to escape the watchful press. Stimson, who later wrote up the meeting in his diary, also prepared a discussion paper, which raised broader policy issues associated with the imminent possession of “the most terrible weapon ever known in human history.” In a background report prepared for the meeting, Groves provided a detailed overview of the bomb project from the raw materials to processing nuclear fuel to assembling the weapons to plans for using them, which were starting to crystallize.

With respect to the point about assembling the weapons, the first gun-type weapon “should be ready about 1 August 1945” while an implosion weapon would also be available that month. “The target is and was always expected to be Japan.” The question whether Truman “inherited assumptions” from the Roosevelt administration that that the bomb would be used has been a controversial one. Alperovitz and Sherwin have argued that Truman made “a real decision” to use the bomb on Japan by choosing “between various forms of diplomacy and warfare.” In contrast, Bernstein found that Truman “never questioned [the] assumption” that the bomb would and should be used. Norris also noted that “Truman’s `decision’ was a decision not to override previous plans to use the bomb.” [12]

II. Targeting Japan

Document 7 : Commander F. L. Ashworth to Major General L.R. Groves, “The Base of Operations of the 509 th  Composite Group,” February 24, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5g

The force of B-29 nuclear delivery vehicles that was being readied for first nuclear use—the Army Air Force’s 509 th  Composite Group—required an operational base in the Western Pacific. In late February 1945, months before atomic bombs were ready for use, the high command selected Tinian, an island in the Northern Marianas Islands, for that base.

Document 8 : Headquarters XXI Bomber Command, “Tactical Mission Report, Mission No. 40 Flown 10 March 1945,”n.d., Secret

Source: Library of Congress, Curtis LeMay Papers, Box B-36

As part of the war with Japan, the Army Air Force waged a campaign to destroy major industrial centers with incendiary bombs. This document is General Curtis LeMay’s report on the firebombing of Tokyo--“the most destructive air raid in history”--which burned down over 16 square miles of the city, killed up to 100,000 civilians (the official figure was 83,793), injured more than 40,000, and made over 1 million homeless.  [13]  According to the “Foreword,” the purpose of the raid, which dropped 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs, was to destroy industrial and strategic targets “ not  to bomb indiscriminately civilian populations.” Air Force planners, however, did not distinguish civilian workers from the industrial and strategic structures that they were trying to destroy.

The killing of workers in the urban-industrial sector was one of the explicit goals of the air campaign against Japanese cities. According to a Joint Chiefs of Staff report on Japanese target systems, expected results from the bombing campaign included: “The absorption of man-hours in repair and relief; the dislocation of labor by casualty; the interruption of public services necessary to production, and above all the destruction of factories engaged in war industry.” While Stimson would later raise questions about the bombing of Japanese cities, he was largely disengaged from the details (as he was with atomic targeting). [14]

Firebombing raids on other cities followed Tokyo, including Osaka, Kobe, Yokahama, and Nagoya, but with fewer casualties (many civilians had fled the cities). For some historians, the urban fire-bombing strategy facilitated atomic targeting by creating a “new moral context,” in which earlier proscriptions against intentional targeting of civilians had eroded. [15]

Document 9 : Notes on Initial Meeting of Target Committee, May 2, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5d (copy from microfilm)

On 27 April, military officers and nuclear scientists met to discuss bombing techniques, criteria for target selection, and overall mission requirements. The discussion of “available targets” included Hiroshima, the “largest untouched target not on the 21 st  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 Japan’s cities which created tension with the objective of reserving some urban targets for nuclear destruction.  [16]

Document 10 : Memorandum from J. R. Oppenheimer to Brigadier General Farrell, May 11, 1945

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5g (copy from microfilm)

As director of Los Alamos Laboratory, Oppenheimer’s priority was producing a deliverable bomb, but not so much the effects of the weapon on the people at the target. In keeping with General Groves’ emphasis on compartmentalization, the Manhattan Project experts on the effects of radiation on human biology were at the MetLab and other offices and had no interaction with the production and targeting units. In this short memorandum to Groves’ deputy, General Farrell, Oppenheimer explained the need for precautions because of the radiological dangers of a nuclear detonation. The initial radiation from the detonation would be fatal within a radius of about 6/10ths of a mile and “injurious” within a radius of a mile. The point was to keep the bombing mission crew safe; concern about radiation effects had no impact on targeting decisions.  [17]

Document 11 : Memorandum from Major J. A. Derry and Dr. N.F. Ramsey to General L.R. Groves, “Summary of Target Committee Meetings on 10 and 11 May 1945,” May 12, 1945, Top Secret

Scientists and officers held further discussion of bombing mission requirements, including height of detonation, weather, radiation effects (Oppenheimer’s memo), plans for possible mission abort, and the various aspects of target selection, including priority cities (“a large urban area of more than three miles diameter”) and psychological dimension. As for target cities, the committee agreed that the following should be exempt from Army Air Force bombing so they would be available for nuclear targeting: Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura Arsenal. Japan’s cultural capital, Kyoto, would not stay on the list. Pressure from Secretary of War Stimson had already taken Kyoto off the list of targets for incendiary bombings and he would successfully object to the atomic bombing of that city.  [18]

Document 12 : Stimson Diary Entries, May 14 and 15, 1945

Source: Henry Stimson Diary, Sterling Library, Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress)

On May 14 and 15, Stimson had several conversations involving S-1 (the atomic bomb); during a talk with Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, he estimated that possession of the bomb gave Washington a tremendous advantage—“held all the cards,” a “royal straight flush”-- in dealing with Moscow on post-war problems: “They can’t get along without our help and industries and we have coming into action a weapon which will be unique.” The next day a discussion of divergences with Moscow over the Far East made Stimson wonder whether the atomic bomb would be ready when Truman met with Stalin in July. If it was, he believed that the bomb would be the “master card” in U.S. diplomacy. This and other entries from the Stimson diary (as well as the entry from the Davies diary that follows) are important to arguments developed by Gar Alperovitz and Barton J. Bernstein, among others, although with significantly different emphases, that in light of controversies with the Soviet Union over Eastern Europe and other areas, top officials in the Truman administration believed that possessing the atomic bomb would provide them with significant leverage for inducing Moscow’s acquiescence in U.S. objectives. [19]

Document 13 : Davies Diary entry for May 21, 1945

Source: Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, box 17, 21 May 1945

While officials at the Pentagon continued to look closely at the problem of atomic targets, President Truman, like Stimson, was thinking about the diplomatic implications of the bomb. During a conversation with Joseph E. Davies, a prominent Washington lawyer and former ambassador to the Soviet Union, Truman said that he wanted to delay talks with Stalin and Churchill until July when the first atomic device had been tested. Alperovitz treated this entry as evidence in support of the atomic diplomacy argument, but other historians, ranging from Robert Maddox to Gabriel Kolko, have denied that the timing of the Potsdam conference had anything to do with the goal of using the bomb to intimidate the Soviets. [20]

Document 14 : Letter, O. C. Brewster to President Truman, 24 May 1945, with note from Stimson to Marshall, 30 May 1945, attached, secret

Source: Harrison-Bundy Files relating to the Development of the Atomic Bomb, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1108 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), File 77: "Interim Committee - International Control."

In what Stimson called the “letter of an honest man,” Oswald C. Brewster sent President Truman a profound analysis of the danger and unfeasibility of a U.S. atomic monopoly.  [21]  An engineer for the Kellex Corporation, which was involved in the gas diffusion project to enrich uranium, Brewster recognized that the objective was fissile material for a weapon. That goal, he feared, raised terrifying prospects with implications for the “inevitable destruction of our present day civilization.” Once the U.S. had used the bomb in combat other great powers would not tolerate a monopoly by any nation and the sole possessor would be “be the most hated and feared nation on earth.” Even the U.S.’s closest allies would want the bomb because “how could they know where our friendship might be five, ten, or twenty years hence.” Nuclear proliferation and arms races would be certain unless the U.S. worked toward international supervision and inspection of nuclear plants.

Brewster suggested that Japan could be used as a “target” for a “demonstration” of the bomb, which he did not further define. His implicit preference, however, was for non-use; he wrote that it would be better to take U.S. casualties in “conquering Japan” than “to bring upon the world the tragedy of unrestrained competitive production of this material.”

Document 15 : Minutes of Third Target Committee Meeting – Washington, May 28, 1945, Top Secret

More updates on training missions, target selection, and conditions required for successful detonation over the target. The target would be a city--either Hiroshima, Kyoto (still on the list), or Niigata--but specific “aiming points” would not be specified at that time nor would industrial “pin point” targets because they were likely to be on the “fringes” a city. The bomb would be dropped in the city’s center. “Pumpkins” referred to bright orange, pumpkin-shaped high explosive bombs—shaped like the “Fat Man” implosion weapon--used for bombing run test missions.

Document 16 : General Lauris Norstad to Commanding General, XXI Bomber Command, “509 th  Composite Group; Special Functions,” May 29, 1945, Top Secret

The 509 th  Composite Group’s cover story for its secret mission was the preparation of “Pumpkins” for use in battle. In this memorandum, Norstad reviewed the complex requirements for preparing B-29s and their crew for successful nuclear strikes.

Document 17 : Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, “Memorandum of Conversation with General Marshal May 29, 1945 – 11:45 p.m.,” Top Secret

Source: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe File”), July 1940-September 1945, box 12, S-1

Tacitly dissenting from the Targeting Committee’s recommendations, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall argued for initial nuclear use against a clear-cut military target such as a “large naval installation.” If that did not work, manufacturing areas could be targeted, but only after warning their inhabitants. Marshall noted the “opprobrium which might follow from an ill considered employment of such force.” This document has played a role in arguments developed by Barton J. Bernstein that figures such as Marshall and Stimson were “caught between an older morality that opposed the intentional killing of non-combatants and a newer one that stressed virtually total war.” [22]  

Document 18 : “Notes of the Interim Committee Meeting Thursday, 31 May 1945, 10:00 A.M. to 1:15 P.M. – 2:15 P.M. to 4:15 P.M., ” n.d., Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 100 (copy from microfilm)

With Secretary of War Stimson presiding, members of the committee heard reports on a variety of Manhattan Project issues, including the stages of development of the atomic project, problems of secrecy, the possibility of informing the Soviet Union, cooperation with “like-minded” powers, the military impact of the bomb on Japan, and the problem of “undesirable scientists.” Interested in producing the “greatest psychological effect,” the Committee members agreed that the “most desirable target would be a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers’ houses.” Exactly how the mass deaths of civilians would persuade Japanese rulers to surrender was not discussed. Bernstein has argued that this target choice represented an uneasy endorsement of “terror bombing”--the target was not exclusively military or civilian; nevertheless, worker’s housing would include non-combatant men, women, and children. [23]  It is possible that Truman was informed of such discussions and their conclusions, although he clung to a belief that the prospective targets were strictly military.

Document 19 : General George A. Lincoln to General Hull, June 4, 1945, enclosing draft, Top Secret

Source: Record Group 165, Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, American-British-Canadian Top Secret Correspondence, Box 504, “ABC 387 Japan (15 Feb. 45)

George A. Lincoln, chief of the Strategy and Policy Group at U.S. Army’s Operations Department, commented on a memorandum by former President Herbert Hoover that Stimson had passed on for analysis. 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. While Lincoln believed that the proposed peace teams were militarily acceptable he doubted that they were workable or that they could check Soviet “expansion” which he saw as an inescapable result of World War II. As to how the war with Japan would end, he saw it as “unpredictable,” but speculated that “it will take Russian entry into the war, combined with a landing, or imminent threat of a landing, on Japan proper by us, to convince them of the hopelessness of their situation.” Lincoln derided Hoover’s casualty estimate of 500,000. J. Samuel Walker has cited this document to make the point that “contrary to revisionist assertions, American policymakers in the summer of 1945 were far from certain that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria would be enough in itself to force a Japanese surrender.”  [24]

Document 20 : Memorandum from R. Gordon Arneson, Interim Committee Secretary, to Mr. Harrison, June 6, 1945, Top Secret

In a memorandum to George Harrison, Stimson’s special assistant on Manhattan Project matters, Arneson noted actions taken at the recent Interim Committee meetings, including target criterion and an attack “without prior warning.”

Document 21 : Memorandum of Conference with the President, June 6, 1945, Top Secret

Source: Henry Stimson Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress)

Stimson and Truman began this meeting by discussing how they should handle a conflict with French President DeGaulle over the movement by French forces into Italian territory. (Truman finally cut off military aid to France to compel the French to pull back).  [25]  As evident from the discussion, Stimson strongly disliked de Gaulle whom he regarded as “psychopathic.” The conversation soon turned to the atomic bomb, with some discussion about plans to inform the Soviets but only after a successful test. Both agreed that the possibility of a nuclear “partnership” with Moscow would depend on “quid pro quos”: “the settlement of the Polish, Rumanian, Yugoslavian, and Manchurian problems.”

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. Barton Bernstein has also pointed to this as additional evidence of the influence on Stimson of an “an older morality.” While concerned about the U.S.’s reputation, Stimson did not want the Air Force to bomb Japanese cities so thoroughly that the “new weapon would not have a fair background to show its strength,” a comment that made Truman laugh.  The discussion of “area bombing” may have reminded him that Japanese civilians remained at risk from U.S. bombing operations.

III. Debates on Alternatives to First Use and Unconditional Surrender

Document 22 : Memorandum from Arthur B. Compton to the Secretary of War, enclosing “Memorandum on `Political and Social Problems,’ from Members of the `Metallurgical Laboratory’ of the University of Chicago,” June 12, 1945, Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 76 (copy from microfilm)

Physicists Leo Szilard and James Franck, a Nobel Prize winner, were on the staff of the “Metallurgical Laboratory” at the University of Chicago, a cover for the Manhattan Project program to produce fuel for the bomb. The outspoken Szilard was not involved in operational work on the bomb and General Groves kept him under surveillance but Met Lab director Arthur Compton found Szilard useful to have around. 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. That possibility would be difficult if the United States made first military use of the weapon. Compton raised doubts about the recommendations but urged Stimson to study the report. Martin Sherwin has argued that the Franck committee shared an important assumption with Truman et al.--that an “atomic attack against Japan would `shock’ the Russians”--but drew entirely different conclusions about the import of such a shock.  [26]

Document 23 : Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew to the President, “Analysis of Memorandum Presented by Mr. Hoover,” June 13, 1945

Source: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe File”), July 1940-September 1945, box 8, Japan (After December 7/41)

A former ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew’s extensive knowledge of Japanese politics and culture informed his stance toward the concept of unconditional surrender. He believed it essential that the United States declare its intention to preserve the institution of the emperor. 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. 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. [27]

Document 24 : Memorandum from Chief of Staff Marshall to the Secretary of War, 15 June 1945, enclosing “Memorandum of Comments on `Ending the Japanese War,’” prepared by George A. Lincoln, June 14, 1945, Top Secret

Commenting on another memorandum by Herbert Hoover, George A. Lincoln discussed war aims, face-saving proposals for Japan, and the nature of the proposed declaration to the Japanese government, including the problem of defining “unconditional surrender.” Lincoln argued against modifying the concept of unconditional surrender: if it is “phrased so as to invite negotiation” he saw risks of prolonging the war or a “compromise peace.” J. Samuel Walker has observed that those risks help explain why senior officials were unwilling to modify the demand for unconditional surrender. [28]

Document 25 : Memorandum by J. R. Oppenheimer, “Recommendations on the Immediate Use of Nuclear Weapons,” June 16, 1945, Top Secret

In a report to Stimson, Oppenheimer and colleagues on the scientific advisory panel--Arthur Compton, Ernest O. Lawrence, and Enrico Fermi—tacitly disagreed with the report of the “Met Lab” scientists. The panel argued for early military use but not before informing key allies about the atomic project to open a dialogue on “how we can cooperate in making this development contribute to improved international relations.”

Document 26 : “Minutes of Meeting Held at the White House on Monday, 18 June 1945 at 1530,” Top Secret

Source: Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Central Decimal Files, 1942-1945, box 198 334 JCS (2-2-45) Mtg 186 th -194 th

With the devastating battle for Okinawa winding up, Truman and the Joint Chiefs stepped back and considered what it would take to secure Japan’s surrender. The discussion depicted a Japan that, by 1 November, would be close to defeat, with great destruction and economic losses produced by aerial bombing and naval blockade, but not ready to capitulate. Marshall believed that the latter required Soviet entry and an invasion of Kyushu, even suggesting that Soviet entry might be the “decisive action levering them into capitulation.” Truman and the Chiefs reviewed plans to land troops on Kyushu on 1 November, which Marshall believed was essential because air power was not decisive. He believed that casualties would not be more than those produced by the battle for Luzon, some 31,000. This account hints at discussion of the atomic bomb (“certain other matters”), but no documents disclose that part of the meeting.

The record of this meeting has figured in the complex debate over the estimates of casualties stemming from a possible invasion of Japan. 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.  [29]

According to accounts based on post-war recollections and interviews, during the meeting McCloy raised the possibility of winding up the war by guaranteeing the preservation of the emperor albeit as a constitutional monarch. If that failed to persuade Tokyo, he proposed that the United States disclose the secret of the atomic bomb to secure Japan’s unconditional surrender. While McCloy later recalled that Truman expressed interest, he said that Secretary of State Byrnes squashed the proposal because of his opposition to any “deals” with Japan. Yet, according to Forrest Pogue’s account, when Truman asked McCloy if he had any comments, the latter opened up a discussion of nuclear weapons use by asking “Why not use the bomb?” [30]

Document 27 : Memorandum from R. Gordon Arneson, Interim Committee Secretary, to Mr. Harrison, June 25, 1945, Top Secret

For Harrison’s convenience, Arneson summarized key decisions made at the 21 June meeting of the Interim Committee, including a recommendation that President Truman use the forthcoming conference of allied leaders to inform Stalin about the atomic project. The Committee also reaffirmed earlier recommendations about the use of the bomb at the “earliest opportunity” against “dual targets.” In addition, Arneson included the Committee’s recommendation for revoking part two of the 1944 Quebec agreement which stipulated that the neither the United States nor Great Britain would use the bomb “against third parties without each other’s consent.” Thus, an impulse for unilateral control of nuclear use decisions predated the first use of the bomb.

Document 28 : Memorandum from George L. Harrison to Secretary of War, June 26, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED, H-B files, folder no. 77 (copy from microfilm)

Reminding Stimson about the objections of some Manhattan project scientists to military use of the bomb, Harrison summarized the basic arguments of the Franck report. One recommendation shared by many of the scientists, whether they supported the report or not, was that the United States inform Stalin of the bomb before it was used. This proposal had been the subject of positive discussion by the Interim Committee on the grounds that Soviet confidence was necessary to make possible post-war cooperation on atomic energy.

Document 29 : Memorandum from George L. Harrison to Secretary of War, June 28, 1945, Top Secret, enclosing Ralph Bard’s “Memorandum on the Use of S-1 Bomb,” June 27, 1945

Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard joined those scientists who sought to avoid military use of the bomb; he proposed a “preliminary warning” so that the United States would retain its position as a “great humanitarian nation.” Alperovitz cites evidence that Bard discussed his proposal with Truman who told him that he had already thoroughly examined the problem of advanced warning. This document has also figured in the argument framed by Barton Bernstein that Truman and his advisers took it for granted that the bomb was a legitimate weapon and that there was no reason to explore alternatives to military use. Bernstein, however, notes that Bard later denied that he had a meeting with Truman and that White House appointment logs support that claim. [31]

Document 30 : Memorandum for Mr. McCloy, “Comments re: Proposed Program for Japan,” June 28, 1945, Draft, Top Secret

Source: RG 107, Office of Assistant Secretary of War Formerly Classified Correspondence of John J. McCloy, 1941-1945, box 38, ASW 387 Japan

Despite the interest of some senior officials such as Joseph Grew, Henry Stimson, and John J. McCloy in modifying the concept of unconditional surrender so that the Japanese could be sure that the emperor would be preserved, it remained a highly contentious subject. For example, one of McCloy’s aides, Colonel Fahey, argued against modification of unconditional surrender (see “Appendix ‘C`”).

Document 31 : Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy to Colonel Stimson, June 29, 1945, Top Secret

McCloy was part of a drafting committee at work on the text of a proclamation to Japan to be signed by heads of state at the forthcoming Potsdam conference. 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.”

Document 32 : Memorandum, “Timing of Proposed Demand for Japanese Surrender,” June 29, 1945, Top Secret

Probably the work of General George A. Lincoln at Army Operations, this document was prepared a few weeks before the Potsdam conference when senior officials were starting to finalize the text of the declaration that Truman, Churchill, and Chiang would issue there. The author recommended issuing the declaration “just before the bombardment program [against Japan] reaches its peak.” Next to that suggestion, Stimson or someone in his immediate office, wrote “S1”, implying that the atomic bombing of Japanese cities was highly relevant to the timing issue. Also relevant to Japanese thinking about surrender, the author speculated, was the Soviet attack on their forces after a declaration of war.

Document 33 : Stimson memorandum to The President, “Proposed Program for Japan,” 2 July 1945, Top Secret

Source: Naval Aide to the President Files, box 4, Berlin Conference File, Volume XI - Miscellaneous papers: Japan, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library

On 2 July Stimson presented to President Truman a proposal that he had worked up with colleagues in the War Department, including McCloy, Marshall, and Grew. The proposal has been characterized as “the most comprehensive attempt by any American policymaker to leverage diplomacy” in order to shorten the Pacific War. Stimson had in mind a “carefully timed warning” delivered before the invasion of Japan. Some of the key elements of Stimson’s argument were his assumption that “Japan is susceptible to reason” and that Japanese might be even more inclined to surrender if “we do not exclude a constitutional monarchy under her present dynasty.” The possibility of a Soviet attack would be part of the “threat.” As part of the threat message, Stimson alluded to the “inevitability and completeness of the destruction” which Japan could suffer, but he did not make it clear whether unconditional surrender terms should be clarified before using the atomic bomb. Truman read Stimson’s proposal, which he said was “powerful,” but made no commitments to the details, e.g., the position of the emperor.  [32]

Document 34 : Minutes, Secretary’s Staff Committee, Saturday Morning, July 7, 1945, 133d Meeting, Top Secret

Source: Record Group 353, Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees, Secretary’s Staff Meetings Minutes, 1944-1947 (copy from microfilm)

The possibility of modifying the concept of unconditional surrender so that it guaranteed the continuation of the emperor remained hotly contested within the U.S. government. Here senior State Department officials, Under Secretary Joseph Grew on one side, and Assistant Secretary Dean Acheson and Archibald MacLeish on the other, engaged in hot debate.

Document 35 : Combined Chiefs of Staff, “Estimate of the Enemy Situation (as of 6 July 1945, C.C.S 643/3, July 8, 1945, Secret (Appendices Not Included)

Source: RG 218, Central Decimal Files, 1943-1945, CCS 381 (6-4-45), Sec. 2 Pt. 5

This review of Japanese capabilities and intentions portrays an economy and society under “tremendous strain”; nevertheless, “the ground component of the Japanese armed forces remains Japan’s greatest military asset.” Alperovitz sees statements in this estimate about the impact of Soviet entry into the war and the possibility of a conditional surrender involving survival of the emperor as an institution as more evidence that the policymakers saw alternatives to nuclear weapons use. By contrast, Richard Frank takes note of the estimate’s depiction of the Japanese army’s terms for peace: “for surrender to be acceptable to the Japanese army it would be necessary for the military leaders to believe that it would not entail discrediting the warrior tradition and that it would permit the ultimate resurgence of a military in Japan.” That, Frank argues, would have been “unacceptable to any Allied policy maker.” [33]

Document 36 : Cable to Secretary of State from Acting Secretary Joseph Grew, July 16, 1945, Top Secret

Source: Record Group 59, Decimal Files 1945-1949, 740.0011 PW (PE)/7-1645

On the eve of the Potsdam Conference, a State Department draft of the proclamation to Japan contained language which modified unconditional surrender by promising to retain the emperor. When former Secretary of State Cordell Hull learned about it he outlined his objections to Byrnes, arguing that it might be better to wait “the climax of allied bombing and Russia’s entry into the war.” Byrnes was already inclined to reject that part of the draft, but Hull’s argument may have reinforced his decision.

Document 37 : Letter from Stimson to Byrnes, enclosing memorandum to the President, “The Conduct of the War with Japan,” 16 July 1945, Top Secret

Source: Henry L. Stimson Papers (MS 465), Sterling Library, Yale University (reel 113) (microfilm at Library of Congress)

Still interested in trying to find ways to “warn Japan into surrender,” this represents an attempt by Stimson before the Potsdam conference, to persuade Truman and Byrnes to agree to issue warnings to Japan prior to the use of the bomb. The warning would draw on the draft State-War proclamation to Japan; presumably, the one criticized by Hull (above) which included language about the emperor .  Presumably the clarified warning would be issued prior to the use of the bomb; if the Japanese persisted in fighting then “the full force of our new weapons should be brought to bear” and a “heavier” warning would be issued backed by the “actual entrance of the Russians in the war.” Possibly, as Malloy has argued, Stimson was motivated by concerns about using the bomb against civilians and cities, but his latest proposal would meet resistance at Potsdam from Byrnes and other. [34]

Document 38 : R. E. Lapp, Leo Szilard et al., “A Petition to the President of the United States,” July 17, 1945

On the eve of the Potsdam conference, Leo Szilard circulated a petition as part of a final effort to discourage military use of the bomb. Signed by about 68 Manhattan Project scientists, mainly physicists and biologists (copies with the remaining signatures are in the archival file), the petition did not explicitly reject military use, but raised questions about an arms race that military use could instigate and requested Truman to publicize detailed terms for Japanese surrender. Truman, already on his way to Europe, never saw the petition. [35]

IV. The Japanese Search for Soviet Mediation

Documents 39A-B: Magic

39A : William F. Friedman, Consultant (Armed Forces Security Agency), “A Short History of U.S. COMINT Activities,” 19 February 1952, Top Secret

39B :“Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1204 – July 12, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

Sources: A: National Security Agency Mandatory declassification review release; B: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, “Magic” Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18

Beginning in September 1940, U.S. military intelligence began to decrypt routinely, under the “Purple” code-name, the intercepted cable traffic of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Collectively the decoded messages were known as “Magic.” How this came about is explained in an internal history of pre-war and World War II Army and Navy code-breaking activities prepared by  William F. Friedman , a central figure in the development of U.S. government cryptology during the 20 th  century. The National Security Agency kept the ‘Magic” diplomatic and military summaries classified for many years and did not release the entire series for 1942 through August 1945 until the early 1990s. [36]

The 12 July 1945 “Magic” summary includes a report on a cable from Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo to Ambassador Naotake Sato in Moscow concerning the Emperor’s decision to seek Soviet help in ending the war. Not knowing that the Soviets had already made a commitment to their Allies to declare war on Japan, Tokyo fruitlessly pursued this option for several weeks. The “Magic” intercepts from mid-July have figured in Gar Alperovitz’s argument that Truman and his advisers recognized that the Emperor was ready to capitulate if the Allies showed more flexibility on the demand for unconditional surrender. This point is central to Alperovitz’s thesis that top U.S. officials recognized a “two-step logic”: relaxing unconditional surrender and a Soviet declaration of war would have been enough to induce Japan’s surrender without the use of the bomb. [37]

Document 40 : John Weckerling, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, July 12, 1945, to Deputy Chief of Staff, “Japanese Peace Offer,” 13 July 1945, Top Secret Ultra

Source: RG 165, Army Operations OPD Executive File #17, Item 13 (copy courtesy of J. Samuel Walker)

The day after the Togo message was reported, Army intelligence chief Weckerling proposed several possible explanations of the Japanese diplomatic initiative. Robert J. Maddox has cited this document to support his argument that top U.S. officials recognized that Japan was not close to surrender because Japan was trying to “stave off defeat.” In a close analysis of this document, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, who is also skeptical of claims that the Japanese had decided to surrender, argues that each of the three possibilities proposed by Weckerling “contained an element of truth, but none was entirely correct”. For example, the “governing clique” that supported the peace moves was not trying to “stave off defeat” but was seeking Soviet help to end the war. [38]

Document 41 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1205 – July 13, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

Source: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, “Magic” Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18

The day after he told Sato about the current thinking on Soviet mediation, Togo requested the Ambassador to see Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and tell him of the Emperor’s “private intention to send Prince Konoye as a Special Envoy” to Moscow. Before he received Togo’s message, Sato had already met with Molotov on another matter.

Document 42 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1210 – July 17, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

Source: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, “Magic” Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18.

Another intercept of a cable from Togo to Sato shows that the Foreign Minister rejected unconditional surrender and that the Emperor was not “asking the Russian’s mediation in anything like unconditional surrender.” Incidentally, this “`Magic’ Diplomatic Summary” indicates the broad scope and capabilities of the program; for example, it includes translations of intercepted French messages (see pages 8-9).

Document 43 : Admiral Tagaki Diary Entry for July 20, 1945

Source: Takashi Itoh, ed.,  Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho  [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 916-917 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

In 1944 Navy minister Mitsumasa Yonai ordered rear admiral Sokichi Takagi to go on sick leave so that he could undertake a secret mission to find a way to end the war. Tagaki was soon at the center of a cabal of Japanese defense officials, civil servants, and academics, which concluded that, in the end, the emperor would have to “impose his decision on the military and the government.” Takagi kept a detailed account of his activities, part of which was in diary form, the other part of which he kept on index cards. The material reproduced here gives a sense of the state of play of Foreign Minister Togo’s attempt to secure Soviet mediation. Hasegawa cited it and other documents to make a larger point about the inability of the Japanese government to agree on “concrete” proposals to negotiate an end to the war. [39]

The last item discusses Japanese contacts with representatives of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Switzerland. 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 Gävernitz, then on the staff, but with non-official cover, of OSS station chief Allen Dulles. The contacts never went far and Dulles never received encouragement to pursue them. [40]

V. The Trinity Test

Document 44 : Letter from Commissar of State Security First Rank, V. Merkulov, to People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs L. P. Beria, 10 July 1945, Number 4305/m, Top Secret (translation by Anna Melyaskova)

Source:  L.D. Riabev, ed.,  Atomnyi Proekt SSSR  (Moscow: izd MFTI, 2002), Volume 1, Part 2, 335-336

This 10 July 1945 letter from NKVD director V. N. Merkulov to Beria is an example of Soviet efforts to collect inside information on the Manhattan Project, although not all the detail was accurate. Merkulov reported that the United States had scheduled the test of a nuclear device for that same day, although the actual test took place 6 days later. According to Merkulov, two fissile materials were being produced: element-49 (plutonium), and U-235; the test device was fueled by plutonium. 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. That figure was based on underestimates by Manhattan Project scientists: the actual yield of the test device was 20 kilotons.

As indicated by the L.D. Riabev’s notes, it is possible that Beria’s copy of this letter ended up in Stalin’s papers. That the original copy is missing from Beria’s papers suggests that he may have passed it on to Stalin before the latter left for the Potsdam conference. [41]

Document 45 : Telegram War [Department] 33556, from Harrison to Secretary of War, July 17, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File 5e (copy from microfilm)

An elated message from Harrison to Stimson reported the success of the  Trinity Test  of a plutonium implosion weapon. The light from the explosion could been seen “from here [Washington, D.C.] to “high hold” [Stimson’s estate on Long Island—250 miles away]” and it was so loud that Harrison could have heard the “screams” from Washington, D.C. to “my farm” [in Upperville, VA, 50 miles away] [42]

Document 46 : Memorandum from General L. R. Groves to Secretary of War, “The Test,” July 18, 1945, Top Secret, Excised Copy

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 4 (copy from microfilm)

General Groves prepared for Stimson, then at Potsdam, a detailed account of the Trinity test. [43]

VI. The Potsdam Conference

Document 47 : Truman’s Potsdam Diary

Source: Barton J. Bernstein, “Truman at Potsdam: His Secret Diary,”  Foreign Service Journal , July/August 1980, excerpts, used with author’s permission. [44]

Some years after Truman’s death, a hand-written diary that he kept during the Potsdam conference surfaced in his personal papers. For convenience, Barton Bernstein’s rendition is provided here but linked here are the scanned versions of Truman’s handwriting on the National Archives’ website (for 15-30 July).

The diary entries cover July 16, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26, and 30 and include Truman’s 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. Receptive to pressure from Stimson, Truman recorded his decision to take Japan’s “old capital” (Kyoto) off the atomic bomb target list. Barton Bernstein and Richard Frank, among others, have argued that Truman’s assertion that the atomic targets were “military objectives” suggested that either he did not understand the power of the new weapons or had simply deceived himself about the nature of the targets. Another statement—“Fini Japs when that [Soviet entry] comes about”—has also been the subject of controversy over whether it meant that Truman thought it possible that the war could end without an invasion of Japan. [45]

Document 48 : Stimson Diary entries for July 16 through 25, 1945

Stimson did not always have Truman’s ear, but historians have frequently cited his diary when he was at the Potsdam conference. There Stimson kept track of S-1 developments, including news of the successful first test (see entry for July 16) and the ongoing deployments for nuclear use against Japan. When Truman received a detailed account of the test, Stimson reported that the “President was tremendously pepped up by it” and that “it gave him an entirely new feeling of confidence” (see entry for July 21). Whether this meant that Truman was getting ready for a confrontation with Stalin over Eastern Europe and other matters has also been the subject of debate.

An important question that Stimson discussed with Marshall, at Truman’s request, was whether Soviet entry into the war remained necessary to secure Tokyo’s surrender. Marshall was not sure whether that was so although Stimson privately believed that the atomic bomb would provide enough to force surrender (see entry for July 23). This entry has been cited by all sides of the controversy over whether Truman was trying to keep the Soviets out of the war. [46]  During the meeting on August 24, discussed above, Stimson gave his reasons for taking Kyoto off the atomic target list: destroying that city would have caused such “bitterness” that it could have become impossible “to reconcile the Japanese to us in that area rather than to the Russians.” Stimson vainly tried to preserve language in the Potsdam Declaration designed to assure the Japanese about “the continuance of their dynasty” but received Truman’s assurance that such a consideration could be conveyed later through diplomatic channels (see entry for July 24). Hasegawa argues that Truman realized that the Japanese would refuse a demand for unconditional surrender without a proviso on a constitutional monarchy and that “he needed Japan’s refusal to justify the use of the atomic bomb.” [47]

Document 49 : Walter Brown Diaries, July 10-August 3, 1945

Source: Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. Brown Papers, box 10, folder 12, Byrnes, James F.: Potsdam, Minutes, July-August 1945

Walter Brown, who served as special assistant to Secretary of State Byrnes, kept a diary which provided considerable detail on the Potsdam conference and the growing concerns about Soviet policy among top U.S. officials. This document is a typed-up version of the hand-written original (which Brown’s family has provided to Clemson University). That there may be a difference between the two sources becomes evident from some of the entries; for example, in the entry for July 18, 1945 Brown wrote: "Although I knew about the atomic bomb when I wrote these notes, I dared not place it in writing in my book.”

The degree to which the typed-up version reflects the original is worth investigating. In any event, historians have used information from the diary to support various interpretations. For example, Bernstein cites the entries for 20 and 24 July to argue that “American leaders did not view Soviet entry as a substitute for the bomb” but that the latter “would be so powerful, and the Soviet presence in Manchuria so militarily significant, that there was no need for actual Soviet intervention in the war.” For  Brown's diary entry of 3 August 9 1945 historians have developed conflicting interpretations (See discussion of document 57). [48]

Document 50 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1214 – July 22, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

This “Magic” summary includes messages from both Togo and Sato. In a long and impassioned message, the latter argued why Japan must accept defeat: “it is meaningless to prove one’s devotion [to the Emperor] by wrecking the State.” Togo rejected Sato’s 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.”

Document 51 : Forrestal Diary Entry, July 24, 1945, “Japanese Peace Feelers”

Source: 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 Sato’s cable as “first of July” instead of the 21 st ). In contrast to Alperovitz’s argument that Forrestal tried to modify the terms of unconditional surrender to give the Japanese an out, Frank sees Forrestal’s account of the Sato-Togo exchange as additional evidence that senior U.S. officials understood that Tokyo was not on the “cusp of surrender.”  [49]

Document 52 : Davies Diary entry for July 29, 1945

S ource: Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, box 19, 29 July 1945

Having been asked by Truman to join the delegation to the Potsdam conference, former-Ambassador Davies sat at the table with the Big Three throughout the discussions. This diary entry has figured in the argument that Byrnes believed that the atomic bomb gave the United States a significant advantage in negotiations with the Soviet Union. Plainly Davies thought otherwise. [50]

VII. Debates among the Japanese – Late July/Early August 1945

Document 53 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1221- July 29, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

In the  Potsdam Declaration  the governments of China, Great Britain, and the United States) demanded the “unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces. “The alternative is prompt and utter destruction.” The next day, in response to questions from journalists about the government’s reaction to the ultimatum, Prime Minister Suzuki apparently said that “We can only ignore [ mokusatsu ] it. We will do our utmost to complete the war to the bitter end.” That, Bix argues, represents a “missed opportunity” to end the war and spare the Japanese from continued U.S. aerial attacks. [51]  Togo’s private position was more nuanced than Suzuki’s; he told Sato that “we are adopting a policy of careful study.” That Stalin had not signed the declaration (Truman and Churchill did not ask him to) led to questions about the Soviet attitude. Togo asked Sato to try to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov as soon as possible to “sound out the Russian attitude” on the declaration as well as Japan’s end-the-war initiative. Sato cabled Togo earlier that he saw no point in approaching the Soviets on ending the war until Tokyo had “concrete proposals.” “Any aid from the Soviets has now become extremely doubtful.”

Document 54 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1222 – July 30, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

This report included an intercept of a message from Sato reporting that it was impossible to see Molotov and that unless the Togo had a “concrete and definite plan for terminating the war” he saw no point in attempting to meet with him.

Document 55 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1225 – August 2, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

An intercepted message from Togo to Sato showed that Tokyo remained interested in securing Moscow’s good office but that it “is difficult to decide on concrete peace conditions here at home all at once.” “[W]e are exerting ourselves to collect the views of all quarters on the matter of concrete terms.” Barton Bernstein, Richard Frank, and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, among others, have argued that the “Magic” intercepts from the end of July and early August show that the Japanese were far from ready to surrender. According to Herbert Bix, for months Hirohito had believed that the “outlook for a negotiated peace could be improved if Japan fought and won one last decisive battle,” thus, he delayed surrender, continuing to “procrastinate until the bomb was dropped and the Soviets attacked.” [52]

Document 56 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1226 - August 3, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

This summary included intercepts of Japanese diplomatic reporting on the Soviet buildup in the Far East as well as a naval intelligence report on Anglo-American discussions of U.S. plans for the invasion of Japan. Part II of the summary includes the rest of Togo’s 2 August cable which instructed Sato to do what he could to arrange an interview with Molotov.

Document 57 : Walter Brown Meeting Notes, August 3, 1945

Historians have used this item in the papers of Byrne’s aide, Walter Brown, to make a variety of points. Richard Frank sees this brief discussion of Japan’s interest in Soviet diplomatic assistance as crucial evidence that Admiral Leahy had been sharing “MAGIC” information with President Truman. He also points out that Truman and his colleagues had no idea what was behind Japanese peace moves, only that Suzuki had declared that he would “ignore” the Potsdam Declaration. Alperovitz, however, treats it as additional evidence that “strongly suggests” that Truman saw alternatives to using the bomb. [53]

Document 58 : “Magic” – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 502, 4 August 1945

Source: RG 457, Summaries of Intercepted Japanese Messages (“Magic” Far East Summary, March 20, 1942 – October 2, 1945), box 7, SRS 491-547

This “Far East Summary” included reports on the Japanese Army’s plans to disperse fuel stocks to reduce vulnerability to bombing attacks, the text of a directive by the commander of naval forces on “Operation Homeland,” the preparations and planning to repel a U.S. invasion of Honshu, and the specific identification of army divisions located in, or moving into, Kyushu. Both Richard Frank and Barton Bernstein have used intelligence reporting and analysis of the major buildup of Japanese forces on southern Kyushu to argue that U.S. military planners were so concerned about this development that by early August 1945 they were reconsidering their invasion plans. [54]

Document 59 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1228 – August 5, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

This summary included several intercepted messages from Sato, who conveyed his despair and exasperation over what he saw as Tokyo’s inability to develop terms for ending the war: “[I]f the Government and the Military dilly-dally in bringing this resolution to fruition, then all Japan will be reduced to ashes.” Sato remained skeptical that the Soviets would have any interest in discussions with Tokyo: “it is absolutely unthinkable that Russia would ignore the Three Power Proclamation and then engage in conversations with our special envoy.”

VIII. The Execution Order

Documents 60a-d: Framing the Directive for Nuclear Strikes:

60A . Cable VICTORY 213 from Marshall to Handy, July 22, 1945, Top Secret

60B . Memorandum from Colonel John Stone to General Arnold, “Groves Project,” 24 July 1945, Top Secret

60C . Cable WAR 37683 from General Handy to General Marshal, enclosing directive to General Spatz, July 24, 1945, Top Secret

60D . Cable VICTORY 261 from Marshall to General Handy, July 25, 1945, 25 July 1945, Top Secret

60E . General Thomas T. Handy to General Carl Spaatz, July 26, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, Files no. 5b and 5e ((copies from microfilm)

Top Army Air Force commanders may not have wanted to take responsibility for the first use of nuclear weapons on urban targets and sought formal authorization from Chief of Staff Marshall who was then in Potsdam. [55]  On 22 July Marshall asked Deputy Chief of Staff Thomas Handy to prepare a draft; General Groves wrote one which went to Potsdam for Marshall’s approval. Colonel John Stone, an assistant to commanding General of the Army Air Forces Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, had just returned from Potsdam and updated his boss on the plans as they had developed. On 25 July Marshall informed Handy that Secretary of War Stimson had approved the text; that same day, Handy signed off on a directive which ordered the use of atomic weapons on Japan, with the first weapon assigned to one of four possible targets—Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, or Nagasaki. “Additional bombs will be delivery on the [targets] as soon as made ready by the project staff.”

Document 61 : Memorandum from Major General L. R. Groves to Chief of Staff, July 30, 1945, Top Secret, Sanitized Copy

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5

With more information on the Alamogordo test available, Groves provided Marshall with detail on the destructive power of atomic weapons. Barton J. Bernstein has observed that Groves’ recommendation that troops could move into the “immediate explosion area” within a half hour demonstrates the prevalent lack of top-level knowledge of the dangers of nuclear weapons effects. [56]  Groves also provided the schedule for the delivery of the weapons: the components of the gun-type bomb to be used on Hiroshima had arrived on Tinian, while the parts of the second weapon to be dropped were leaving San Francisco. By the end of November over ten weapons would be available, presumably in the event the war had continued.

Documents 62A-C: Weather delays

62A . CG 313 th  Bomb Wing, Tinian cable APCOM 5112 to War Department, August 3, 1945, Top Secret

62B . CG 313 th  Bomb Wing, Tinian cable APCOM 5130 to War Department, August 4, 1945, Top Secret

62C . CG 313 th  Bomb Wing, Tinian cable APCOM 5155 to War Department, August 4, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 21 (copies courtesy of Barton Bernstein)

The Hiroshima “operation” was originally slated to begin in early August depending on local conditions. As these cables indicate, reports of unfavorable weather delayed the plan. The second cable on 4 August shows that the schedule advanced to late in the evening of 5 August. The handwritten transcriptions are on the original archival copies.

IX. The First Nuclear Strikes and their Impact

Document 63 : Memorandum from General L. R. Groves to the Chief of Staff, August 6, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5b (copy from microfilm)

Two days after the bombing of Hiroshima, Groves provided Chief of Staff Marshall with a report which included messages from Captain William S. Parsons and others about the impact of the detonation which, through prompt radiation effects, fire storms, and blast effects, immediately killed at least 70,000, with many dying later from radiation sickness and other causes. [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. Sadao Asada emphasizes the shock of the atomic bombs, while Herbert Bix has suggested that Hiroshima and the Soviet declaration of war made Hirohito and his court believe that failure to end the war could lead to the destruction of the imperial house. Frank and Hasegawa divide over the impact of the Soviet declaration of war, with Frank declaring that the Soviet intervention was “significant but not decisive” and Hasegawa arguing that the two atomic bombs “were not sufficient to change the direction of Japanese diplomacy. The Soviet invasion was.” [58]

Document 64 : Walter Brown Diary Entry, 6 August 1945

Source:  Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. Brown Papers, box 68, folder 13, “Transcript/Draft B

Returning from the Potsdam Conference, sailing on the  U.S.S. Augusta , Truman learned about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and announced it twice, first to those in the wardroom (socializing/dining area for commissioned officers), and then to the sailors’ mess. Still unaware of radiation effects, Truman emphasized the explosive yield. Later, he met with Secretary of State Byrnes and they discussed the Manhattan Project’s secrecy and the huge expenditures. Truman, who had been chair of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, said that “only on the appeal of Secretary of War Stimson did he refrain and let the War Department continue with the experiment unmolested.”

Document 65 : Directive from the Supreme Command Headquarters to the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Forces in the Far East on the Start of Combat Operations, No. 11122, Signed by [Communist Party General Secretary Joseph] Stalin and [Chief of General Staff A.I.] Antonov, 7 August 1945 (translation by Anna Melyakova)

Source: V. A. Zolotarev, ed.,  Sovetsko-Iaponskaia Voina 1945 Goda: Istoriia Voenno-Politicheskogo Protivoborstva Dvukh Derzhav v 30–40e Gody ( Moscow: Terra, 1997 and 2000), Vol. 7 (1), 340-341.

To keep his pledge at Yalta to enter the war against Japan and to secure the territorial concessions promised at the conference (e.g., Soviet annexation of the Kuriles and southern Sakhalin and a Soviet naval base at Port Arthur, etc.) Stalin considered various dates to schedule an attack. By early August he decided that 9-10 August 1945 would be the best dates for striking Japanese forces in Manchuria. In light of Japan’s efforts to seek Soviet mediation, Stalin wanted to enter the war quickly lest Tokyo reach a compromise peace with the Americans and the British at Moscow’s expense. But on 7 August, Stalin changed the instructions: the attack was to begin the next day. According to David Holloway, “it seems likely that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima the day before that impelled [Stalin] to speed up Soviet entry into the war” and “secure the gains promised at Yalta.” [59]

Document 66 : Memorandum of Conversation, “Atomic Bomb,” August 7, 1945

Source: Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 5-9, 1945.

The Soviets already knew about the U.S. atomic project from espionage sources in the United States and Britain so Molotov’s comment to Ambassador Harriman about the secrecy surrounding the U.S. atomic project can be taken with a grain of salt, although the Soviets were probably unaware of specific plans for nuclear use.

Documents 67A-B:  Early High-level Reactions to the Hiroshima Bombing

67A : Cabinet Meeting and Togo's Meeting with the Emperor, August 7-8, 1945 Source: Gaimusho (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) ed.  Shusen Shiroku  (The Historical Records of the End of the War), annotated by Jun Eto, volume 4, 57-60 [Excerpts] [Translation by Toshihiro Higuchi]

67B : Admiral Tagaki Diary Entry for Wednesday, August 8 , 1945

Source: Takashi Itoh, ed.,  Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho  [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 923-924 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Excerpts from the Foreign Ministry's compilation about the end of the war show how news of the bombing reached Tokyo as well as how Foreign Minister's Togo initially reacted to reports about Hiroshima. When he learned of the atomic bombing from the Domei News Agency, Togo believed that it was time to give up and advised the cabinet that the atomic attack provided the occasion for Japan to surrender on the basis of the Potsdam Declaration. Togo could not persuade the cabinet, however, and the Army wanted to delay any decisions until it had learned what had happened to Hiroshima. When the Foreign Minister met with the Emperor, Hirohito agreed with him; he declared that the top priority was an early end to the war, although it would be acceptable to seek better surrender terms--probably U.S. acceptance of a figure-head emperor--if it did not interfere with that goal. In light of those instructions, Togo and Prime Minister Suzuki agreed that the Supreme War Council should meet the next day.  [59a]

An entry from Admiral Tagaki's diary for August 8 conveys more information on the mood in elite Japanese circles after Hiroshima, but before the Soviet declaration of war and the bombing of Nagasaki. Seeing the bombing of Hiroshima as a sign of a worsening situation at home, Tagaki worried about further deterioration. Nevertheless, his diary suggests that military hard-liners were very much in charge and that Prime Minister Suzuki was talking tough against surrender, by evoking last ditch moments in Japanese history and warning of the danger that subordinate commanders might not obey surrender orders. The last remark aggravated Navy Minister Yonai who saw it as irresponsible. That the Soviets had made no responses to Sato's request for a meeting was understood as a bad sign; Yonai realized that the government had to prepare for the possibility that Moscow might not help. One of the visitors mentioned at the beginning of the entry was Iwao Yamazaki who became Minister of the Interior in the next cabinet.

Document 68 : Navy Secretary James Forrestal to President Truman, August 8, 1945

General Douglas MacArthur had been slated as commander for military operations against Japan’s mainland, this letter to Truman from Forrestal shows that the latter believed that the matter was not settled. Richard Frank sees this as evidence of the uncertainty felt by senior officials about the situation in early August; Forrestal would not have been so “audacious” to take an action that could ignite a “political firestorm” if he “seriously thought the end of the war was near.”

Document 69 : Memorandum of Conversation, “Far Eastern War and General Situation,” August 8, 1945, Top Secret

Source: Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 5-9, 1945

Shortly after the Soviets declared war on Japan, in line with commitments made at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, Ambassador Harriman met with Stalin, with George Kennan keeping the U.S. record of the meeting. After Stalin reviewed in considerable detail, Soviet military gains in the Far East, they discussed the possible impact of the atomic bombing on Japan’s position (Nagasaki had not yet been attacked) and the dangers and difficulty of an atomic weapons program. According to Hasegawa, this was an important, even “startling,” conversation: it showed that Stalin “took the atomic bomb seriously”; moreover, he disclosed that the Soviets were working on their own atomic program. [60]

Document 70 : Entries for 8-9 August, Robert P. Meiklejohn Diary

Source: W.A. Harriman Papers, Library of Congress, box 211 , Robert Pickens Meiklejohn World War II Diary At London and Moscow March 10, 1941-February 14, 1946 , Volume II (Privately printed, 1980 [Printed from hand-written originals]) (Reproduced with permission)

Robert P. Meiklejohn, who worked as Ambassador W. A. Harriman’s administrative assistant at the U.S. Embassies in Moscow and London during and after World War II, kept a detailed diary of his experiences and observations. The entries for 8 and 9 August, prepared in light of the bombing of Hiroshima, include discussion of the British contribution to the Manhattan Project, Harriman (“his nibs’”) report on his meeting with Molotov about the Soviet declaration of war, and speculation about the impact of the bombing of Hiroshima on the Soviet decision. According to Meiklejohn, “None of us doubt that the atomic bomb speeded up the Soviets’ declaration of war.”

Document 71 : Memorandum of Conference with the President, August 8, 1945 at 10:45 AM

At their first meeting after the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, Stimson briefed Truman on the scale of the destruction, with Truman recognizing the “terrible responsibility” that was on his shoulders. Consistent with his earlier attempts, Stimson encouraged Truman to find ways to expedite Japan’s surrender by using “kindness and tact” and not treating them in the same way as the Germans. They also discussed postwar legislation on the atom and the pending Henry D. Smyth report on the scientific work underlying the Manhattan project and postwar domestic controls of the atom.

Documents 72A-C: The Attack on Nagasaki:

72A . Cable APCOM 5445 from General Farrell to O’Leary [Groves assistant], August 9, 1945, Top Secret

72B . COMGENAAF 8 cable CMDW 576 to COMGENUSASTAF, for General Farrell, August 9, 1945, Top secret

72C . COMGENAAF 20 Guam cable AIMCCR 5532 to COMGENUSASTAF Guam, August 10, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 20, Envelope G Tinian Files, Top Secret

The prime target for the second atomic attack was Kokura, which had a large army arsenal and ordnance works, but various problems ruled that city out; instead, the crew of the B-29 that carried “Fat Man” flew to an alternate target at Nagasaki. These cables are the earliest reports of the mission; the bombing of Nagasaki killed immediately at least 39,000 people, with more dying later. According to Frank, the “actual total of deaths due to the atomic bombs will never be known,” but the “huge number” ranges somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people. Barton J. Bernstein and Martin Sherwin have argued that if top Washington policymakers had kept tight control of the delivery of the bomb instead of delegating it to Groves the attack on Nagasaki could have been avoided. The combination of the first bomb and the Soviet declaration of war would have been enough to induce Tokyo’s surrender. By contrast, Maddox argues that Nagasaki was necessary so that Japanese “hardliners” could not “minimize the first explosion” or otherwise explain it away. [61]

Documents 73A-B: Ramsey Letter from Tinian Island

73A : Letter from Norman Ramsey to J. Robert Oppenheimer, undated [mid-August 1945], Secret, excerpts Source: Library of Congress, J. Robert Oppenheimer Papers, box 60, Ramsey, Norman

73B : Transcript of the letter prepared by editor.

Ramsey, a physicist, served as deputy director of the bomb delivery group, Project Alberta. This personal account, written on Tinian, reports his fears about the danger of a nuclear accident, the confusion surrounding the Nagasaki attack, and early Air Force thinking about a nuclear strike force.

X. Toward Surrender

Document 74 : “Magic” – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 507, August 9, 1945

Within days after the bombing of Hiroshima, U.S. military intelligence intercepted Japanese reports on the destruction of the city. According to an “Eyewitness Account (and Estimates Heard) … In Regard to the Bombing of Hiroshima”: “Casualties have been estimated at 100,000 persons.”

Document 75 : “Hoshina Memorandum” on the Emperor’s “Sacred Decision [ go-seidan] ,” 9-10 August, 1945

Source: Zenshiro Hoshina,  Daitoa Senso Hishi: Hoshina Zenshiro Kaiso-roku  [Secret History of the Greater East Asia War: Memoir of Zenshiro Hoshina] (Tokyo, Japan: Hara-Shobo, 1975), excerpts from Section 5, “The Emperor made  go-seidan  [= the sacred decision] – the decision to terminate the war,” 139-149 [translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Despite the bombing of Hiroshima, the Soviet declaration of war, and growing worry about domestic instability, the Japanese cabinet (whose decisions required unanimity) could not form a consensus to accept the Potsdam Declaration. Members of the Supreme War Council—“the Big Six” [62] —wanted the reply to Potsdam to include at least four conditions (e.g., no occupation, voluntary disarmament); they were willing to fight to the finish. The peace party, however, deftly maneuvered to break the stalemate by persuading a reluctant emperor to intervene. According to Hasegawa, Hirohito had become convinced that the preservation of the monarchy was at stake. Late in the evening of 9 August, the emperor and his advisers met in the bomb shelter of the Imperial Palace.

Zenshiro Hoshina, a senior naval official, attended the conference and prepared a detailed account. With Prime Minister Suzuki presiding, each of the ministers had a chance to state their views directly to Hirohito. While Army Minister Anami tacitly threatened a coup (“civil war”), the emperor accepted the majority view that the reply to the Potsdam declaration should include only one condition not the four urged by “Big Six.” Nevertheless, the condition that Hirohito accepted was not the one that foreign minister Togo had brought to the conference. What was at stake was the definition of the  kokutai  (national policy). Togo’s proposal would have been generally consistent with a constitutional monarchy because it defined the  kokutai  narrowly as the emperor and the imperial household. What Hirohito accepted, however, was a proposal by the extreme nationalist Kiichiro Hiranuma which drew upon prevailing understandings of the  kokutai : the “mythical notion” that the emperor was a living god. “This was the affirmation of the emperor’s theocratic powers, unencumbered by any law, based on Shinto gods in antiquity, and totally incompatible with a constitutional monarchy.” Thus, the Japanese response to the Potsdam declaration opposed “any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of his Majesty as a sovereign ruler.” This proved to be unacceptable to the Truman administration. [63]

Document 76 :“Magic’ – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 508, August 10, 1945

More intercepted messages on the bombing of Hiroshima.

Documents 77A-B: The First Japanese Offer Intercepted

77A . “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1233 – August 10, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

77B . Translation of intercepted Japanese messages, circa 10 August 10, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

The first Japanese surrender offer was intercepted shortly before Tokyo broadcast it. This issue of the diplomatic summary also includes Togo’s account of his notification of the Soviet declaration of war, reports of Soviet military operations in the Far East, and intercepts of French diplomatic traffic. A full translation of the surrender offer was circulated separately. The translations differ but they convey the sticking point that prevented U.S. acceptance: Tokyo’s condition that the allies not make any “demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler.”

Document 78 : Diary Entry, Friday, August 10, 1945, Henry Wallace Diary

Source: Papers of Henry A. Wallace, Special Collections Department, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa (copy courtesy of Special Collections Department)

Note: The second page of the diary entry includes a newspaper clipping of the Associated Press’s transmission of the Byrnes note. Unfortunately, AP would not authorize the Archive to reproduce this item without payment. Therefore, we are publishing an excised version of the entry, with a link to the  Byrnes note .

Secretary of Commerce (and former Vice President) Henry Wallace provided a detailed report on the cabinet meeting where Truman and his advisers discussed the Japanese surrender offer, Russian moves into Manchuria, and public opinion on “hard” surrender terms. With Japan close to capitulation, Truman asserted presidential control and ordered a halt to atomic bombings. Barton J. Bernstein has suggested that Truman’s 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]

Document 79 : Entries for 10-11 August, Robert P. Meiklejohn Diary

In these entries, Meiklejohn discussed how he and others in the Moscow Embassy learned about the bombing of Nagasaki from the “OWI Bulletin.” Entries for 10 and 11 August cover discussion at the Embassy about the radio broadcast announcing that Japan would surrender as long the Emperor’s status was not affected. Harriman opined that “surrender is in the bag” because of the Potsdam Declaration’s provision that the Japanese could “choose their own form of government, which would probably include the Emperor.” Further, “the only alternative to the Emperor is Communism,” implying that an official role for the Emperor was necessary to preserve social stability and prevent social revolution.

Document 80 : Stimson Diary Entries, Friday and Saturday, August 10 and 11, 1945

Stimson’s account of the events of 10 August focused on the debate over the reply to the Japanese note, especially the question of the Emperor’s status.  The U.S. reply , drafted during the course of the day, did not explicitly reject the note but suggested that any notion about the “prerogatives” of the Emperor would be superceded by the concept that all Japanese would be “Subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers.” The language was ambiguous enough to enable Japanese readers, upon Hirohito’s urging, to believe that they could decide for themselves the Emperor’s future role. Stimson accepted the language believing that a speedy reply to the Japanese would allow the United States to “get the homeland into our hands before the Russians could put in any substantial claim to occupy and help rule it.” If the note had included specific provision for a constitutional monarchy, Hasegawa argues, it would have “taken the wind out of the sails” of the military faction and Japan might have surrendered several days earlier, on August 11 or 12 instead of August 14. [65]

Document 81 : Entries from Walter Brown Diary, 10-11 August 1945

Source:  Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter Brown Papers, box 68, folder 13, “Transcript/Draft B

Brown recounted Byrnes’ debriefing of the 10 August White House meeting on the Japanese peace offer, an account which differed somewhat from that in the Stimson diary .  According to what Byrnes told Brown, Truman, Stimson, and Leahy favored accepting the Japanese note, but Byrnes objected that the United States should “go [no] further than we were willing to go at Potsdam.” Stimson’s account of the meeting noted Byrnes’ concerns (“troubled and anxious”) about the Japanese note and implied that he (Stimson) favored accepting it, but did not picture the debate as starkly as Browns's did.

Document 82 : General L. R. Groves to Chief of Staff George C. Marshall,  August 10, 1945, Top Secret, with a hand-written note by General Marshall

Source: George C. Marshall Papers, George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, VA (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein)

Groves informed General Marshall that he was making plans for the use of a third atomic weapon sometime after 17 August, depending on the weather. With Truman having ordered a halt to the atomic bombings [See document 78], Marshall wrote on Grove's memo that the bomb was “not to be released over Japan without express authority from the President.”

Document 83 : Memorandum of Conversation, “Japanese Surrender Negotiations,” August 10, 1945, Top Secret

Source: Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 10-12, 1945

Japan’s prospective surrender was the subject of detailed discussion between Harriman, British Ambassador Kerr, and Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov during the evening of August 10 (with a follow-up meeting occurring at 2 a.m.). In the course of the conversation, Harriman received a message from Washington that included the proposed U.S. reply and a request for Soviet support of the reply. After considerable pressure from Harriman, the Soviets signed off on the reply but not before tensions surfaced over the control of Japan--whether Moscow would have a Supreme Commander there as well. This marked the beginning of a U.S.-Soviet “tug of war” over occupation arrangements for Japan. [66]

Document 84 : Admiral Tagaki Diary Entry for 12 August [1945] Source: Takashi Itoh, ed.,  Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho  [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 926-927 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

As various factions in the government maneuvered on how to respond to the Byrnes note, Navy Minister Yonai and Admiral Tagaki discussed the latest developments. 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 emperor’s 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. As Yonai explained to Tagaki, he had also confronted naval vice Chief Takijiro Onishi to make sure that he obeyed any decision by the Emperor. Yonai made sure that Takagi understood his reasons for bringing the war to an end and why he believed that the atomic bomb and the Soviet declaration of war had made it easier for Japan to surrender. [67]

Document 85 : Memorandum from Major General Clayton Bissell, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, for the Chief of Staff, “Estimate of Japanese Situation for Next 30 Days,” August 12, 1945, Top Secret

Source: National Archives, RG 165, Army Operations OPD, Executive Files 1940-1945, box 12, Exec #2

Not altogether certain that surrender was imminent, Army intelligence did not rule out the possibility that Tokyo would try to “drag out the negotiations” or reject the Byrnes proposal and continue fighting. 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.

Document 86 : The Cabinet Meeting over the Reply to the Four Powers (August 13)

Source:  Gaimusho [Ministry of Foreign Affairs], ed., Shusen Shiroku [Historical Record of the End of the War] (Tokyo: Hokuyosha, 1977-1978), vol. 5, 27-35 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]

The Byrnes Note did not break the stalemate at the cabinet level. An account of the cabinet debates on August 13 prepared by Information Minister Toshiro Shimamura showed the same divisions as before; Anami and a few other ministers continued to argue that the Allies threatened the  kokutai  and that setting the four conditions (no occupation, etc.) did not mean that the war would continue. Nevertheless, Anami argued, “We are still left with some power to fight.” Suzuki, who was working quietly with the peace party, declared that the Allied terms were acceptable because they gave a “dim hope in the dark” of preserving the emperor. At the end of the meeting, he announced that he would report to Hirohito and ask him to make another “Sacred Judgment”. Meanwhile, junior Army officers plotted a coup to thwart the plans for surrender. [68]

Document 87 : Telephone conversation transcript, General Hull and Colonel Seaman [sic] – 1325 – 13 Aug 45, Top Secret

Source: George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, VA, George C. Marshall Papers (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein)

While Truman had rescinded the order to drop nuclear bombs, the war was not yet over and uncertainty about Japan’s next step motivated war planner General John E. Hull (assistant chief of staff for the War Department’s Operations Division), and one of Groves’ associates, Colonel L. E. Seeman, to continue thinking about further nuclear use and its relationship to a possible invasion of Japan. As Hull explained, “should we not concentrate on targets that will be of greatest assistance to an invasion rather than industry, morale, psychology, etc.” “Nearer the tactical use”, Seaman agreed and they discussed the tactics that could be used for beach landings. In 1991 articles, Barton Bernstein and Marc Gallicchio used this and other evidence to develop the argument that concepts of tactical nuclear weapons use first came to light at the close of World War II. [69]

Document 88 : “Magic” – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1236 – August 13, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

The dropping of two atomic bombs, the tremendous destruction caused by U.S. bombing, and the Soviet declaration of war notwithstanding, important elements of the Japanese Army were unwilling to yield, as was evident from intercepted messages dated 12 and 13 August. Willingness to accept even the “destruction of the Army and Navy” rather than surrender inspired the military coup that unfolded and failed during the night of 14 August.

Document 89 : “The Second  Sacred Judgment”, August 14, 1945

Source :   Hiroshi [Kaian) Shimomura, S husenki [Account of the End of the War]  (Tokyo, Kamakura Bunko, [1948], 148-152 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]

Frightened by the rapid movement of Soviet forces into Manchuria and worried that the army might launch a coup, the peace party set in motion a plan to persuade Hirohito to meet with the cabinet and the “Big Six” to resolve the stalemate over the response to the Allies. Japan was already a day late in responding to the Byrnes Note and Hirohito agreed to move quickly. At 10:50 a.m., he met with the leadership at the bomb shelter in his palace. 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). After Suzuki gave the war party--Umeda, Toyoda, and Anami--an opportunity to present their arguments against accepting the Byrnes Note, he asked the emperor to speak. 

  Hirohito asked the leadership to accept the Note, which he believed was “well intentioned” on the matter of the “national polity” (by leaving open a possible role for the Emperor).  Arguing that continuing the war would reduce the nation “to ashes,” his words about “bearing the unbearable” and sadness over wartime losses and suffering prefigured the language that Hirohito would use in his public announcement the next day. 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. That evening army officers tried to seize the palace and find Hirohito’s recording, but the coup failed. Early the next day, General Anami committed suicide. On the morning of August 15, Hirohito broadcast the message to the nation (although he never used the word “surrender”). A few weeks later, on September 2, 1945 Japanese representatives signed surrender documents on the USS  Missouri , in Tokyo harbor. [71]

Document 90 : “Magic” – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 515, August 18, 1945

This summary includes an intercepted account of the destruction of Nagasaki.

Document 91 :Washington Embassy Telegram 5599 to Foreign Office, 14 August 1945, Top Secret [72]

Source: The British National Archives, Records of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office,  FO 800/461

With the Japanese surrender announcement not yet in, President Truman believed that another atomic bombing might become necessary. After a White House meeting on 14 August, British Minister John Balfour reported that Truman had “remarked sadly that he now had no alternative but to order an atomic bomb to be dropped on Tokyo.” This was likely emotional thinking spurred by anxiety and uncertainty. Truman was apparently not considering the fact that Tokyo was already devastated by fire bombing and that an atomic bombing would have killed the Emperor, which would have greatly complicated the process of surrender. 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. [73]  As it turned out, a few hours later, at 4:05 p.m., the White House received the Japanese surrender announcement.

XI. Confronting the Problem of Radiation Poisoning

Document 92 : P.L. Henshaw and R.R. Coveyou to H.J. Curtis and K. Z. Morgan, “Death from Radiation Burns,” 24 August 1945, Confidential

Source: Department of Energy Open-Net

Two scientists at Oak Ridge’s Health Division, Henshaw and Coveyou, saw a United Press report in the Knoxville  News Sentinel  about radiation sickness caused by the bombings. Victims who looked healthy weakened, “for unknown reasons” and many died. Lacking direct knowledge of conditions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Henshaw and Coveyou had their own data on the biological effects of radiation and could make educated guesses. After reviewing the impact of various atomic bomb effects--blast, heat, flash radiation (prompt effects from gamma waves), and radiation from radioactive substances--they concluded that “it seems highly plausible that a great many persons were subjected to lethal and sub-lethal dosages of radiation in areas where direct blast effects were possibly non-lethal.” It was “probable,” therefore, that radiation “would produce increments to the death rate and “even more probable” that a “great number of cases of sub-lethal exposures to radiation have been suffered.” [74]

Document 93 : Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between General Groves and Lt. Col. Rea, Oak Ridge Hospital, 9:00 a.m., August 28, 1945, Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5b

Despite the reports pouring in from Japan about radiation sickness among the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General Groves and Dr. Charles Rea, a surgeon who was head of the base hospital at Oak Ridge (and had no specialized knowledge about the biological effects of radiation) dismissed the reports as “propaganda”. Unaware of the findings of Health Division scientists, Groves and Rhea saw the injuries as nothing more than “good thermal burns.” [75]

Documents 94A-B: General Farrell Surveys the Destruction

94A . Cable CAX 51813 from  USS Teton  to Commander in Chief Army Forces Pacific Administration, From Farrell to Groves, September 10, 1945, Secret

94B . Cable CAX 51948 from Commander in Chief Army Forces Pacific Advance Yokohoma Japan to Commander in Chief Army Forces Pacific Administration, September 14, 1945, Secret

Source: RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 17, Envelope B

A month after the attacks Groves’ deputy, General Farrell, traveled to Japan to see for himself the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His vivid account shows that senior military officials in the Manhattan Project were no longer dismissive of reports of radiation poisoning. 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. Thus, Groves and others would try to suppress findings about radioactive effects, although that was a losing proposition. [76]

XII. Eisenhower and McCloy’s Views on the Bombings and Atomic Weapons

Document 95 : Entry for 4 October 1945, Robert P. Meiklejohn Diary

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. Meiklejohn recounted Harriman’s visit in early October 1945 to the Frankfurt-area residence of General Dwight Eisenhower, who was finishing up his service as Commanding General, U.S. Army, European Theater. It was Meiklejohn’s birthday and during the dinner party, Eisenhower and McCloy had an interesting discussion of atomic weapons, which included comments alluding to scientists’ statements about what appears to be the H-bomb project (a 20 megaton weapon), recollection of the early fear that an atomic detonation could burn up the atmosphere, and the Navy’s reluctance to use its battleships to test atomic weapons. At the beginning of the discussion, Eisenhower made a significant statement: he “mentioned how he had hoped that the war might have ended without our having to use the atomic bomb.” The general implication was that prior to Hiroshima-Nagasaki, he had wanted to avoid using the bomb.

Some may associate this statement with one that Eisenhower later recalled making to Stimson. In his 1948 memoirs (further amplified in his 1963 memoirs), Eisenhower claimed that he had “expressed the hope [to Stimson] that we would never have to use such a thing against an enemy because I disliked seeing the United States take the lead in introducing into war something as horrible and destructive as this new weapon was described to be.” That language may reflect the underlying thinking behind Eisenhower’s statement during the dinner party, but whether Eisenhower used such language when speaking with Stimson has been a matter of controversy. 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. Eisenhower’s son John cast doubts about the memoir statements, although he attested that when the general first learned about the bomb he was downcast.

Stimson’s diary mentions meetings with Eisenhower twice in the weeks before Hiroshima, but without any mention of a dissenting Eisenhower statement (and Stimson’s diaries are quite detailed on atomic matters). The entry from Meiklejohn’s diary does not prove or disprove Eisenhower’s recollection, but it does confirm that he had doubts which he expressed only a few months after the bombings. Whether Eisenhower expressed such reservations prior to Hiroshima will remain a matter of controversy. [77]

Document 96:  President Harry S. Truman, Handwritten Remarks for Gridiron Dinner, circa 15 December 1945 [78]

Source: 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. Besides Truman, guests included New York Governor Thomas Dewey (Republican presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948), foreign ambassadors, members of the cabinet and the Supreme Court, the military high command, and various senators and representatives. The U.S. Marine Band provided music for the dinner and for the variety show that was performed by members of the press.  [79]

In accordance with the dinner’s rules that “reporters are never present,” Truman’s remarks were off-the record. The president, however, wrote in long-hand a text that that might approximate what he said that evening. 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. It had nothing to do with Russia or Britain or Germany. It was a decision to loose the most terrible of all destructive forces for the wholesale slaughter of human beings. The Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, and I weighed that decision most prayerfully. But the President had to decide. It occurred to me that a quarter of a million of the flower of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese cities, and I still think that they were and are. But I couldn’t help but think of the necessity of blotting out women and children and non-combatants. We gave them fair warning and asked them to quit. We picked a couple of cities where war work was the principle industry, and dropped bombs. Russia hurried in and the war ended.”

Truman characterized the Potsdam Declaration as a “fair warning,” but it was an ultimatum. Plainly he was troubled by the devastation and suffering caused by the bombings, but he found it justifiable because it saved the lives of U.S. troops. His estimate of 250,000 U.S. soldiers spared far exceeded that made by General Marshall in June 1945, which was in the range of 31,000 (comparable to the Battle of Luzon) [See Document 26]. By citing an inflated casualty figure, the president was giving a trial run for the rationale that would become central to official and semi-official discourse about the bombings during the decades ahead. [80]  

Despite Truman’s claim that he made “the most terrible” decision at Potsdam, he assigned himself more responsibility than the historical record supports. 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. As for targeting, however, he had a more significant role. At Potsdam, Stimson raised his objections to targeting Japan’s cultural capital, Kyoto, and Truman supported the secretary’s efforts to drop that city from the target list [See Documents 47 and 48].  [81]

Where he had taken significant responsibility was by making a decision to stop the atomic bombings just before the Japanese surrender, thereby asserting presidential control over nuclear weapons

The editor thanks Barton J. Bernstein, J. Samuel Walker, Gar Alperovitz, David Holloway, and Alex Wellerstein for their advice and assistance, and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa for kindly providing copies of some of the Japanese sources that were translated for this compilation. Hasegawa’s book,  Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan  (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2005), includes invaluable information on Japanese sources. David Clark, an archivist at the Harry S. Truman Library, and James Cross, Manuscripts Archivist at Clemson University Library’s Special Collections, kindly provided material from their collections. The editor also thanks Kyle Hammond and Gregory Graves for research assistance and Toshihiro Higuchi and Hikaru Tajima (who then were graduate students in history at Georgetown University and the University of Tokyo respectively), for translating documents and answering questions on the Japanese sources. The editor thanks Anna Melyakova (National Security Archive) for translating Russian language material.

Read the documents

I. background on the u.s. atomic project   documents 1a-c: report of the uranium committee.

Document 1A

National Archives, Records of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Record Group 227 (hereinafter RG 227), Bush-Conant papers microfilm collection, Roll 1, Target 2, Folder 1, "S-1 Historical File, Section A (1940-1941)."

Document 1B

See description of document 1A.

Document 1C

Document 2A

RG 227, Bush-Conant papers microfilm collection, Roll 1, Target 2, Folder 1, "S-1 Historical File, Section II (1941-1942)

Document 2B

Bush-Conant papers, S-1 Historical File, Reports to and Conferences with the President (1942-1944)

See description of document 2A.

National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Army Corps of Engineers (hereinafter RG 77), Manhattan Engineering District (MED), Minutes of the Military Policy Meeting (5 May 1943), Correspondence (“Top Secret”) of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1109 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), Roll 3, Target 6, Folder 23, “Military Policy Committee, Minutes of Meetings”

Before the Manhattan Project had produced any weapons, senior U.S. government officials had Japanese targets in mind. Besides discussing programmatic matters (e.g., status of gaseous diffusion plants, heavy water production for reactors, and staffing at Las Alamos), the participants agreed that the first use could be Japanese naval forces concentrated at Truk Harbor, an atoll in the Caroline Islands. If there was a misfire the weapon would be difficult for the Japanese to recover, which would not be the case if Tokyo was targeted. Targeting Germany was rejected because the Germans were considered more likely to “secure knowledge” from a defective weapon than the Japanese. That is, the United States could possibly be in danger if the Nazis acquired more knowledge about how to build a bomb. [9]

RG 77, Correspondence ("Top Secret") of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, file 25M

This memorandum from General Groves to General Marshall captured how far the Manhattan Project had come in less than two years since Bush’s December 1942 report to President Roosevelt. Groves did not mention this but around the time he wrote this the Manhattan Project had working at its far-flung installations over 125,000 people ; taking into account high labor turnover some 485,000 people worked on the project (1 out of every 250 people in the country at that time). What these people were laboring to construct, directly or indirectly, were two types of weapons—a gun-type weapon using U-235 and an implosion weapon using plutonium (although the possibility of U-235 was also under consideration). As the scientists had learned, a gun-type weapon based on plutonium was “impossible” because that element had an “unexpected property”: spontaneous neutron emissions would cause the weapon to “fizzle.” [10] For both the gun-type and the implosion weapons, a production schedule had been established and both would be available during 1945. The discussion of weapons effects centered on blast damage models; radiation and other effects were overlooked.

RG 77, Harrison-Bundy Files (H-B Files), folder 69 (copy from microfilm)

Documents 6A-D: President Truman Learns the Secret

Document 6A

G 77, Commanding General’s file no. 24, tab D

Soon after he was sworn in as president following President Roosevelt’s death, Harry Truman learned about the top secret Manhattan Project from briefings by  Secretary of War Stimson and Manhattan Project chief General Groves (who went through the “back door” to escape the watchful press). Stimson, who later wrote up the meeting in his diary, also prepared a discussion paper, which raised broader policy issues associated with the imminent possession of “the most terrible weapon ever known in human history.”

In a background report prepared for the meeting, Groves provided a detailed overview of the bomb project from the raw materials to processing nuclear fuel to assembling the weapons to plans for using them, which were starting to crystallize. 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. “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 made  the  decision to do so.  Alperovitz and Sherwin have argued that Truman made “a real decision” to use the bomb on Japan by choosing “between various forms of diplomacy and warfare.” In contrast, Bernstein found that Truman “never questioned [the] assumption” that the bomb would and should be used. Norris also noted that “Truman’s ”decision” amounted to a decision not to override previous plans to use the bomb.” [12]

Document 6B

Henry Stimson Diary, Sterling Library, Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress)

See description of document 6A.

Document 6C

Record Group 200, Papers of General Leslie R. Groves, Correspondence 1941-1970, box 3, “F”

Document 6D

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5g

The force of B-29 nuclear delivery vehicles that was being readied for first nuclear use—the Army Air Force’s 509 th Composite Group—required an operational base in the Western Pacific. In late February 1945, months before atomic bombs were ready for use, the high command selected Tinian, an island in the Northern Marianas Islands, for that base.

Library of Congress, Curtis LeMay Papers, Box B-36

As part of the war with Japan, the Army Air Force waged a campaign to destroy major industrial centers with incendiary bombs. This document is General Curtis LeMay’s report on the firebombing of Tokyo--“the most destructive air raid in history”--which burned down over 16 square miles of the city, killed up to 100,000 civilians (the official figure was 83,793), injured more than 40,000, and made over 1 million homeless. [13] According to the “Foreword,” the purpose of the raid, which dropped 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs, was to destroy industrial and strategic targets “ not to bomb indiscriminately civilian populations.” Air Force planners, however, did not distinguish civilian workers from the industrial and strategic structures that they were trying to destroy.

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5d (copy from microfilm)

On 27 April, military officers and nuclear scientists met to discuss bombing techniques, criteria for target selection, and overall mission requirements. The discussion of “available targets” included Hiroshima, the “largest untouched target not on the 21 st 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 Japan’s cities which created tension with the objective of reserving some urban targets for nuclear destruction. [16]

Document 10

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5g (copy from microfilm)

As director of Los Alamos Laboratory, Oppenheimer’s priority was producing a deliverable bomb, but not so much the effects of the weapon on the people at the target. In keeping with General Groves’ emphasis on compartmentalization, the Manhattan Project experts on the effects of radiation on human biology were at the MetLab and other offices and had no interaction with the production and targeting units. In this short memorandum to Groves’ deputy, General Farrell, Oppenheimer explained the need for precautions because of the radiological dangers of a nuclear detonation. The initial radiation from the detonation would be fatal within a radius of about 6/10ths of a mile and “injurious” within a radius of a mile. The point was to keep the bombing mission crew safe; concern about radiation effects had no impact on targeting decisions. [17]

Document 11

Scientists and officers held further discussion of bombing mission requirements, including height of detonation, weather, radiation effects (Oppenheimer’s memo), plans for possible mission abort, and the various aspects of target selection, including priority cities (“a large urban area of more than three miles diameter”) and psychological dimension. As for target cities, the committee agreed that the following should be exempt from Army Air Force bombing so they would be available for nuclear targeting: Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura Arsenal. Japan’s cultural capital, Kyoto, would not stay on the list. Pressure from Secretary of War Stimson had already taken Kyoto off the list of targets for incendiary bombings and he would successfully object to the atomic bombing of that city. [18]

Document 12

Document 13

Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, box 17, 21 May 1945

Document 14

Harrison-Bundy Files relating to the Development of the Atomic Bomb, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1108 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), File 77: "Interim Committee - International Control."

In what Stimson called the “letter of an honest man,” Oswald C. Brewster sent President Truman a profound analysis of the danger and unfeasibility of a U.S. atomic monopoly. [21] An engineer for the Kellex Corporation, which was involved in the gas diffusion project to enrich uranium, Brewster recognized that the objective was fissile material for a weapon. That goal, he feared, raised terrifying prospects with implications for the “inevitable destruction of our present day civilization.” Once the U.S. had used the bomb in combat other great powers would not tolerate a monopoly by any nation and the sole possessor would be “be the most hated and feared nation on earth.” Even the U.S.’s closest allies would want the bomb because “how could they know where our friendship might be five, ten, or twenty years hence.” Nuclear proliferation and arms races would be certain unless the U.S. worked toward international supervision and inspection of nuclear plants.

Document 15

Document 16

At the end of May General Groves forwarded to Army Chief of Staff Marshall a “Plan of Operations” for the atomic bombings. While that plan has not surfaced, apparently its major features were incorporated in this 29 May 1945 message on the “special functions” of the 509th Composite Group sent from Chief of Staff General Lauris Norstad to General Curtis LeMay, chief of the XXI Bomber Command, headquartered in the Marianas Islands. [21A] The Norstad message reviewed the complex requirements for preparing B-29s and their crew for delivering nuclear weapons.  He detailed the mission of the specially modified B-29s that comprised the  509th Composite Group, the “tactical factors” that applied,  training and rehearsal issues, and the functions of “special personnel” and the Operational Studies Group.  The targets listed—Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Niigato—were those that had been discussed at the Target Committee meeting on 28 May, but Kyoto would be dropped when Secretary Stimson objected (although that would remain a contested matter) and Kokura would eventually be substituted.   As part of the Composite Group’s training to drop “special bombs,” it would practice with facsimiles—the conventionally-armed “Pumpkins.” The 509th Composite Group’s cover story for its secret mission was the preparation for the use of “Pumpkins” in battle.

Document 17

Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe File”), July 1940-September 1945, box 12, S-1

Tacitly dissenting from the Targeting Committee’s recommendations, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall argued for initial nuclear use against a clear-cut military target such as a “large naval installation.” If that did not work, manufacturing areas could be targeted, but only after warning their inhabitants. Marshall noted the “opprobrium which might follow from an ill considered employment of such force.” This document has played a role in arguments developed by Barton J. Bernstein that figures such as Marshall and Stimson were “caught between an older morality that opposed the intentional killing of non-combatants and a newer one that stressed virtually total war.” [22]

Document 18

RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 100 (copy from microfilm)

With Secretary of War Stimson presiding, members of the committee heard reports on a variety of Manhattan Project issues, including the stages of development of the atomic project,  problems of secrecy, the possibility of informing the Soviet Union, cooperation with “like-minded” powers, the military impact of the bomb on Japan, and the problem of “undesirable scientists.”  In his comments on a detonation over Japanese targets, Oppenheimer mentioned that the “neutron effect would be dangerous to life for a radius of at least two-thirds of a mile,” but did not mention that the radiation could cause prolonged sickness.

Interested in producing the “greatest psychological effect,” the Committee members agreed that the “most desirable target would be a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers’ houses.”  Bernstein argues that this target choice represented an uneasy endorsement of “terror bombing”-the target was not exclusively military or civilian; nevertheless, worker’s housing would include non-combatant men, women, and children. [23] It is possible that Truman was informed of such discussions and their conclusions, although he clung to a belief that the prospective targets were strictly military.

Document 19

Record Group 165, Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, American-British-Canadian Top Secret Correspondence, Box 504, “ABC 387 Japan (15 Feb. 45)

George A. Lincoln, chief of the Strategy and Policy Group at U.S. Army’s Operations Department, commented on a memorandum by former President Herbert Hoover that Stimson had passed on for analysis. 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. While Lincoln believed that the proposed peace teams were militarily acceptable he doubted that they were workable or that they could check Soviet “expansion” which he saw as an inescapable result of World War II. As to how the war with Japan would end, he saw it as “unpredictable,” but speculated that “it will take Russian entry into the war, combined with a landing, or imminent threat of a landing, on Japan proper by us, to convince them of the hopelessness of their situation.” Lincoln derided Hoover’s casualty estimate of 500,000. J. Samuel Walker has cited this document to make the point that “contrary to revisionist assertions, American policymakers in the summer of 1945 were far from certain that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria would be enough in itself to force a Japanese surrender.” [24]

Document 20

Document 21

Henry Stimson Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress)

Stimson and Truman began this meeting by discussing how they should handle a conflict with French President DeGaulle over the movement by French forces into Italian territory. (Truman finally cut off military aid to France to compel the French to pull back). [25] As evident from the discussion, Stimson strongly disliked de Gaulle whom he regarded as “psychopathic.” The conversation soon turned to the atomic bomb, with some discussion about plans to inform the Soviets but only after a successful test. Both agreed that the possibility of a nuclear “partnership” with Moscow would depend on “quid pro quos”: “the settlement of the Polish, Rumanian, Yugoslavian, and Manchurian problems.”

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. Barton Bernstein has also pointed to this as additional evidence of the influence on Stimson of an “an older morality.” While concerned about the U.S.’s reputation, Stimson did not want the Air Force to bomb Japanese cities so thoroughly that the “new weapon would not have a fair background to show its strength,” a comment that made Truman laugh. The discussion of “area bombing” may have reminded him that Japanese civilians remained at risk from U.S. bombing operations.

Document 22

RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 76 (copy from microfilm)

Physicists Leo Szilard and James Franck, a Nobel Prize winner, were on the staff of the “Metallurgical Laboratory” at the University of Chicago, a cover for the Manhattan Project program to produce fuel for the bomb. The outspoken Szilard was not involved in operational work on the bomb and General Groves kept him under surveillance but Met Lab director Arthur Compton found Szilard useful to have around. 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. That possibility would be difficult if the United States made first military use of the weapon. Compton raised doubts about the recommendations but urged Stimson to study the report. Martin Sherwin has argued that the Franck committee shared an important assumption with Truman et al.--that an “atomic attack against Japan would `shock’ the Russians”--but drew entirely different conclusions about the import of such a shock. [26]

Document 23

Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe File”), July 1940-September 1945, box 8, Japan (After December 7/41)

Document 24

Document 25

Document 26

Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Central Decimal Files, 1942-1945, box 198 334 JCS (2-2-45) Mtg 186th-194th

The record of this meeting has figured in the complex debate over the estimates of casualties stemming from a possible invasion of Japan. 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. [29]

Document 27

Document 28

RG 77, MED, H-B files, folder no. 77 (copy from microfilm)

Document 29

Document 30

RG 107, Office of Assistant Secretary of War Formerly Classified Correspondence of John J. McCloy, 1941-1945, box 38, ASW 387 Japan

Document 31

Document 32

Document 33

Naval Aide to the President Files, box 4, Berlin Conference File, Volume XI - Miscellaneous papers: Japan, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library

On 2 July Stimson presented to President Truman a proposal that he had worked up with colleagues in the War Department, including McCloy, Marshall, and Grew. The proposal has been characterized as “the most comprehensive attempt by any American policymaker to leverage diplomacy” in order to shorten the Pacific War. Stimson had in mind a “carefully timed warning” delivered before the invasion of Japan. Some of the key elements of Stimson’s argument were his assumption that “Japan is susceptible to reason” and that Japanese might be even more inclined to surrender if “we do not exclude a constitutional monarchy under her present dynasty.” The possibility of a Soviet attack would be part of the “threat.” As part of the threat message, Stimson alluded to the “inevitability and completeness of the destruction” which Japan could suffer, but he did not make it clear whether unconditional surrender terms should be clarified before using the atomic bomb. Truman read Stimson’s proposal, which he said was “powerful,” but made no commitments to the details, e.g., the position of the emperor. [32]

Document 34

Record Group 353, Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees, Secretary’s Staff Meetings Minutes, 1944-1947 (copy from microfilm)

Document 35

RG 218, Central Decimal Files, 1943-1945, CCS 381 (6-4-45), Sec. 2 Pt. 5

Document 36

Record Group 59, Decimal Files 1945-1949, 740.0011 PW (PE)/7-1645

Document 37

Henry L. Stimson Papers (MS 465), Sterling Library, Yale University (reel 113) (microfilm at Library of Congress)

Still interested in trying to find ways to “warn Japan into surrender,” this represents an attempt by Stimson before the Potsdam conference, to persuade Truman and Byrnes to agree to issue warnings to Japan prior to the use of the bomb. The warning would draw on the draft State-War proclamation to Japan; presumably, the one criticized by Hull (above) which included language about the emperor. Presumably the clarified warning would be issued prior to the use of the bomb; if the Japanese persisted in fighting then “the full force of our new weapons should be brought to bear” and a “heavier” warning would be issued backed by the “actual entrance of the Russians in the war.” Possibly, as Malloy has argued, Stimson was motivated by concerns about using the bomb against civilians and cities, but his latest proposal would meet resistance at Potsdam from Byrnes and other. [34]

Document 38

IV. The Japanese Search for Soviet Mediation   Documents 39A-B: Magic

Document 39A

National Security Agency Mandatory declassification review release.

Beginning in September 1940, U.S. military intelligence began to decrypt routinely, under the “Purple” code-name, the intercepted cable traffic of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Collectively the decoded messages were known as “Magic.” How this came about is explained in an internal history of pre-war and World War II Army and Navy code-breaking activities prepared by William F. Friedman , a central figure in the development of U.S. government cryptology during the 20 th century. The National Security Agency kept the ‘Magic” diplomatic and military summaries classified for many years and did not release the entire series for 1942 through August 1945 until the early 1990s. [36]

Document 39B

Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, “Magic” Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18.

Document 40

RG 165, Army Operations OPD Executive File #17, Item 13 (copy courtesy of J. Samuel Walker)

Document 41

Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, “Magic” Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945, box 18

Document 42

Document 43

Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 916-917 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Document 44

L.D. Riabev, ed., Atomnyi Proekt SSSR (Moscow: izd MFTI, 2002), Volume 1, Part 2, 335-336

This 10 July 1945 letter from NKVD director V. N. Merkulov to Beria is an example of Soviet efforts to collect inside information on the Manhattan Project, although not all the detail was accurate. Merkulov reported that the United States had scheduled the test of a nuclear device for that same day, although the actual test took place 6 days later. According to Merkulov, two fissile materials were being produced: element-49 (plutonium), and U-235; the test device was fueled by plutonium. 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. That figure was based on underestimates by Manhattan Project scientists: the actual yield of the test device was 20 kilotons.

Document 45

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File 5e (copy from microfilm)

An elated message from Harrison to Stimson reported the success of the Trinity Test of a plutonium implosion weapon. The light from the explosion could been seen “from here [Washington, D.C.] to “high hold” [Stimson’s estate on Long Island—250 miles away]” and it was so loud that Harrison could have heard the “screams” from Washington, D.C. to “my farm” [in Upperville, VA, 50 miles away] [42]

Document 46

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 4 (copy from microfilm)

Document 47

Barton J. Bernstein, “Truman at Potsdam: His Secret Diary,” Foreign Service Journal, July/August 1980, excerpts, used with author’s permission. [44]

Some years after Truman’s death, a hand-written diary that he kept during the Potsdam conference surfaced in his personal papers. For convenience, Barton Bernstein’s rendition is provided here but linked here are the scanned versions of Truman’s handwriting on the National Archives’ website (for 15-30 July).

Document 48

An important question that Stimson discussed with Marshall, at Truman’s request, was whether Soviet entry into the war remained necessary to secure Tokyo’s surrender. Marshall was not sure whether that was so although Stimson privately believed that the atomic bomb would provide enough to force surrender (see entry for July 23). This entry has been cited by all sides of the controversy over whether Truman was trying to keep the Soviets out of the war. [46] During the meeting on August 24, discussed above, Stimson gave his reasons for taking Kyoto off the atomic target list: destroying that city would have caused such “bitterness” that it could have become impossible “to reconcile the Japanese to us in that area rather than to the Russians.” Stimson vainly tried to preserve language in the Potsdam Declaration designed to assure the Japanese about “the continuance of their dynasty” but received Truman’s assurance that such a consideration could be conveyed later through diplomatic channels (see entry for July 24). Hasegawa argues that Truman realized that the Japanese would refuse a demand for unconditional surrender without a proviso on a constitutional monarchy and that “he needed Japan’s refusal to justify the use of the atomic bomb.” [47]

Document 49

Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. Brown Papers, box 10, folder 12, Byrnes, James F.: Potsdam, Minutes, July-August 1945

The degree to which the typed-up version reflects the original is worth investigating. In any event, historians have used information from the diary to support various interpretations. For example, Bernstein cites the entries for 20 and 24 July to argue that “American leaders did not view Soviet entry as a substitute for the bomb” but that the latter “would be so powerful, and the Soviet presence in Manchuria so militarily significant, that there was no need for actual Soviet intervention in the war.” For Brown's diary entry of 3 August 9 1945 historians have developed conflicting interpretations (See discussion of document 57). [48]

Document 50

Document 51

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 Sato’s cable as “first of July” instead of the 21 st ). In contrast to Alperovitz’s argument that Forrestal tried to modify the terms of unconditional surrender to give the Japanese an out, Frank sees Forrestal’s account of the Sato-Togo exchange as additional evidence that senior U.S. officials understood that Tokyo was not on the “cusp of surrender.” [49]

Document 52

Joseph E. Davies Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, box 19, 29 July 1945

VII. Debates among the Japanese – Late July/Early August 1945

Document 53

In the Potsdam Declaration the governments of China, Great Britain, and the United States) demanded the “unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces. “The alternative is prompt and utter destruction.” The next day, in response to questions from journalists about the government’s reaction to the ultimatum, Prime Minister Suzuki apparently said that “We can only ignore [ mokusatsu ] it. We will do our utmost to complete the war to the bitter end.” That, Bix argues, represents a “missed opportunity” to end the war and spare the Japanese from continued U.S. aerial attacks. [51] Togo’s private position was more nuanced than Suzuki’s; he told Sato that “we are adopting a policy of careful study.” That Stalin had not signed the declaration (Truman and Churchill did not ask him to) led to questions about the Soviet attitude. Togo asked Sato to try to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov as soon as possible to “sound out the Russian attitude” on the declaration as well as Japan’s end-the-war initiative. Sato cabled Togo earlier that he saw no point in approaching the Soviets on ending the war until Tokyo had “concrete proposals.” “Any aid from the Soviets has now become extremely doubtful.”

Document 54

Document 55

Document 56

Document 57

Document 58

RG 457, Summaries of Intercepted Japanese Messages (“Magic” Far East Summary, March 20, 1942 – October 2, 1945), box 7, SRS 491-547

Document 59

VIII. The Execution Order   Documents 60A-D: These messages convey the process of creating and transmitting the execution order to bomb Hiroshima. Possibly not wanting to take responsibility for the first use of nuclear weapons, Army Air Force commanders sought formal authorization from Chief of Staff Marshall who was then in Potsdam

Document 60A

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, Files no. 5b and 5e (copies from microfilm)

These messages convey the process of creating and transmitting the execution order to bomb Hiroshima.  Possibly not wanting to take responsibility for the first use of nuclear weapons, Army Air Force commanders sought formal authorization from Chief of Staff Marshall who was then in Potsdam. [55] On 22 July Marshall asked Deputy Chief of Staff Thomas Handy to prepare a draft; General Groves wrote one which went to Potsdam for Marshall’s approval. Colonel John Stone, an assistant to commanding General of the Army Air Forces Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, had just returned from Potsdam and updated his boss on the plans as they had developed. On 25 July Marshall informed Handy that Secretary of War Stimson had approved the text; that same day, Handy signed off on a directive which ordered the use of atomic weapons on Japan, with the first weapon assigned to one of four possible targets—Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, or Nagasaki. “Additional bombs will be delivery on the [targets] as soon as made ready by the project staff.”

Document 60B

See description of document 60A.

Document 60C

Document 60D

Document 60E

Document 61

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5

With more information on the Alamogordo test available, Groves provided Marshall with detail on the destructive power of atomic weapons. Barton J. Bernstein has observed that Groves’ recommendation that troops could move into the “immediate explosion area” within a half hour demonstrates the prevalent lack of top-level knowledge of the dangers of nuclear weapons effects. [56] Groves also provided the schedule for the delivery of the weapons: the components of the gun-type bomb to be used on Hiroshima had arrived on Tinian, while the parts of the second weapon to be dropped were leaving San Francisco. By the end of November over ten weapons would be available, presumably in the event the war had continued.

Document 62A

RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 21 (copies courtesy of Barton Bernstein)

Document 62B

See description of document 62A.

Document 62C

Document 63

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5b (copy from microfilm)

Document 64

Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. Brown Papers, box 68, folder 13, “Transcript/Draft B

Returning from the Potsdam Conference, sailing on the U.S.S. Augusta , Truman learned about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and announced it twice, first to those in the wardroom (socializing/dining area for commissioned officers), and then to the sailors’ mess. Still unaware of radiation effects, Truman emphasized the explosive yield. Later, he met with Secretary of State Byrnes and they discussed the Manhattan Project’s secrecy and the huge expenditures. Truman, who had been chair of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, said that “only on the appeal of Secretary of War Stimson did he refrain and let the War Department continue with the experiment unmolested.”

Document 65

A. Zolotarev, ed., Sovetsko-Iaponskaia Voina 1945 Goda: Istoriia Voenno-Politicheskogo Protivoborstva Dvukh Derzhav v 30–40e Gody (Moscow: Terra, 1997 and 2000), Vol. 7 (1), 340-341.

Document 66

Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 5-9, 1945.

Documents 67A-B: Early High-level Reactions to the Hiroshima Bombing

Document 67A

Gaimusho (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) ed. Shusen Shiroku (The Historical Records of the End of the War), annotated by Jun Eto, volume 4, 57-60 [Excerpts] [Translation by Toshihiro Higuchi]

Excerpts from the Foreign Ministry's compilation about the end of the war show how news of the bombing reached Tokyo as well as how Foreign Minister's Togo initially reacted to reports about Hiroshima. When he learned of the atomic bombing from the Domei News Agency, Togo believed that it was time to give up and advised the cabinet that the atomic attack provided the occasion for Japan to surrender on the basis of the Potsdam Declaration. Togo could not persuade the cabinet, however, and the Army wanted to delay any decisions until it had learned what had happened to Hiroshima. When the Foreign Minister met with the Emperor, Hirohito agreed with him; he declared that the top priority was an early end to the war, although it would be acceptable to seek better surrender terms--probably U.S. acceptance of a figure-head emperor--if it did not interfere with that goal. In light of those instructions, Togo and Prime Minister Suzuki agreed that the Supreme War Council should meet the next day. [59a]

Document 67B

Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 923-924 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Document 68

Document 69

Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 5-9, 1945

Document 70

W.A. Harriman Papers, Library of Congress, box 211, Robert Pickens Meiklejohn World War II Diary At London and Moscow March 10, 1941-February 14, 1946, Volume II (Privately printed, 1980 [Printed from hand-written originals]) (Reproduced with permission)

Document 71

Documents 72A-C: The Attack on Nagasaki

Document 72A

RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 20, Envelope G Tinian Files, Top Secret

Document 72B

See description of document 72A.

Document 72C

Document 73A

Library of Congress, J. Robert Oppenheimer Papers, box 60, Ramsey, Norman

Document 73B

See description of document 73A.

Document 74

Document 75

Zenshiro Hoshina, Daitoa Senso Hishi: Hoshina Zenshiro Kaiso-roku [Secret History of the Greater East Asia War: Memoir of Zenshiro Hoshina] (Tokyo, Japan: Hara-Shobo, 1975), excerpts from Section 5, “The Emperor made go-seidan [= the sacred decision] – the decision to terminate the war,” 139-149 [translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Zenshiro Hoshina, a senior naval official, attended the conference and prepared a detailed account. With Prime Minister Suzuki presiding, each of the ministers had a chance to state their views directly to Hirohito. While Army Minister Anami tacitly threatened a coup (“civil war”), the emperor accepted the majority view that the reply to the Potsdam declaration should include only one condition not the four urged by “Big Six.” Nevertheless, the condition that Hirohito accepted was not the one that foreign minister Togo had brought to the conference. What was at stake was the definition of the kokutai (national policy). Togo’s proposal would have been generally consistent with a constitutional monarchy because it defined the kokutai narrowly as the emperor and the imperial household. What Hirohito accepted, however, was a proposal by the extreme nationalist Kiichiro Hiranuma which drew upon prevailing understandings of the kokutai : the “mythical notion” that the emperor was a living god. “This was the affirmation of the emperor’s theocratic powers, unencumbered by any law, based on Shinto gods in antiquity, and totally incompatible with a constitutional monarchy.” Thus, the Japanese response to the Potsdam declaration opposed “any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of his Majesty as a sovereign ruler.” This proved to be unacceptable to the Truman administration. [63]

Document 76

Document 77A

The first Japanese surrender offer was intercepted shortly before Tokyo broadcast it. This issue of the diplomatic summary also includes Togo’s account of his notification of the Soviet declaration of war, reports of Soviet military operations in the Far East, and intercepts of French diplomatic traffic.

Document 77B

A full translation of the surrender offer was circulated separately. The translations differ but they convey the sticking point that prevented U.S. acceptance: Tokyo’s condition that the allies not make any “demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler.”

Document 78

Papers of Henry A. Wallace, Special Collections Department, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa (copy courtesy of Special Collections Department)

Note: The second page of the diary entry includes a newspaper clipping of the Associated Press’s transmission of the Byrnes note. Unfortunately, AP would not authorize the Archive to reproduce this item without payment. Therefore, we are publishing an excised version of the entry, with a link to the Byrnes note .

Document 79

Document 80

Stimson’s account of the events of 10 August focused on the debate over the reply to the Japanese note, especially the question of the Emperor’s status. The U.S. reply , drafted during the course of the day, did not explicitly reject the note but suggested that any notion about the “prerogatives” of the Emperor would be superceded by the concept that all Japanese would be “Subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers.” The language was ambiguous enough to enable Japanese readers, upon Hirohito’s urging, to believe that they could decide for themselves the Emperor’s future role. Stimson accepted the language believing that a speedy reply to the Japanese would allow the United States to “get the homeland into our hands before the Russians could put in any substantial claim to occupy and help rule it.” If the note had included specific provision for a constitutional monarchy, Hasegawa argues, it would have “taken the wind out of the sails” of the military faction and Japan might have surrendered several days earlier, on August 11 or 12 instead of August 14. [65]

Document 81

Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter Brown Papers, box 68, folder 13, “Transcript/Draft B

Brown recounted Byrnes’ debriefing of the 10 August White House meeting on the Japanese peace offer, an account which differed somewhat from that in the Stimson diary. According to what Byrnes told Brown, Truman, Stimson, and Leahy favored accepting the Japanese note, but Byrnes objected that the United States should “go [no] further than we were willing to go at Potsdam.” Stimson’s account of the meeting noted Byrnes’ concerns (“troubled and anxious”) about the Japanese note and implied that he (Stimson) favored accepting it, but did not picture the debate as starkly as Browns's did.

Document 82

George C. Marshall Papers, George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, VA (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein)

Groves informed General Marshall that he was making plans for the use of a third atomic weapon sometime after 17 August, depending on the weather. With Truman having ordered a halt to the atomic bombings [See document 78], Marshall wrote on Grove's memo that the bomb was “not to be released over Japan without express authority from the President.”

Document 83

Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of W. Averell Harriman, box 181, Chron File Aug 10-12, 1945

Document 84

Takashi Itoh, ed., Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo, Japan: Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 926-927 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Document 85

National Archives, RG 165, Army Operations OPD, Executive Files 1940-1945, box 12, Exec #2

Document 86

Gaimusho [Ministry of Foreign Affairs], ed., Shusen Shiroku [Historical Record of the End of the War] (Tokyo: Hokuyosha, 1977-1978), vol. 5, 27-35 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]

The Byrnes Note did not break the stalemate at the cabinet level. An account of the cabinet debates on August 13 prepared by Information Minister Toshiro Shimamura showed the same divisions as before; Anami and a few other ministers continued to argue that the Allies threatened the kokutai and that setting the four conditions (no occupation, etc.) did not mean that the war would continue. Nevertheless, Anami argued, “We are still left with some power to fight.” Suzuki, who was working quietly with the peace party, declared that the Allied terms were acceptable because they gave a “dim hope in the dark” of preserving the emperor. At the end of the meeting, he announced that he would report to Hirohito and ask him to make another “Sacred Judgment”. Meanwhile, junior Army officers plotted a coup to thwart the plans for surrender. [68]

Document 87

George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, VA, George C. Marshall Papers (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein)

Document 88

Document 89

Hiroshi [Kaian) Shimomura, Shusenki [Account of the End of the War] (Tokyo, Kamakura Bunko, [1948], 148-152 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]

Frightened by the rapid movement of Soviet forces into Manchuria and worried that the army might launch a coup, the peace party set in motion a plan to persuade Hirohito to meet with the cabinet and the “Big Six” to resolve the stalemate over the response to the Allies. Japan was already a day late in responding to the Byrnes Note and Hirohito agreed to move quickly. At 10:50 a.m., he met with the leadership at the bomb shelter in his palace. 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). After Suzuki gave the war party--Umeda, Toyoda, and Anami--an opportunity to present their arguments against accepting the Byrnes Note, he asked the emperor to speak.

Hirohito asked the leadership to accept the Note, which he believed was “well intentioned” on the matter of the “national polity” (by leaving open a possible role for the Emperor). Arguing that continuing the war would reduce the nation “to ashes,” his words about “bearing the unbearable” and sadness over wartime losses and suffering prefigured the language that Hirohito would use in his public announcement the next day. 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. That evening army officers tried to seize the palace and find Hirohito’s recording, but the coup failed. Early the next day, General Anami committed suicide. On the morning of August 15, Hirohito broadcast the message to the nation (although he never used the word “surrender”). A few weeks later, on September 2, 1945 Japanese representatives signed surrender documents on the USS Missouri , in Tokyo harbor. [71]

Document 90

Document 91

The British National Archives, Records of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, FO 800/461

With the Japanese surrender announcement not yet in, President Truman believed that another atomic bombing might become necessary. After a White House meeting on 14 August, British Minister John Balfour reported that Truman had “remarked sadly that he now had no alternative but to order an atomic bomb to be dropped on Tokyo.” This was likely emotional thinking spurred by anxiety and uncertainty. Truman was apparently not considering the fact that Tokyo was already devastated by fire bombing and that an atomic bombing would have killed the Emperor, which would have greatly complicated the process of surrender. 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. [73] As it turned out, a few hours later, at 4:05 p.m., the White House received the Japanese surrender announcement.

Document 92

Department of Energy Open-Net

Two scientists at Oak Ridge’s Health Division, Henshaw and Coveyou, saw a United Press report in the Knoxville News Sentinel about radiation sickness caused by the bombings. Victims who looked healthy weakened, “for unknown reasons” and many died. Lacking direct knowledge of conditions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Henshaw and Coveyou had their own data on the biological effects of radiation and could make educated guesses. After reviewing the impact of various atomic bomb effects--blast, heat, flash radiation (prompt effects from gamma and neutron radiation), and radiation from radioactive substances--they concluded that “it seems highly plausible that a great many persons were subjected to lethal and sub-lethal dosages of radiation in areas where direct blast effects were possibly non-lethal.” It was “probable,” therefore, that radiation “would produce increments to the death rate and “even more probable” that a “great number of cases of sub-lethal exposures to radiation have been suffered.” [74]

Document 93

RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5b

Document 94A

RG 77, Tinian Files, April-December 1945, box 17, Envelope B

See description of document 94B

Document 94B

XII. Eisenhower and McCloy’s Views on the Bombings and Atomic Weapons

Document 95

Document 96

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. Besides Truman, guests included New York Governor Thomas Dewey (Republican presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948), foreign ambassadors, members of the cabinet and the Supreme Court, the military high command, and various senators and representatives. The U.S. Marine Band provided music for the dinner and for the variety show that was performed by members of the press. [79]

Truman characterized the Potsdam Declaration as a “fair warning,” but it was an ultimatum. Plainly he was troubled by the devastation and suffering caused by the bombings, but he found it justifiable because it saved the lives of U.S. troops. His estimate of 250,000 U.S. soldiers spared far exceeded that made by General Marshall in June 1945, which was in the range of 31,000 (comparable to the Battle of Luzon) [See Document 26]. By citing an inflated casualty figure, the president was giving a trial run for the rationale that would become central to official and semi-official discourse about the bombings during the decades ahead. [80]

Despite Truman’s claim that he made “the most terrible” decision at Potsdam, he assigned himself more responsibility than the historical record supports. 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. As for targeting, however, he had a more significant role. At Potsdam, Stimson raised his objections to targeting Japan’s cultural capital, Kyoto, and Truman supported the secretary’s efforts to drop that city from the target list [See Documents 47 and 48]. [81]

[1] . The World Wide Web includes significant documentary resources on these events. The Truman Library has published a helpful collection of archival documents , some of which are included in the present collection. A collection of transcribed documents is Gene Dannen’s “ Atomic Bomb: Decision .” For a print collection of documents, see Dennis Merrill ed.,  Documentary History of the Truman Presidency: Volume I: The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan  (University Publications of America, 1995). A more recent collection of documents, along with a bibliography, narrative, and chronology, is Michael Kort’s  The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb  (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). An important  on-line collection focuses on the air-raids of Japanese cities and bases, providing valuable context for the atomic attacks.

[2] . For the early criticisms and their impact on Stimson and other former officials, see Barton J. Bernstein, “Seizing the Contested Terrain of Early Nuclear History: Stimson, Conant, and Their Allies Explain the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,”  Diplomatic History  17 (1993): 35-72, and James Hershberg,  James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age  (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1995), 291-301.

For Stimson’s article, see “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,”  Harper’s  194 (February 1947): 97-107. Social critic Dwight MacDonald published trenchant criticisms immediately after Hiroshima-Nagasaki; see  Politics Past: Essays in Political Criticism  (New York: Viking, 1972), 169-180.

[3] . The proposed script for the Smithsonian exhibition can be seen at Philipe Nobile,

Judgment at the Smithsonian  (New York: Matthews and Company, 1995), pp. 1-127. For reviews of the controversy, see Barton J. Bernstein, “The Struggle Over History: Defining the Hiroshima Narrative,” ibid., 128-256, and Charles T. O’Reilly and William A. Rooney,  The Enola Gay and The Smithsonian  (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2005).

[4] . For the extensive literature, see the references in J. Samuel Walker , Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan,  Third Edition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016) at 131-136, as well as Walker’s, “Recent Literature on Truman’s Atomic Bomb Decision: A Search for Middle Ground,”  Diplomatic History  29 (April 2005): 311-334. For more recent contributions, see Sean Malloy,  Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb Against Japan  (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), Andrew Rotter,  Hiroshima: The World's Bomb  (New York: Oxford, 2008), Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko,  The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War  (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2008), Wilson D. Miscamble,  The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan  (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Also important to take into account is John Dower’s extensive discussion of Hiroshima/Nagasaki in context of the U.S. fire-bombings of Japanese cities in  Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq  (New York, W. Norton, 2010), 163-285.

[5] . The editor particularly benefited from the source material cited in the following works: Robert S. Norris,  Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie S. Groves, The Manhattan Project’s Indispensable Man  (South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 2002); Gar Alperovitz,  The Decision to Use the Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth  (New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1995); Richard B. Frank , Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire  (New York: Random House, 1999), Martin Sherwin,  A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arm Race  (New York, Vintage Books, 1987), and as already mentioned, Hasegawa’s  Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan  (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2005 ).  Barton J. Bernstein’s numerous articles in scholarly publications (many of them are listed in Walker’s assessment of the literature) constitute an invaluable guide to primary sources. An article that Bernstein published in 1995, “The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered,”  Foreign Affairs  74 (1995), 135-152, nicely summarizes his thinking on the key issues.   Noteworthy publications since 2015 include Michael D. Gordin and G. John Ikenberry, eds., The Age of Hiroshim a (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 Scientist s 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).

[6] . Malloy (2008), 49-50. For more on the Uranium Committee, the decision to establish the S-1 Committee, and the overall context, see James G. Hershberg , James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age  (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1995), 140-154.

[7] . Sean Malloy, “`A Very Pleasant Way to Die’: Radiation Effects and the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb against Japan,”  Diplomatic History  36 (2012), especially 523. For an important study of how contemporary officials and scientists looked at the atomic bomb prior to first use in Japan, see Michael D. Gordin,  Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War  (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).

[8] . Norris, 169.

[9] . Malloy (2008), 57-58.

[10] . See also Norris, 362.

[11] . For discussion of the importance of this memorandum, see Sherwin, 126-127, and Hershberg , James B. Conant , 203-207.

[12] . Alperovitz, 662; Bernstein (1995), 139; Norris, 377.

[13] . 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 History  55 (2002):103. More statistics and a detailed account of the raid is in Ronald Schaffer,  Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 130-137.

[14] . Searle, “`It Made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers,’” 118. For detailed background on the Army Air Force’s incendiary bombing planning, see Schaffer (1985) 107-127. On Stimson, see Schaffer (1985), 179-180 and Malloy (2008), 54. 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

[15] . See for example, Bernstein (1995), 140-141.

[16] . For useful discussion of this meeting and the other Target Committee meetings, see Norris, 382-386.

[17] . Malloy, “A Very Pleasant Way to Die,” 531-534.

[18] . Schaffer,  Wings of Judgment , 143-146.

[19] . Alperovitz argues that the possibility of atomic diplomacy was central to the thinking of Truman and his advisers, while Bernstein, who argues that Truman’s primary objective was to end the war quickly, suggests that the ability to “cow other nations, notably the Soviet Union” was a “bonus” effect. See Bernstein (1995), 142.

[20] . Alperovitz, 147; Robert James Maddox,  Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later  (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1995), 52; Gabiel Kolko,  The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945  (New York: Pantheon Books, 1990), 421-422. As Alperovitz notes, the Davies papers include variant diary entries and it is difficult to know which are the most accurate.

[21] . Malloy (2008), 112

[21A] . Vincent Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1985), 529.

[22] . Bernstein (1995), 146. See also Barton J. Bernstein, “Looking Back: Gen. Marshall and the Atomic Bombing of Japanese Cities,” Arms Control Today , November 2015.

[23] . Bernstein (1995), 144. See also Malloy (2008), at 116-117, including the argument that 1) Stimson was deceiving himself by accepting the notion that a “vital war plant …surrounded by workers’ houses” was a legitimate military target, and 2) that Groves was misleading Stimson by withholding the Target Committee’s conclusions that the target would be a city center.

[24] . Walker (2005), 320.

[25] . Frank Costigliola,  France and the United States: The Cold Alliance Since World War II  (New York, Twayne, 1992), 38-39.

[26] . Barton J. Bernstein, Introduction to Helen S. Hawkins et al. editors,  Toward a Livable World: Leo Szilard and the Crusade for Nuclear Arms Control  (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987), xxx-xxv; Sherwin, 210-215.

[27] . Herbert P. Bix,  Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan  (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), 523.

[28] . Walker (2005), 319-320.

[29] . For a review of the debate on casualty estimates, see Walker (2005), 315, 317-318, 321, 323, and 324-325.

[30] . Hasegawa, 105; Alperovitz, 67-72; Forrest Pogue,  George C. Marshall: Statesman, 1945-1959  (New York: Viking, 1987), 18. Pogue only cites the JCS transcript of the meeting; presumably, an interview with a participant was the source of the McCloy quote.

[31] . Alperovitz, 226; Bernstein, “Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender,”  Diplomatic History  19 (1995), 237, note 22.

[32] . Malloy (2008), 123-124.

[33] . Alperovitz, 242, 245; Frank, 219.

[34] . Malloy (2008), 125-127.

[35] . Bernstein, introduction,  Toward a Livable World , xxxvii-xxxviii.

[36] . “Magic” summaries for post-August 1945 remain classified at the National Security Agency. Information from the late John Taylor, National Archives. For background on Magic and the “Purple” code, see John Prados,  Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II (  New York: Random House, 1995), 161-172 and David Kahn,  The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing  (New York: Scribner, 1996), 1-67.

[37] . Alperovitz, 232-238.

[38] . Maddox, 83-84; Hasegawa, 126-128. See also Walker (2005), 316-317.

[39] . Hasegawa, 28, 121-122.

[40] . Peter Grose,  Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles  (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 170-174, 248-249.

[41] . David Holloway, “Barbarossa and the Bomb: Two Cases of Soviet Intelligence in World War II,” in Jonathan Haslam and Karina Urbach, eds.,  Secret Intelligence in the European States System, 1918-1989  (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 63-64. For the inception of the Soviet nuclear program and the role of espionage in facilitating it, see Holloway,  Stalin and the Bomb  (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1994).

[42] . For the distances, see Norris, 407.

[43] . For on-line resources on the first atomic test .

[44] . Bernstein’s detailed commentary on Truman’s diary has not been reproduced here except for the opening pages where he provides context and background.

[45] . Frank, 258; Bernstein (1995), 147; Walker (2005), 322. See also Alex Wellerstein’s “ The Kyoto Misconception ”

[46] . Maddox, 102; Alperovitz, 269-270; Hasegawa, 152-153.

[47] . Hasegawa, 292.

[48] . Bernstein, “Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender,”  Diplomatic History  19 (1995), 146-147; Alperovitz, 415; Frank, 246.

[49] . Alperovitz, 392; Frank, 148.

[50] . Alperovitz, 281-282. For Davies at Potsdam, see Elizabeth Kimball MacLean,  Joseph E. Davies: Envoy to the Soviets  (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), 151-166

[51] . Hasegawa, 168; Bix, 518.

[52] . Bix, 490, 521.

[53] . Alperovitz, 415; Frank, 246.

[54] . Frank, 273-274; Bernstein, “The Alarming Japanese Buildup on Southern Kyushu, Growing U.S. Fears and Counterfactual Analysis: Would the Planned November 1945 Invasion of Southern Kyushu Have Occurred?”  Pacific Historical Review  68 (1999): 561-609.

[55] . Maddox, 105.

[56] . Barton J. Bernstein, "'Reconsidering the 'Atomic General': Leslie R. Groves,"  The Journal of Military History  67 (July 2003): 883-920. See also Malloy, “A Very Pleasant Way to Die,” 539-540.

[57] . For casualty figures and the experience of people on the ground, see Frank, 264-268 and 285-286, among many other sources. Drawing on contemporary documents and journals, Masuji Ibuse’s novel  Black Rain  (Tokyo, Kodansha, 1982) provides an unforgettable account of the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath. For early U.S. planning to detonate the weapon at a height designed to maximize destruction from mass fires and other effects, see Alex Wellerstein, “ The Height of the Bomb .”

[58] . Sadao Asada, “The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan’s Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration,”  Pacific Historical Review  67 (1998): 101-148; Bix, 523; Frank, 348; Hasegawa, 298. Bix appears to have moved toward a position close to Hasegawa’s; see Bix, “Japan's Surrender Decision and the Monarchy: Staying the Course in an Unwinnable War,”  Japan Focus  . For emphasis on the “shock” of the atomic bomb, see also Lawrence Freedman and Saki Dockrill, “Hiroshima: A Strategy of Shock,” in Saki Dockrill, ed.,  From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima : the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific, 1941-1945  (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 191-214. For more on the debate over Japan’s surrender, see Hasegawa’s important edited book,  The End of the Pacific War: A Reappraisal  (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), with major contributions by Hasegawa, Holloway, Bernstein, and Hatano.

[59] . Melvyn P. Leffler, “Adherence to Agreements: Yalta and the Experiences of the Early Cold War,”  International Security  11 (1986): 107; Holloway, “Barbarossa and the Bomb,” 65.

[59a] . For more on these developments, see Asada, "The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan's Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration," 486-488.

[60] . Hasegawa, 191-192.

[61] . Frank, 286-287; Sherwin, 233-237; Bernstein (1995), 150; Maddox, 148.

[62] . The Supreme War Council comprised the prime minister, foreign minister, army and navy ministers, and army and navy chiefs of staff; see Hasegawa, 72 .

[63] . For the maneuverings on August 9 and the role of the  kokutai , see Hasegawa, 3-4, 205-214

[64] . For Truman’s recognition of mass civilian casualties, see also his  letter to Senator Richard Russell, 9 August 1945.

[65] . Hasegawa, 295.

[66] . For “tug of war,” see Hasegawa, 226-227.

[67] . Hasegawa, 228-229, 232.

[68] . Hasegawa, 235-238.

[69] . Barton J. Bernstein, “Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking about Tactical Nuclear Weapons,”  International Security  15 (Spring 1991): 149-173; Marc Gallicchio, “After Nagasaki: General Marshall’s Plans for Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Japan,”  Prologue  23 (Winter 1991): 396-404. Letters from Robert Messer and Gar Alperovitz, with Bernstein’s response, provide insight into some of the interpretative issues. “Correspondence,”  International Security  16 (Winter 1991/1992): 214-221.

[70] . Bix, “Japan's Surrender Decision and the Monarchy: Staying the Course in an Unwinnable War,”  Japan Focus .

[71] . For Hirohito' surrender speech--the actual broadcast and a translation--see  Japan Times , August 2015.

[72] . Cited by Barton J. Bernstein, “Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking About Tactical Nuclear Weapons,”  International Security  15 (1991) at page 167. Thanks to Alex Wellerstein for the suggestion and the archival link.

[73] . For further consideration of Tokyo and more likely targets at the time, see Alex Wellerstein, “Neglected Niigata,”  Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog, 9 October 2015.

[74] . See Malloy, “A Very Pleasant Way to Die,” 541-542.

[75] . For Groves and the problem of radiation sickness, see Norris, 339-441, Bernstein, “Reconsidering the ‘Atomic General’: Leslie R. Groves,”  Journal of Military History  67 (2003), 907-908, and Malloy, “A Very Pleasant Way to Die,” 513-518 and 539-542

[76] . See Janet Farrell Brodie, “Radiation Secrecy and Censorship after Hiroshima and Nagasaki,”  The Journal of Social History  48 (2015): 842-864.

[77] . For Eisenhower’s statements, see  Crusade in Europe  (Garden City: Doubleday, 1948), 443, and  Mandate for Change  (Garden City: Doubleday, 1963), 312-313. Barton J. Bernstein’s 1987 article, “Ike and Hiroshima: Did He Oppose It?”  The Journal of Strategic Studies  10 (1987): 377-389, makes a case against relying on Eisenhower’s memoirs and points to relevant circumstantial evidence. For a slightly different perspective, see Malloy (2007), 138

[78] . Cited in Barton J. Bernstein, “Truman and the A-Bomb: Targeting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and His Defending the "Decision,”  The Journal of Military History  62 (1998), at page 559. Thanks to Alex Wellerstein for the suggestion and the archival link.

[79] . “Truman Plays Part of Himself in Skit at Gridiron Dinner,” and “List of Members and Guests at the Gridiron Show,”  The Washington Post , 16 December 1945.

[80] . For varied casualty figures cited by Truman and others after the war, see Walker,  Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan , 101-102.

[81] . See also ibid., 59.

History | August 5, 2020

Nine Eyewitness Accounts of the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

More than seventy-five years ago, the atomic blasts killed an estimated 200,000 people

Meilan Solly

Associate Editor, History

When photographer Haruka Sakaguchi first tried to connect with survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , her cold calls and emails went unanswered. Then, in 2017, the Brooklyn-based artist decided to visit Japan herself in hopes of meeting someone who knew a hibakusha —the Japanese word for those affected by the August 1945 attacks.

“I sat at the Nagasaki Peace Park for hours trying to differentiate between tourists and locals who were visiting to pray for a loved one—they often wore juzu , or prayer beads,” says Sakaguchi, who immigrated to the U.S. from Japan as an infant in the 1990s. After five hours of people watching, she struck up a conversation with the daughter of a survivor, who agreed to introduce her to eight hibakusha.

Elizabeth Chappell , an oral historian at the Open University in the United Kingdom, encountered similar difficulties after setting out to catalog atomic bomb survivors’ testimony. “When you have a silenced group like that, they have a very internal culture,” she explains. “They’re very protective of their stories. I was told I wouldn’t get interviews.”

Survivors’ reluctance to discuss their experiences stems in large part from the stigma surrounding Japan’s hibakusha community. Due to a limited understanding of radiation poisoning’s long-term effects, many Japanese avoided (or outright abused) those affected out of fear that their ailments were contagious. This misconception, coupled with a widespread unwillingness to revisit the bombings and Japan’s subsequent surrender, led most hibakusha to keep their trauma to themselves. But in the past decade or so, documentary efforts like Sakaguchi’s 1945 Project and Chappell’s The Last Survivors of Hiroshima have become increasingly common—a testament to both survivors’ willingness to defy the long-standing culture of silence and the pressing need to preserve these stories as hibakusha’s numbers dwindle.

When planning for the war in the Pacific's next phase, the U.S. invasion of mainland Japan, the Truman administration estimated that American casualties would be between 1.7 and 4 million, while Japanese casualties could number up to 10 million. Per the National WWII Museum , U.S. intelligence officers warned that “there are no civilians in Japan,” as the imperial government had strategically made newly mobilized combatants’ attire indistinguishable from civilians. They also predicted that Japanese soldiers and civilians alike would choose to fight to the death rather than surrender.

Throughout World War II, the Japanese code of bushido , or “way of the warrior,” guided much of Emperor Hirohito’s strategy. With its actions in China , the Philippines , the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in Asia, the Imperial Japanese army waged a brutal, indiscriminate campaign against enemy combatants, civilians and prisoners of war. Prizing sacrifice, patriotism and loyalty above all else, the bushido mindset led Japanese soldiers to view their lives as expendable in service of the emperor and consider suicide more honorable than yielding to the enemy. Later in the war, as American troops advanced on the Japanese mainland, civilians indoctrinated to believe that U.S. soldiers would torture and kill those who surrendered also started engaging in mass suicides . The Battle of Okinawa was a particularly bloody example of this practice , with Japanese soldiers even distributing hand grenades to civilians caught in the crossfire.

The accuracy of the U.S. government’s projections, and the question of whether Emperor Hirohito would have surrendered without the use of atomic weapons, is the subject of great historical debate . But the facts remain: When the bombing of Hiroshima failed to produce Japan’s immediate surrender, the U.S. moved forward with plans to drop a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. That same week, the Soviet Union officially declared war on Japan after years of adhering to a 1941 neutrality pact.

In total, the August 6 and 9 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, killed more than 200,000 people . Six days after the second attack, Hirohito announced Japan’s unconditional surrender. The American occupation of Japan , which set out to demilitarize the country and transform it into a democracy, began soon after.

An estimated 650,000 people survived the atomic blasts, only to find their post-war lives marred by health issues and marginalization. Hibakusha received little official aid from the temporary occupying government, as American scientists’ understanding of radiation’s effects was only “marginally better” than that of the Japanese, according to the Atomic Heritage Foundation . In September 1945, the New York Times reported that the number of Japanese people who’d died of radiation “was very small.”

Survivors faced numerous forms of discrimination. Survivor Shosho Kawamoto , for instance, proposed to his girlfriend more than a decade after the bombing, but her father forbade the marriage out of fear that their children would bear the brunt of his radiation exposure. Heartbroken, Kawamoto vowed to remain unmarried for the rest of his life.

“Widespread fears that hibakusha are physically or psychologically impaired and that their children might inherit genetic defects stigmatize first- and second-generation hibakusha to this day, especially female survivors,” Sakaguchi says. (Scientists who monitored almost all pregnancies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki between 1948 and 1954 found no “ statistically significant ” increase in birth defects.)

Sakaguchi also cites accounts of workplace discrimination: Women with visible scars were told to stay home and avoid “front-facing work,” while those issued pink booklets identifying them as hibakusha—and indicating their eligibility for healthcare subsidies—were often refused work due to fears of future health complications. Many hibakusha interviewed for the 1945 Project avoided obtaining this paperwork until their children were “gainfully employed [and] married or they themselves became very sick” in order to protect their loved ones from being ostracized.

Perhaps the most jarring aspect of hibakusha’s experiences was the lack of recognition afforded to survivors. As Chappell explains, far from reversing the empire’s decades-long policy of strict censorship , U.S. officials in charge of the postwar occupation continued to wield control of the press , even limiting use of the Japanese word for atomic bomb: genbaku. After the Americans left in 1952, Japan’s government further discounted hibakusha, perpetuating what the historian deems “global collective amnesia.” Even the 1957 passage of legislation providing benefits for hibakusha failed to spark meaningful discussion—and understanding—of survivors’ plight.

Writing in 2018, Chappell added, “[T]he hibakusha were the unwelcome reminder of an unknown, unclassifiable event, something so unimaginable society tried to ignore it.”

More recently, aging hibakusha have grown more vocal about their wartime experiences. They share their stories in hopes of helping the next “generations imagine a different kind of future,” according to Chappell, and to plead for nuclear disarmament, says Sakaguchi. Many organizations dedicated to preserving survivors’ testimony—the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum , the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation , among others—were actually founded by hibakusha: “They had to be the first researchers, [and] they had to be their own researchers,” Chappell notes.

Today, hibakusha still face widespread discrimination. Several individuals who agreed to participate in Sakaguchi’s 1945 Project later withdrew, citing fears that friends and colleagues would see their portraits. Still, despite fear of retaliation, survivors continue to speak out. Below, find nine such firsthand accounts of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, collected here to mark the 75th anniversary of the attacks.

This article contains graphic depictions of the atomic bombings’ aftermath. The survivor quotes chosen from interviews with Sakaguchi were spoken in Japanese and translated by the photographer.

Taeko Teramae

Hiroshima survivor Taeko Teramae didn’t realize the full extent of her injuries until her younger brothers started making fun of her appearance . Confused, the 15-year-old asked her parents for a mirror—a request they denied, leading her to surreptitiously track one down on a day they’d left the house.

“I was so surprised I found my left eye looked just like a pomegranate, and I also found cuts on my right eye and on my nose and on my lower jaw,” she recalled . “It was horrible. I was very shocked to find myself looking like a monster.”

On the day of the bombing, Teramae was one of thousands of students mobilized to help fill Hiroshima’s wartime labor shortages. Assigned to the city’s Telephone Bureau, she was on the building’s second floor when she heard a “tremendous noise.” The walls collapsed, momentarily blanketing the workers in darkness. “I began to choke on the consequent smoke— poisonous gas, it seemed like—and vomited uncontrollably,” wrote Teramae in a 1985 article for Heiwa Bunka magazine .

Amid the din of cries for help, a single voice called out: “We must endure this, like the proud scholars that we are!” It was Teramae’s homeroom teacher, Chiyoko Wakita, who was herself not much older than her students. Comforted by Wakita’s words, the children gradually quieted down.

Teramae managed to escape by jumping out of a second-story window and climbing down a telephone pole. But when she tried to cross the Kyobashi River to safety, she found its only bridge in flames and the city she’d left behind “engulfed in a sea of fire.” Once again, Wakita came to her charge’s rescue, accompanying her on the swim across the river and offering encouragement throughout the arduous journey. After dropping Teramae off at an evacuation center, the young teacher returned to Hiroshima to help her other students. She died of her injuries on August 30.

“[Wakita] saved my life, yet I was not able to tell her a simple ‘thank you,’” Teramae later said. “I deeply regret this, to this day.”

Sachiko Matsuo

Sometime before the bombing of Nagasaki, 11-year-old Sachiko Matsuo ’s father happened upon a leaflet dropped by American pilots to warn the city’s residents of an imminent attack. Taking the message seriously, he constructed a makeshift cabin high up on a mountain overlooking Nagasaki and, in the days leading up to the scheduled bombing, implored his extended family to take shelter there from morning until evening. But when August 8—the supposed day of the attack—passed without incident, Matsuo’s mother and aunt told him they wanted to stay home.

Reflecting on the argument that followed in an interview with Sakaguchi , Matsuo said her father demanded that the pair return to the barracks, pointing out that the United States’ time zone was one day behind Japan’s. “When they opposed, he got very upset and stormed out to go to work,” she added. Meanwhile, his remaining family members “changed our minds and decided to hide out in the barrack for one more day.” The bomb struck just hours later. All those hidden in the cabin survived the initial impact, albeit with a number of severe burns and lacerations.

“After a while, we became worried about our house, so I walked to a place from where I would be able to see the house, but there was something like a big cloud covering the whole city, and the cloud was growing and climbing up toward us,” Matsuo explained in 2017. “I could see nothing below. My grandmother started to cry, ‘Everybody is dead. This is the end of the world.’”

Matsuo’s father, who’d been stationed outside of an arms factory with his civil defense unit when the bomb struck, returned to the cabin that afternoon. He’d sustained several injuries, including wounds to the head, hands and legs, and required a cane to walk. His eldest son, who’d also been out with a civil defense unit, died in the blast. The family later spotted his corpse resting on a rooftop, but by the time they returned to retrieve it, the body was gone.

In the weeks after the bombing, Matsuo’s father began suffering from the effects of radiation. “He soon came down with diarrhea and a high fever,” she told Sakaguchi. “His hair began to fall out and dark spots formed on his skin. My father passed away—suffering greatly—on August 28.”

Norimitsu Tosu

Every morning, Norimitsu Tosu ’s mother took him and his twin brother on a walk around their Hiroshima neighborhood. August 6 was no different: The trio had just returned from their daily walk, and the 3-year-olds were in the bathroom washing their hands. Then, the walls collapsed, trapping the brothers under a pile of debris. Their mother, who’d briefly lost consciousness, awoke to the sound of her sons’ cries. Bleeding “all over,” Tosu told the National Catholic Reporter ’s David E. DeCosse in 2016, she pulled them from the rubble and brought them to a relative’s house.

Five of Tosu’s seven immediate family members survived the bombing. His father, temporarily jailed over an accusation of bribery, was shielded by the prison’s strong walls, but two siblings—an older brother named Yoshihiro and a sister named Hiroko—died. The family was only able to learn of Yoshihiro’s fate: According to Tosu, “We didn't know what happened to [Hiroko], and we never located her body. Nothing. We didn't even know where exactly she was when the bomb exploded.”

Given his age at the time of the attack, Tosu doesn’t remember much of the actual aftermath. But as he explained to grandson Justin Hsieh in 2019 , one memory stands out:

When we were evacuating, there were dead horses, dogs, animals and people everywhere. And the smells I remember. There was this terrible smell. It smelled like canned salmon. So for a long time after that, I couldn’t eat canned salmon because the smell reminded me of that. It was sickening. So more than anything I saw or heard, it was the smell that I remember the most.

Yoshiro Yamawaki

The day after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, 11-year-old Yoshiro Yamawaki went out in search of his father, who had failed to return from a shift at the local power station. On the way to the factory, Yamawaki and two of his brothers saw unspeakable horrors , including corpses whose “skin would come peeling off just like that of an over-ripe peach, exposing the white fat underneath”; a young woman whose intestines dragged behind her in what the trio at first thought was a long white cloth belt; and a 6- or 7-year-old boy whose parasitic roundworms had come “shooting out” of his mouth post-mortem.

The boys soon arrived at the power station, which was situated near the bomb’s hypocenter and had been reduced to little more than a pile of scorched metal. Spotting three men with shovels, they called out, “Our name is Yamawaki. Where is our father?” In response, one of the men pointed toward a demolished building across the street and simply said, “Your father is over there.”

Joy quickly turned to anguish as the brothers spotted their father’s corpse, “swollen and scorched just like all the others.” After consulting with the older men, they realized that they’d need to either cremate his remains to bring home to their mother or bury his body onsite. Unsure what else to do, they gathered smoldering pieces of wood and built a makeshift funeral pyre.

The men advised the brothers to come back for their father’s ashes the following day. Too overcome with emotion to remain, they agreed. But upon returning to the factory the following morning, they found their father’s half-cremated body abandoned and coated in ash.

“My brother looked at our father's body for a while longer, and then said, ‘We can't do anything more. We’ll just take his skull home and that will be the end,’” Yamawaki recalled at age 75.

When the young boy went to retrieve the skull with a pair of tongs brought from home, however, “it crumbled apart like a plaster model and the half-burned brains came flowing out.”

“Letting out a scream, my brother threw down the tongs, and darted away,” said Yamawaki. “The two of us ran after him. [These] were the circumstances under which we forsook our father's body.”

Sakaguchi, who photographed Yamawaki for the 1945 Project , offers another perspective on the incident, saying, “Aside from the traumatic experience of having to cremate your own father, I was awestruck by Mr. Yamawaki and his brothers’ persistence—at a young age, no less—to send their father off with quietude and dignity under such devastating circumstances.”

Kikue Shiota

August 6 was “an unimaginably beautiful day” punctuated by a “blinding light that flashed as if a thousand magnesium bulbs had been turned on all at once,” Hiroshima survivor Kikue Shiota later recalled. The blast trapped 21-year-old Shiota and her 16-year-old sister beneath the remains of their razed house, more than a mile from the bomb’s hypocenter.

After Shiota’s father rescued his daughters from the rubble, they set out in search of their remaining family members. Burned bodies were scattered everywhere, making it impossible to walk without stepping on someone. The sisters saw a newborn baby still attached to its dead mother’s umbilical cord lying on the side of the road.

As the pair walked the streets of Hiroshima, their 10-year-old brother conducted a similar search. When Shiota finally spotted him standing among a crowd of people, she was horrified: “All the skin on his face was peeling off and dangling,” she said. “He was limping feebly, all the skin from his legs burned and dragging behind him like a heap of rags.”

The young boy survived his injuries. His 14-year-old sister, Mitsue, did not. Though the family never recovered her body, they were forced to face the worst after finding a scrap of Mitsue’s school uniform burned into the asphalt.

“I thought my heart would surely stop because the very cloth I found was my sister’s, Mitsue, my little sister,” Shiota remembered. “‘Mi-chan!’ I called out to her. ‘It must have been terribly hot. The pain must have been unbearable. You must have screamed for help.’ … My tears falling, I searched for my sister in vain.”

One month after the bombing, the family lost another loved one: Shiota’s mother, who had appeared to be in good health up until the day before her passing, died of acute leukemia caused by the blast’s radioactive rays. She was cremated in a pit dug by a neighbor as her grief-stricken daughter looked on.

Akiko Takakura

Decades after the bombing of Hiroshima, the image of a man whose charred fingertips had been engulfed in blue flames remained imprinted in Akiko Takakura ’s memory. “With those fingers, the man had probably picked up his children and turned the pages of books,” the then-88-year-old told the Chugoku Shimbun in 2014. The vision so haunted Takakura that she immortalized it in a 1974 drawing and recounted it to the many schoolchildren she spoke to as a survivor of the August 6 attack. “More than 50 years later, / I remember that blue flame, / and my heart nearly bursts / with sorrow,” she wrote in a poem titled “ To Children Who Don’t Know the Atomic Bomb .”

Takakura was 19 years old when the bomb fell, detonating above a quiet street close to her workplace, the Hiroshima branch of the Sumitomo Bank . She lost consciousness after seeing a “white magnesium flash” but later awoke to the sound of a friend, Kimiko Usami, crying out for her mother, according to testimony preserved by the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation . The pair managed to escape the building, which had partially shielded those inside with its reinforced concrete walls, and venture into the street. There, they encountered a “whirlpool of fire” that burned everything it touched.

“It was just like a living hell,” Takakura recalled. “After a while, it began to rain. The fire and the smoke made us so thirsty and there was nothing to drink. … People opened their mouths and turned their faces toward the sky [to] try to drink the rain, but it wasn't easy to catch the rain drops in our mouths. It was a black rain with big drops.” ( Kikue Shiota described the rain as “inky black and oily like coal tar.”)

The fire eventually died down, enabling Takakura and Usami to navigate through streets littered with the “ reddish-brown corpses of those who were killed instantly.” Upon reaching a nearby drill ground, the young women settled in for the night with only a sheet of corrugated tin for warmth. On August 10, Takakura’s mother took her daughter, who had sustained more than 100 lacerations all over her body, home to begin the lengthy recovery process. Usami succumbed to her injuries less than a month later.

Hiroyasu Tagawa

In the spring of 1945, government-mandated evacuations led 12-year-old Hiroyasu Tagawa and his sister to move in with their aunt, who lived a short distance away from Nagasaki, while his parents relocated to a neighborhood close to their workplace in the city center.

On the morning of August 9, Tagawa heard what he thought might be a B-29 bomber flying overhead. Curious, he rushed outside to take a look. “Suddenly everything turned orange,” Tagawa told Forbes ’ Jim Clash in 2018. “I quickly covered my eyes and ears and laid down on the ground. This was the position we practiced daily at school for times like this. Soon dust and debris and pieces of glass were flying everywhere. After that, silence.”

All those living at the aunt’s house survived the blast with minor injuries. But after three days passed with no news of his parents, Tagawa decided to go to the city center and search for them. There, he found piles of corpses and people similarly looking for missing family members. “Using long bamboo sticks, they were turning over one corpse after the other as they floated down the river,” he recalled. “There was an eerie silence and an overwhelming stench.”

Tagawa’s mother found him first, calling out his name as he walked down the street. She and her husband had been staying in a shelter, too badly injured to make the trek back to their children. Mr. Tagawa was in particularly poor shape: A factory worker, he’d been handling dangerous chemicals when the bomb struck. Its impact sent the toxic materials flying, severely burning his feet.

Determined to aid his ailing father, Tagawa recruited several neighbors to help carry him to a temporary hospital, where doctors were forced to amputate with a carpenter’s saw. His father died three days later, leaving his grieving son uncertain of whether he’d done the right thing. “I wondered if I had done wrong by taking him over there,” Tagawa told the Japan Times ’ Noriyuki Suzuki in 2018. “Had I not brought him to have the surgery, maybe he would’ve lived for a longer time. Those regrets felt like thorns in my heart.”

More tragedy was still to come: Shortly after Tagawa returned to his aunt’s town to deliver news of his father’s death, he received word that his mother—suffering from radiation poisoning—was now in critical condition. Bicycling back to her bedside, he arrived just in time to say goodbye :

My aunt said, “Your mother almost died last night, but she wanted to see you one last time. So she gave it her best to live one more day.” My mother looked at me and whispered, “Hiro-chan, my dear child, grow up fast, okay?” And with these words, she drew her last breath.

Shoso Kawamoto

Eleven-year-old Shoso Kawamoto was one of some 2,000 children evacuated from Hiroshima’s city center ahead of the August 6 bombing. As he told the Chugoku Shimbun in 2013, he’d been working in a field north of the city alongside other young evacuees when he noticed a white cloud rising in the sky above Hiroshima. That night, caretakers told the group of 6- to 11-year-olds that the city center—where many of the children’s families lived—had been obliterated.

Three days later, Kawamoto’s 16-year-old sister, Tokie, arrived to pick him up. She arrived with sobering news: Their mother and younger siblings had “died at home, embracing one another,” and their father and an older sister were missing. Kawamoto never learned exactly what happened to them. (According to Elizabeth Chappell , who has interviewed Kawamoto extensively, his “samurai mother and ... farmer father” came from different backgrounds and raised their children in a strict neo-Confucian household.)

After reuniting, the siblings moved into a ruined train station, where they witnessed the plight of other orphaned children. “[W]e did not have enough food to survive,” Kawamoto later explained to author Charles Pellegrino . “We were in a constant tug-of-war over food—sometimes only one dumpling. In the end, the strong survived and the weak died one after another.” Most orphans died within months, wrote Chappell for the Conversation in 2019: Though local women tried to feed them, there simply weren’t enough rations to go around.

Tokie died of an undiagnosed illness, likely leukemia, in February 1946. Following her passing, a soy sauce factory owner took Kawamoto in, feeding and sheltering him in exchange for 12 years of labor. At the end of this period, the man rewarded his surrogate son with a house.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi

To date, the Japanese government has recognized only one survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings: naval engineer Tsutomu Yamaguchi , who died in 2010 at age 93. A longtime Nagasaki resident, he’d spent the summer of 1945 on temporary assignment in Hiroshima. August 6 was set to be his last day of work before returning home to his wife and infant son.

That morning, the 29-year-old was walking to the shipyard when a “great flash in the sky” rendered him unconscious. Upon waking up, Yamaguchi told the Times ’ Richard Lloyd Parry, he saw “a huge mushroom-shaped pillar of fire rising up high into the sky. It was like a tornado, although it didn't move, but it rose and spread out horizontally at the top. There was prismatic light, which was changing in a complicated rhythm, like the patterns of a kaleidoscope.”

The blast ruptured Yamaguchi’s eardrums and burned his face and forearms. But after reuniting with two co-workers—Akira Iwanaga and Kuniyoshi Sato—the trio managed to retrieve their belongings from a dormitory and start making their way to the train station. On the way, “We saw a mother with a baby on her back,” Yamaguchi recalled. “She looked as if she had lost her mind. The child on her back was dead and I don’t know if she even realized.”

Sato, who along with Iwanaga also survived both bombings, lost track of his friends on the train ride back to Nagasaki. He ended up sitting across from a young man who spent the journey clasping an awkwardly covered bundle on his lap. Finally, Sato asked what was in the package. The stranger responded, “I married a month ago, but my wife died yesterday. I want to take her home to her parents.” Beneath the cloth, he revealed, rested his beloved’s severed head.

Upon reaching Nagasaki, Yamaguchi visited a hospital to receive treatment for his burns. Deeming himself fit to work, he reported for duty the next day and was in the middle of recounting the bombing when another blinding flash of light filled the room. “I thought the mushroom cloud had followed me from Hiroshima,” he explained to the Independent ’s David McNeill in 2009.

Yamaguchi was relatively unhurt, and when he rushed to check on his wife and son, he found them in a similar state. But over the next several days, he started suffering from the effects of radiation poisoning: As Evan Andrews wrote for History.com in 2015, “His hair fell out, the wounds on his arms turned gangrenous, and he began vomiting incessantly.”

With time, Yamaguchi recovered and went on to live a normal life. He was, in fact, so healthy that he avoided speaking out about his experiences for fear of being “unfair to people who were really sick,” as his daughter Toshiko told the Independent. In total, an estimated 165 people survived both bombings. Yamaguchi remains the only one to receive official recognition.

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Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history.

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A Look At The History Of The Nagasaki Bombing, 75 Years Later

Geoff Brumfiel

75 years ago this weekend, the U.S. killed tens of thousands when it dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. It was a mission marked by arbitrary decisions, technical problems, and bad weather.

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Atomic Bomb History

By: History.com Editors

Updated: November 9, 2022 | Original: September 6, 2017

The atomic bomb and nuclear bombs are powerful weapons that use nuclear reactions as their source of explosive energy. Scientists first developed nuclear weapons technology during World War II. Atomic bombs have been used only twice in war—both times by the United States against Japan at the end of World War II, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A period of nuclear proliferation followed that war, and during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union vied for supremacy in a global nuclear arms race.

Nuclear Bombs and Hydrogen Bombs

A discovery by nuclear physicists in a laboratory in Berlin, Germany, in 1938 made the first atomic bomb possible, after Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassman discovered nuclear fission.

In nuclear fission, the nucleus of an atom of radioactive material splits into two or more smaller nuclei, which causes a sudden, powerful release of energy. The discovery of nuclear fission opened up the possibility of nuclear technologies, including weapons.

Atomic bombs get their energy from fission reactions. Thermonuclear weapons, or hydrogen bombs, rely on a combination of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion is another type of reaction in which two lighter atoms combine to release energy.

Manhattan Project

On December 28, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the formation of the Manhattan Project to bring together various scientists and military officials working on nuclear research.

The Manhattan Project was the code name for the American-led effort to develop a functional atomic bomb during World War II . The project was started in response to fears that German scientists had been working on a weapon using nuclear technology since the 1930s.

Who Invented the Atomic Bomb?

Much of the work in the Manhattan Project was performed in Los Alamos, New Mexico , under the direction of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer , the “ father of the atomic bomb .”

On July 16, 1945, in a remote desert location near Alamogordo, New Mexico , the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated—the Trinity Test . It created an enormous mushroom cloud some 40,000 feet high and ushered in the Atomic Age.

Hiroshima And Nagasaki Bombings

Scientists at Los Alamos had developed two distinct types of atomic bombs by 1945—a uranium-based design called “the Little Boy” and a plutonium-based weapon called “the Fat Man.” (Uranium and plutonium are both radioactive elements.)

While the war in Europe had ended in April, fighting in the Pacific continued between Japanese forces and U.S. troops. In late July, President Harry Truman called for Japan’s surrender with the Potsdam Declaration . The declaration promised “prompt and utter destruction” if Japan did not surrender.

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped its first atomic bomb from a B-29 bomber plane called the Enola Gay over the city of Hiroshima , Japan. The “Little Boy” exploded with about 13 kilotons of force, leveling five square miles of the city and killing 80,000 people instantly. Tens of thousands more would later die from radiation exposure.

When the Japanese did not immediately surrender, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb three days later on the city of Nagasaki . The “Fat Man” killed an estimated 40,000 people on impact.

Nagasaki had not been the primary target for the second bomb. American bombers initially had targeted the city of Kokura, where Japan had one of its largest munitions plants, but smoke from firebombing raids obscured the sky over Kokura. American planes then turned toward their secondary target, Nagasaki.

Citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb,” Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s surrender on August 15—a day that became known as ‘ V-J Day ’—ending World War II.

The Cold War

The United States was the only country with nuclear weaponry in the years immediately following World War II. The Soviet Union initially lacked the knowledge and raw materials to build nuclear warheads.

Within just a few years, however, the U.S.S.R. had obtained—through a network of spies engaging in international espionage—blueprints of a fission-style bomb and discovered regional sources of uranium in Eastern Europe. On August 29, 1949, the Soviets tested their first nuclear bomb.

The United States responded by launching a program in 1950 to develop more advanced thermonuclear weapons. The Cold War arms race had begun, and nuclear testing and research became high-profile goals for several countries, especially the United States and the Soviet Union.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Over the next few decades, each world superpower would stockpile tens of thousands of nuclear warheads. Other countries, including Great Britain, France, and China, developed nuclear weapons during this time, too.

To many observers, the world appeared on the brink of nuclear war in October of 1962. The Soviet Union had installed nuclear-armed missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. This resulted in a 13-day military and political standoff known as the Cuban Missile Crisis .

President John F. Kennedy enacted a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the United States was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize the perceived threat.

Disaster was avoided when the United States agreed to an offer made by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the United States promising not to invade Cuba.

Three Mile Island

Many Americans became concerned about the health and environmental effects of nuclear fallout—the radiation left in the environment after a nuclear blast—in the wake of World War II and after extensive nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific during the 1940s and 1950s.

The antinuclear movement emerged as a social movement in 1961 at the height of the Cold War. During Women Strike for Peace demonstrations on November 1, 1961 co-organized by activist Bella Abzug , roughly 50,000 women marched in 60 cities in the United States to demonstrate against nuclear weapons.

The antinuclear movement captured national attention again in the 1970s and 1980s with high profile protests against nuclear reactors after the Three Mile Island accident—a nuclear meltdown at a Pennsylvania power plant in 1979.

In 1982, a million people marched in New York City protesting nuclear weapons and urging an end to the Cold War nuclear arms race. It was one of the largest political protests in United States history.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

The United States and Soviet Union took the lead in negotiating an international agreement to halt the further spread of nuclear weapons in 1968.

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (also called the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT) went into effect in 1970. It separated the world’s countries into two groups—nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states.

Nuclear weapons states included the five countries that were known to possess nuclear weapons at the time—the United States, the U.S.S.R., Great Britain, France and China.

According to the treaty, nuclear weapons states agreed not to use nuclear weapons or help non-nuclear states acquire nuclear weapons. They also agreed to gradually reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons with the eventual goal of total disarmament. Non-nuclear weapons states agreed not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, there were still thousands of nuclear weapons scattered across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Many of the weapons were located in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. These weapons were deactivated and returned to Russia.

Illegal Nuclear Weapon States

Some countries wanted the option of developing their own nuclear weapons arsenal and never signed the NPT. India was the first country outside of the NPT to test a nuclear weapon in 1974.

Other non-signatories to the NTP include: Pakistan, Israel and South Sudan. Pakistan has a known nuclear weapons program. Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though has never officially confirmed or denied the existence of a nuclear weapons program. South Sudan is not known or believed to possess nuclear weapons.

North Korea

North Korea initially signed the NPT treaty, but announced its withdrawal from the agreement in 2003. Since 2006, North Korea has openly tested nuclear weapons, drawing sanctions from various nations and international bodies.

North Korea tested two long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2017—one reportedly capable of reaching the United States mainland. In September 2017, North Korea claimed it had tested a hydrogen bomb that could fit on top an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Iran, while a signatory of the NPT, has said it has the capability to initiate production of nuclear weapons at short notice.

Pioneering Nuclear Science: The Discovery of Nuclear Fission. International Atomic Energy Agency . The Development and Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. NobelPrize.org . Here are the facts about North Korea’s nuclear test. NPR .

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The National Archives Museum depicts our astounding national mosaic and tells the stories of the American journey.

Featured document display: the atomic bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki.

“A rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”

-President Harry Truman’s statement on the Hiroshima atomic bombing, August 6, 1945

World War II marked the first—and only—wartime use of atomic weapons. 

On August 6, 1945, at approximately 8:15 a.m. locally, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On the ground, the city was alive with morning activity when the bomb detonated in a blinding explosion. As many as 70,000 people were killed instantly. Those who survived the initial blast were hit with a powerful shockwave that leveled nearly every structure within a mile of the impact. It was followed by intense heat that created a firestorm that engulfed the city and claimed even more lives.

Later that day, President Harry Truman informed the American people of the U.S. military’s use of this new form of weaponry and threatened future bombings if Japan did not surrender unconditionally as outlined in the July 26, 1945, Potsdam Declaration. After Japan failed to act, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb, “Fat Man,” over the city of Nagasaki on the morning of August 9. Another 35-40,000 people perished. Soviet forces also invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria in China that day, further crippling the Japanese military. 

Finally, on August 15, the Emperor of Japan issued an Imperial Rescript proclaiming his acceptance of the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration. World War II ended when Japan formally surrendered on September 2, 1945.

“A single plane . . . can now wipe out a city”

Luis Alvarez was a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic weapons dropped over Japan. He served as a scientific observer on the Hiroshima mission and drafted this letter to his son describing the bombing during the return flight. In this typed copy of the letter, Alvarez wrote: “What regrets I have about being a party to killing and maiming thousands of Japanese civilians this morning are tempered with the hope that this terrible weapon we have created may bring the countries of the world together to prevent further wars.”

The exact death toll of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings is impossible to know. At least 100,000 deaths directly resulted from the attacks. A minimum of another 100,000 people also died from illnesses caused by radiation exposure in the weeks, months, and decades that followed. 

Historians continue to debate the United States’ decision to use nuclear weapons to end World War II. Supporters argue that the bombs were necessary to save American lives and bring a swift end to the war. Opponents contend that the bombs were unnecessary to defeat a severely weakened Japan. In 1945, however, the American people overwhelmingly supported the decision to bring an end to the deadliest war in history. 

Explore the online collection The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb on the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum website. 

Find more resources related to World War II records at Archives.gov.

The Featured Document display is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation, through the generous support of the Ford Motor Company Fund.

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Beyond the World War II We Know

How We Retain the Memory of Japan’s Atomic Bombings: Books

Literature is a refuge we turn to when we are forced to confront contradictions that lie beyond reason, writes the Japanese novelist Yoko Ogawa.

By Yoko Ogawa

In the latest article from “ Beyond the World War II We Know ,” a series by The Times that documents lesser-known stories from the war, we asked Yoko Ogawa, an award-winning Japanese author, to reflect on the literature unleashed by the atomic bombings. This article was translated by Stephen Snyder.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima occurred on Aug. 6. The bombing of Nagasaki on Aug. 9. The announcement of surrender came on the 15th. In Japan, August is the time when we remember the dead.

This year, the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings would have been observed during the Tokyo Olympics. But the Games were postponed because of the spread of the novel coronavirus, and we will be left instead to offer our prayers for the dead in an atmosphere of unexpected calm.

The final torch bearer at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was a relatively unknown, 19-year-old, track and field competitor named Yoshinori Sakai , a young man who was born in Hiroshima on the day the bomb was dropped. There was something extraordinary about the sight of him, clad simply in white shirt and shorts , running up the long stairway that led to the caldron he was meant to light. He embodied purity, a sense of balance and an overwhelming youthfulness. Those who saw him must have been amazed to realize that the world had gathered in Japan to celebrate this festival of sport a mere 19 years after the end of the war. Yet there he was, a young man born of unprecedented, total destruction, a human being cradling a flame, advancing step by step. No doubt there were political motivations behind the selection of the final runner, but there was no questioning the hopeful life force personified by this young man from Hiroshima.

Sadly, in the intervening years, we have failed to realize the dream of a nuclear-free world. Even in Japan, the memories fade. According to a 2015 survey conducted by NHK, Japan’s public broadcasting organization, only 69 percent of the residents of Hiroshima and 50 percent of the residents of Nagasaki could correctly name the month, day and year when the Hiroshima bomb was dropped. At the national level, the rate fell to 30 percent. The cloud of oblivion rises, and the time is coming soon when it will no longer be possible to hear directly from witnesses about their experiences.

So, what can those who have not seen with their own eyes do to preserve the memories of those who have? How do we ensure that witnesses continue to be heard? In the wake of unimaginable horrors — endless wars, the Holocaust, Chernobyl, Fukushima … not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki — humankind has constantly confronted the problem of the continuity of memory. How do we inscribe within us things that happened long ago and far away that have no apparent connection to our lives, not simply as learned knowledge but exactly as though we had experienced them ourselves? How do we build a fragile bark to carry these memories safely to the far shore, to the minds of the next generation? One thing is certain: It is a task for which political and academic thinking and institutions are poorly suited, quite simply because the act of sharing the memories of another human being is fundamentally an irrational one.

So we appeal to the power of literature, a refuge we turn to when forced to confront contradictions that lie beyond reason or theory. Through the language of literature, we can finally come to empathize with the suffering of nameless and unknown others. Or, at very least, we can force ourselves to stare without flinching at the stupidity of those who have committed unforgivable errors and ask ourselves whether the shadow of this same folly lurks within us as well.

I myself have listened intently to the voices of those who lived during the era of Nazi Germany, by reading and rereading Anne Frank’s “Diary of a Young Girl,” Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” and Primo Levi’s “If This Is a Man.” From Frank, for example, I learned the invaluable truth that a human being can still grow and develop even when living in hiding. From Frankl’s observation that “the best of us did not return” from the concentration camps, I learned to feel the boundless suffering of those who survived and were forced to live on. And when, through these books, the connection was made between my existence here and now and that earlier time when I was not yet alive, I could feel my horizons expanding, a new field of vision opening.

Likewise, Japanese literature continues to tell the story of the atomic bombs. Bomb literature occupies a special place in every genre — fiction, poetry, drama, nonfiction. For example, anyone born in 1962, as I was, would be familiar with Miyoko Matsutani’s “Two Little Girls Called Iida,” the story of a magical talking chair that unites two girls across time in a house where the calendar is forever frozen on Aug. 6. Or, with one of the indispensable works of modern Japanese literature, Masuji Ibuse’s “Black Rain,” with its excruciating account of the aftermath of the bomb. Kenzaburo Oe, still in his 20s and barely embarked on his literary career, visited Hiroshima and gave us “Hiroshima Notes,” his report on the extraordinary human dignity of the bomb victims enduring the harsh reality of survivors. There is no end to similar examples.

But there is one novel so admired and avidly read, even today, that it is regularly included in school textbooks: Tamiki Hara’s “Summer Flowers.” A work by a bomb victim himself, it records the period and experience in precise detail.

Born in Hiroshima in 1905, Hara had been living in Tokyo, contributing fiction and poetry to literary magazines, when his wife died suddenly in 1944. In February 1945, he returned to his birthplace, exactly as though he’d “had a rendezvous with the tragedy that was coming to Hiroshima,” as he later wrote. On the morning of Aug. 6, he was at home in his windowless bathroom — a fact that possibly saved his life. Fortunate to have escaped serious injury, Hara spent the following days wandering the burning city and recording his experiences in his notebook, a record that later became “Summer Flowers.”

The novel begins two days before the bombing, as the protagonist pays a visit to his wife’s grave. He washes the stone and places summer flowers on it, finding the sight cool and refreshing. But this opening passage is haunted by sadness, a horrible premonition of the impossibility of accounting for the loss of his beloved wife and the innumerable corpses he will see a short time later.

The author’s description of the protagonist as he flees to the river for refuge is detailed and almost cold in tone. The language is concise, and words that might express sentiment are nowhere to be found. Horrors of the sort no human being had ever witnessed unfold one after the other before the narrator’s eyes, and he finds himself unable to express anything as vague as mere emotion.

Faces so swollen that it was impossible to tell whether they were men or women. Heads charred over with lumps like black beans. Voices crying out again and again for water. Children clutching hands together as they whispered faintly, “Mother … Father.” People prying fingernails from corpses or stripping off belts as keepsakes of the dead. The narrator describes a city filled with the stench of death: “In the vast, silvery emptiness, there were roads and rivers and bridges, and scattered here and there, raw and swollen corpses. A new hell, made real through some elaborate technology.”

When the atomic bomb snatched away all things human, it might have incinerated words themselves at the same time. Yet, led perhaps by the hand of providence, he tucked a notebook and a pencil in with his food and medicine. And what he wrote down in his notebook was not mere words. He created a symbol for something he had heard from the dead and dying that simply could not be expressed in words. Vestiges, scraps of evidence that these human beings who had slipped mutely away had, indeed, existed.

Having lost his wife to illness and then, in his solitude, encountered the atomic bomb, Hara’s creative work was constantly rooted in the silence of the dead. He was a writer, a poet, who stood in the public square, not to call out to his fellow man but to mutely endure the contradiction of putting into words the voiceless voices of those whose words had been taken from them.

Hara is the author of a short poem titled “This Is a Human Being,” a work that transcends bitterness and anger, seeking to gently capture the failing voice of someone who no longer appears human:

This is a human being. See how the atom bomb has changed it. The flesh is terribly bloated, men and women all taking the same shape. Ah! “Help me!” The quiet words of the voice that escapes the swollen lips in the festering face. This is a human being. This is a human face.

Reading it, we can’t help being reminded of “If This Is a Man,” by Primo Levi, chemist and concentration camp survivor. Right at the outset, Levi poses the question:

Consider if this is a man Who works in the mud Who does not know peace Who fights for a scrap of bread Who dies because of a yes or a no

I have no idea whether Levi and Hara were acquainted, but we can hear the resonance between their words. One asks whether this is a human being; the other answers that it is. In their work, we find the meeting of one man who struggles to preserve the quality of humanity and another who is determined not to lose sight of that same quality — a meeting of the minds that continues to reverberate into the future. In the world of literature, the most important truth can be portrayed in a simple, meaningless coincidence. With the help of literature, the words of the dead may be gathered and placed carefully aboard their small boat, to flow on to join the stream of reality.

A further coincidence: perhaps with the sense that they had accomplished their duty as survivors, or perhaps because the burden of living with the horrors of their pasts was too great, the two men took their own lives, Hara in 1951 and Levi in 1987 (some dispute that Levi’s death was a suicide).

As I write, I have in front of me Hiromi Tsuchida’s collection of photographs of bomb artifacts offered by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I am struck by a picture of a lunchbox and canteen that belonged to a middle school student named Shigeru Orimen. His class had been mobilized for the war effort and was working in the city on the morning of Aug. 6. Shigeru was 500 meters from ground zero when the bomb fell. His mother discovered his body among the corpses piled on the river bank and recovered the lunchbox and canteen from his bag. She remembered he had left that morning saying how much he was looking forward to lunch, since she had made roasted soybean rice. The lunchbox was twisted out of shape, the lid cracked open, and the contents were no more than a lump of charcoal.

But, in fact, this tiny box contained something more important: the innocence of a young boy who had been full of anticipation for his simple lunch, and his mother’s love. Even when the last victim of the atomic bomb has passed away and this lunchbox is no more than a petrified relic, as long as there is still someone to hear the voice concealed within it, this memory will survive. The voices of the dead are eternal, because human beings possess the small boat — the language of literature — to carry them to the future.

Yoko Ogawa is the author of numerous books, including “The Memory Police,” a 2019 National Book Award finalist. Stephen Snyder is the Dean of Language Schools and Kawashima Professor of Japanese Studies at Middlebury College in Vermont.

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After The Bomb

Survivors of the Atomic Blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki share their stories

Photographs by HARUKA SAKAGUCHI | Introduction By LILY ROTHMAN

When the nuclear age began, there was no mistaking it. The decision by the United States to drop the world’s first atomic weapons on two Japanese cities—Hiroshima first, on Aug. 6, 1945, and Nagasaki three days later—was that rare historical moment that requires little hindsight to gain its significance. World War II would end, and the Cold War soon begin. New frontiers of science were opening, along with new and frightening moral questions. As TIME noted in the week following the bombings, the men aboard the Enola Gay could only summon two words: “My God!”

But, even as world leaders and ordinary citizens alike immediately began struggling to process the metaphorical aftershocks, one specific set of people had to face something else. For the survivors of those ruined cities, the coming of the bomb was a personal event before it was a global one. Amid the death and destruction, some combination of luck or destiny or smarts saved them—and therefore saved the voices that can still tell the world what it looks like when human beings find new and terrible ways to destroy one another.

Today, photographer Haruka Sakaguchi is seeking out those individuals, asking them to give a testimony about what they lived through and to write a message to future generations. As the anniversaries of the bombings approach once again, here is a selection of that work.

Yasujiro Tanaka age: 75 / location: nagasaki / DISTANCE from hypocenter: 3.4 km

TRANSLATION

“You are only given One life, So cherish this moment Cherish this day, Be kind to others, Be kind to yourself”

“I was three years old at the time of the bombing. I don’t remember much, but I do recall that my surroundings turned blindingly white, like a million camera flashes going off at once.

Then, pitch darkness.

I was buried alive under the house, I’ve been told. When my uncle finally found me and pulled my tiny three year old body out from under the debris, I was unconscious. My face was misshapen. He was certain that I was dead.

Thankfully, I survived. But since that day, mysterious scabs began to form all over my body. I lost hearing in my left ear, probably due to the air blast. More than a decade after the bombing, my mother began to notice glass shards growing out of her skin – debris from the day of the bombing, presumably. My younger sister suffers from chronic muscle cramps to this day, on top of kidney issues that has her on dialysis three times a week. ‘What did I do to the Americans?’ she would often say, ‘Why did they do this to me?’

I have seen a lot of pain in my long years, but truthfully, I have lived a good life. As a firsthand witness to this atrocity, my only desire is to live a full life, hopefully in a world where people are kind to each other, and to themselves.”

Sachiko Matsuo 83 / Nagasaki / 1.3 km

“Peace is our number one priority.”

“American B-29 bombers dropped leaflets all over the city, warning us that Nagasaki would ‘fall to ashes’ on August 8. The leaflets were confiscated immediately by the kenpei (Imperial Japanese Army). My father somehow got a hold of one, and believed what it said. He built us a little barrack up along the Iwayasan (a local mountain) to hide out in.

We went up there on the 7th, the 8th. The trail up to the barrack was rugged and steep. With several children and seniors in tow, it was a demanding trek. On the morning of the 9th, my mother and aunt opted for staying in the house. “Go back up to the barrack,” my father demanded. “The US is a day behind, remember?” When they opposed, he got very upset and stormed out to go to work.

We changed our minds and decided to hide out in the barrack, for one more day. That was a defining moment for us. At 11:02am that morning, the atomic bomb was dropped. Our family – those of us at the barrack, at least – survived the bomb.

We were later able to reunite with my father. However, he soon came down with diarrhea and a high fever. His hair began to fall out and dark spots formed on his skin. My father passed away – suffering greatly – on August 28.

If it weren’t for my father, we may have suffered severe burns like Aunt Otoku, or gone missing like Atsushi, or been lodged under the house and slowly burned to death. Fifty years later, I had a dream about my father for the first time since his death. He was wearing a kimono and smiling, ever so slightly. Although we did not exchange words, I knew at that moment that he was safe in heaven.”

Takato Michishita 78 / Nagasaki / 4.7 km

“Dear young people who have never experienced war,

‘Wars begin covertly. If you sense it coming, it may be too late.’

Within the Japanese Constitution you will find Article 9, the international peace clause. For the past 72 years, we have not maimed or been maimed by a single human being in the context of war. We have flourished as a peaceful nation.

Japan is the only nation that has experienced a nuclear attack. We must assert, with far more urgency, that nuclear weapons cannot coexist with mankind.

The current administration is slowly leading our nation to war, I’m afraid. At the ripe age of 78, I have taken it upon myself to speak out against nuclear proliferation. Now is not the time to stand idly by.

Average citizens are the primary victims of war, always. Dear young people who have never experienced the horrors of war – I fear that some of you may be taking this hard-earned peace for granted.

I pray for world peace. Furthermore, I pray that not a single Japanese citizen falls victim to the clutches of war, ever again. I pray, with all of my heart.

“‘Don’t go to school today,’ my mother said. ‘Why?’ my sister asked.

‘Just don’t.’

Air raid alarms went off regularly back then. On August 9, however, there were no air raid alarms. It was an unusually quiet summer morning, with clear blue skies as far as the eye can see. It was on this peculiar day that my mother insisted that my older sister skip school. She said she had a ‘bad feeling.’ This had never happened before.

My sister begrudgingly stayed home, while my mother and I, aged 6, went grocery shopping. Every- one was out on their verandas, enjoying the absence of piercing warning signals. Suddenly, an old man yelled ‘Plane!’ Everyone scurried into their homemade bomb shelters. My mother and I escaped into a nearby shop. As the ground began to rumble, she quickly tore off the tatami flooring, tucked me under it and hovered over me on all fours.

Everything turned white. We were too stunned to move, for about 10 minutes. When we finally crawled out from under the tatami mat, there was glass everywhere, and tiny bits of dust and debris floating in the air. The once clear blue sky had turned into an inky shade of purple and grey. We rushed home and found my sister – she was shell-shocked, but fine.

Later, we discovered that the bomb was dropped a few meters away from my sister’s school. Every person at her school died. My mother singlehandedly saved both me and my sister that day.”

Shigeko Matsumoto 77 / Nagasaki / 800 m

“I pray that every human being finds peace. Matsumoto Shigeko”

“There were no air raid alarms on the morning of August 9, 1945. We had been hiding out in the local bomb shelter for several days, but one by one, people started to head home. My siblings and I played in front of the bomb shelter entrance, waiting to be picked up by our grandfather.

Then, at 11:02am, the sky turned bright white. My siblings and I were knocked off our feet and violently slammed back into the bomb shelter. We had no idea what had happened.

As we sat there shell-shocked and confused, heavily injured burn victims came stumbling into the bomb shelter en masse. Their skin had peeled off their bodies and faces and hung limply down on the ground, in ribbons. Their hair was burnt down to a few measly centimeters from the scalp. Many of the victims collapsed as soon as they reached the bomb shelter entrance, forming a massive pile of contorted bodies. The stench and heat were unbearable.

My siblings and I were trapped in there for three days.

Finally, my grandfather found us and we made our way back to our home. I will never forget the hellscape that awaited us. Half burnt bodies lay stiff on the ground, eye balls gleaming from their sockets. Cattle lay dead along the side of the road, their abdomens grotesquely large and swollen. Thousands of bodies bopped up and down the river, bloated and purplish from soak- ing up the water. ‘Wait! Wait!’ I pleaded, as my grandfather treaded a couple paces ahead of me. I was terrified of being left behind.”

Yoshiro Yamawaki 83 / Nagasaki / 2.2 km

“‘The atom bomb killed victims three times,’ a college professor once said. Indeed, the nuclear blast has three components – heat, pressure wave, and radiation – and was unprecedented in its ability to kill en masse.

The bomb, which detonated 500m above ground level, created a bolide 200-250m in diameter and implicated tens of thousands of homes and families underneath. The pressure wave created a draft up to 70m/sec – twice that of a typhoon – which instantly destroyed homes 2km in radius from the hypo- center. The radiation continues to affect survivors to this day, who struggle with cancer and other debilitating diseases.

I was 11 years old when the bomb was dropped, 2km from where I lived. In recent years, I have been diagnosed with stomach cancer, and have undergone surgery in 2008 and 2010. The atomic bomb has also implicated our children and grandchildren.

One can understand the horrors of nuclear warfare by visiting the atomic bomb museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, listening to first-hand accounts of hi- bakusha survivors, and reading archival documents from that period.

Nuclear weapons should, under no circumstances, be used against humans. However, nuclear powers such as the US and Russia own stockpiles of well over 15,000 nuclear weapons. Not only that, technological advances have given way to a new kind of bomb that can deliver a blast over 1,000 times that of the Hiroshima bombing.

Weapons of this capacity must be abolished from the earth. However, in our current political climate we struggle to come to a consensus, and have yet to implement a ban on nuclear weapons. This is largely because nuclear powers are boycotting the agreement.

I have resigned to the fact that nuclear weapons will not be abolished during the lifetime of us first generation hibakusha survivors. I pray that younger generations will come together to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

“One incident I will never forget is cremating my father. My brothers and I gently laid his blackened, swollen body atop a burnt beam in front of the factory where we found him dead and set him alight. His ankles jutted out awkwardly as the rest of his body was engulfed in flames.

When we returned the next morning to collect his ashes, we discovered that his body had been partially cremated. Only his wrists, ankles, and part of his gut were burnt properly. The rest of his body lay raw and decomposed. I could not bear to see my father like this. ‘We have to leave him here,’ I urged my brothers. Finally, my oldest brother gave in, suggesting that we take a piece of his skull – based on a common practice in Japanese funerals in which family members pass around a tiny piece of the skull with chopsticks after cremation – and leave him be.

As soon as our chopsticks touched the surface, however, the skull cracked open like plaster and his half cremated brain spilled out. My brothers and I screamed and ran away, leaving our father behind. We abandoned him, in the worst state possible.”

Emiko Okada 80 / hiroshima / 2.8 km

“War is one of two things: either you kill, or get killed.

Many children are victimized by poverty, malnutrition, and discrimination to this day.

I once encountered an infant who died of hypothermia. In its mouth was a small pebble.

Children are our greatest blessing.

I believe that grownups are responsible for war. Emiko Okada”

“Hiroshima is known as a ‘city of yakuza.’ Why do you think that is? Thousands of children were orphaned on August 6, 1945. Without parents, these young children had to fend for themselves. They stole to get by. They were taken in by the wrong adults. They were later bought and sold by said adults. Orphans who grew up in Hiroshima harbor a special hatred for grownups.

I was eight when the bomb dropped. My older sister was 12. She left early that morning to work on a tatemono sokai (building demolition) site and never came home. My parents searched for her for months and months. They never found her remains. My parents refused to send an obituary notice until the day that they died, in hopes that she was healthy and alive somewhere, somehow.

I too was affected by the radiation and vomited profusely after the bomb attack. My hair fell out, my gums bled, and I was too ill to attend school. My grandmother lamented the suffering of her children and grandchildren and prayed. “How cruel, how so very cruel, if only it weren’t for the pika-don (phonetic name for the atomic bomb)…” This was a stock phrase of hers until the day that she died.

The war was caused by the selfish misdeeds of adults. Many children fell victim because of it. Alas, this is still the case today. Us adults must do everything we can to protect the lives and dignity of our children. Children are our greatest blessing.”

Masakatsu Obata 99 / nagasaki / 1.5 km

“I often think that humans go into war to satisfy their greed. If we rid ourselves of greed and help each other instead, I believe that we will be able to coexist without war. I hope to live on with everyone else, informed by this logic.

This is just a thought of mine – each person has differing thoughts and ideologies, which is what makes things challenging.”

“I was working at the Mitsubishi factory on the morning of August 9. An alert warning went off. ‘I wonder if there will be another air raid today,’ a coworker pondered. Just then, the alert warning turned into an air raid warning.

I decided to stay inside the factory. The air raid warning eventually subsided. It must have been around 11. I started to look forward to the baked potato that I had brought for lunch that day, when suddenly, I was surrounded by a blinding light. I immediately dropped on my stomach. The slated roof and walls of the factory crumbled and fell on top of my bare back. ‘I’m going to die,’ I thought. I longed for my wife and daughter, who was only several months old.

I rose to my feet some moments later. The roof had been completely blown off our building. I peered up at the sky. The walls were also destroyed – as were the houses that surrounded the factory – revealing a dead open space. The factory motor had stopped running. It was eerily quiet. I immediately headed to a nearby air raid shelter.

There, I encountered a coworker who had been exposed to the bomb outside of the factory. His face and body were swollen, about one and a half times the size. His skin was melted off, exposing his raw flesh. He was helping out a group of young students at the air raid shelter.

‘Do I look alright?’ he asked me. I didn’t have the heart to answer. ‘You look quite swollen,’ were the only words I could muster. The coworker died three days later, or so I’ve heard.”

Kumiko Arakawa 92 / nagasaki / 2.9 km

Ms. Arakawa has very little recollection of how she survived the bombing after August 9, having lost both of her parents and four siblings to the atomic bomb attack. When asked to write a message for future generations, she replied, “Nani mo omoitsukanai (I can’t think of anything).”

“I was 20 years old when the bomb was dropped. I lived in Sakamotomachi – 500m from the hypocenter – with my parents and eight siblings. As the war situation intensified, my three youngest sisters were sent off to the outskirts and my younger brother headed to Saga to serve in the military.

I worked at the prefectural office. As of April of 1945, our branch temporarily relocated to a local school campus 2.9km away from the hypocenter because our main office was beside a wood building (author’s note: flammable in case of an air strike). On the morning of August 9, several friends and I went up to the rooftop to look out over the city after a brief air raid. As I peered up, I saw something long and thin fall from the sky. At that moment, the sky turned bright and my friends and I ducked into a nearby stairwell.

After a while, when the commotion subsided, we headed to the park for safety. Upon hearing that Sakamotoma- chi was inaccessible due to fires, I decided to stay with a friend in Oura. As I headed back home the next day, an acquaintance informed me that my parents were at an air raid shelter nearby. I headed over and found both of them suffering severe burns. They died, two days later.

My older sister was killed by the initial blast, at home. My two younger sisters were injured heavily and died within a day of the bombing. My other sister was found dead at the foyer of our house. There are countless tombstones all over Nagasaki with a name inscription but no ikotsu (cremated bone remains). I take solace in the fact that all six members of my family have ikotsu and rest together peacefully.

At age 20, I was suddenly required to support my surviving family members. I have no recollection of how I put my younger sisters through school, who we relied on, how we survived. Some people have asked me what I saw on my way home the day after the bombing, on August 10 – ‘surely you saw many dead bodies,’ they would say – but I don’t recall seeing a single corpse. It sounds strange, I’m sure – but it is the truth.

I am now 92 years old. I pray everyday that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren spend their entire lives knowing only peace.”

Fujio Torikoshi 86 / hiroshima / 2 KM

“Life is a curious treasure.”

“On the morning of August 6, I was preparing to go to the hospital with my mother. I had been diagnosed with kakke (vitamin deficiency) a few days earlier and had taken the day off school to get a medical exam. As my mother and I were eating breakfast, I heard the deep rumble of engines overhead. Our ears were trained back then; I knew it was a B-29 immediately. I stepped out into the field out front but saw no planes.

Bewildered, I glanced to the northeast. I saw a black dot in the sky. Suddenly, it ‘burst’ into a ball of blinding light that filled my surroundings. A gust of hot wind hit my face; I instantly closed my eyes and knelt down to the ground. As I tried to gain footing, another gust of wind lifted me up and I hit something hard. I do not remember what happened after that.

When I finally came to, I was passed out in front of a bouka suisou (stone water container used to extinguish fires back then). Suddenly, I felt an intense burning sensation on my face and arms, and tried to dunk my body into the bouka suisou. The water made it worse. I heard my mother’s voice in the distance. ‘Fujio! Fujio!’ I clung to her desperately as she scooped me up in her arms. ‘It burns, mama! It burns!’

I drifted in and out of consciousness for the next few days. My face swelled up so badly that I could not open my eyes. I was treated briefly at an air raid shelter and later at a hospital in Hatsukaichi, and was eventually brought home wrapped in bandages all over my body. I was unconscious for the next few days, fighting a high fever. I finally woke up to a stream of light filtering in through the bandages over my eyes and my mother sitting beside me, playing a lullaby on her harmonica.

I was told that I had until about age 20 to live. Yet here I am seven decades later, aged 86. All I want to do is forget, but the prominent keloid scar on my neck is a daily reminder of the atomic bomb. We cannot continue to sacrifice precious lives to warfare. All I can do is pray – earnestly, relentlessly – for world peace.”

Inosuke Hayasaki 86 / nagasaki / 1.1 km

“I am very thankful for the opportunity to meet with you and speak with you about world peace and the implications of the atom bomb.

I, Hayasaki, have been deeply indebted to the Heiwasuishinkyokai for arranging this meeting, amongst many other things. You have traveled far from the US – how long and arduous your journey must have been. Seventy two years have passed since the bombing – alas, young people of this generation have forgotten the tragedies of war and many pay no mind to the Peace Bell of Nagasaki. Perhaps this is for the better, an indication that the current generation revels in peace. Still, whenever I see people of my own generation join their hands before the Peace Bell, my thoughts go out to them.

May the citizens of Nagasaki never forget the day when 74,000 people were instantaneously turned into dust. Currently, it seems Americans have a stronger desire for peace than us Japanese. During the war, we were told that the greatest honor was to die for our country and be laid to rest at the Yasukuni Shrine.

We were told that we should not cry but rejoice when family members died in the war effort. We could not utter a single word of defiance to these cruel and merciless demands; we had no freedoms. In addition, the entire country was starving – not a single treat or needle to be seen at the department store. A young child may beg his mother for a snack but she could do nothing – can you imagine how tormenting that is to a mother?

“The injured were sprawled out over the railroad tracks, scorched and black. When I walked by, they moaned in agony. ‘Water… water…’

I heard a man in passing announce that giving water to the burn victims would kill them. I was torn. I knew that these people had hours, if not minutes, to live. These burn victims – they were no longer of this world.

‘Water… water…’

I decided to look for a water source. Luckily, I found a futon nearby engulfed in flames. I tore a piece of it off, dipped it in the rice paddy nearby, and wrang it over the burn victims’ mouths. There were about 40 of them. I went back and forth, from the rice paddy to the railroad tracks. They drank the muddy water eagerly. Among them was my dear friend Yamada. ‘Yama- da! Yamada!’ I exclaimed, giddy to see a familiar face. I placed my hand on his chest. His skin slid right off, exposing his flesh. I was mortified. ‘Water…’ he murmured. I wrang the water over his mouth. Five minutes later, he was dead.

In fact, most of the people I tended to were dead.

I cannot help but think that I killed those burn victims. What if I hadn’t given them water? Would many of them have lived? I think about this everyday.”

We would not be where we are today if it weren’t for the countless lives that

were lost due to the bombing, and the many survivors who have lived in pain and struggle since. We cannot shatter this momentum of peace – it is priceless. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died under the insurmountable greed of the Japanese military elite class. We cannot forget those young soldiers who silently longed for their parents, yearned for their wives and children as they passed away amidst the chaos of war. American soldiers have faced similar hardships. We must cherish peace, even if it leaves us poor. The smile pales when peace is taken from us. Wars of today no longer yield winners and losers – we all become losers, as our habitats become inhabitable. We must remember that our happiness today is built upon the hopes and dreams of those that passed before us.

Japan is a phenomenal country – however, we must be cognizant of the fact that we waged war on the US, and received aid from them afterwards. We must be cognizant of the pain that we inflicted upon our neighbors during the war. Fa- vors and good deeds are often forgotten, but trauma and misdeeds are passed on from one generation to the other – such is the way the world works. The ability to live in peace is a country’s most prized commodity. I pray that Japan continues to be a shining example of peace and harmony. I pray that this message resonates with young people all over the globe. Please excuse my handwriting.

Ryouga Suwa 84 / hiroshima / entered the affected area after the bombing and was exposed to radiation

“Within the Buddhist vernacular, there is a bird called the gumyouchou. This bird has one body and two heads. Even if two entities have differing ideologies or philosophies, their lives are bound together by a single form – this is a Buddhist principle manifested in the form of a bird.

It would be ideal if we could all cultivate in us the ability to dignify each other instead of getting upset over our differences.”

“I am the 16th generation chief priest of Johoji Temple in Otemachi. The original Johoji Temple was within 500m of the hypocenter. It was instantly destroyed, along with the 1300 households that used to make up the area that is now called Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. My parents remain missing to this day and my sister Reiko was pronounced dead.

I, on the other hand, was evacuated in Miyoshi-shi, 50km away from the hypocenter. I am what you would call a genbaku-koji (atomic bomb orphan). I was 12 years old at the time. When I returned to Hiroshima on September 16 – one month and 10 days after the bomb attack – what remained of the property was a cluster of overturned tombstones from the temple cemetery. Hiroshima was a flat wasteland. I remember feeling shocked that I could make out the Setonai Islands in the distance, which used to be inhibited by buildings.

In 1951, the temple was relocated to its current address. The new Johoji was rebuilt by the hands of our supporters and thrived along with the eventual revival of Hiroshima City. We practice an anti-war and anti-nuclear weapons philosophy here and have partnered with the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park every year to coordinate lectures and events and pursue hibaku building restoration projects.”

Haruka Sakaguchi is a photographer based in New york City

Paul Moakley , who edited this photo essay, is time ‘s Deputy Director of Photography

Lily Rothman is time ‘s History and Archives Editor

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Home / Resources / Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

On 6th August 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima by US air forces. This was the first time a nuclear weapon had ever been used; the fireball created by the bomb destroyed 13 square kilometres of the city, and those dead as a result numbered up to 180,000.

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Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, killing between 50,000 and 100,000 people.

The impact of the bombing on Hiroshima

Hiroshima stands on a flat river delta, with few hills or natural features to limit the blast. The bomb was dropped on the city centre, an area crowded with wooden residential structures and places of business. These factors meant that the death toll and destruction in Hiroshima was particularly high.

The firestorm in Hiroshima destroyed 13 square kilometres (five square miles) of the city. Almost 63% of the buildings in Hiroshima were completely destroyed and many more were damaged. In total, 92% of the structures in the city were either destroyed or damaged by blast and fire.

Estimates of total deaths in Hiroshima have generally ranged between 100,000 and 180,000, out of a population of 350,000. Tens of thousands died immediately and many more in the days and months that followed.

The impact of the bombing on Nagasaki

Due to the hilly geography of Nagasaki and the bombing focus being away from the city centre, the excessive damage from the bombing was limited to the Urakami Valley and part of downtown Nagasaki. The centre of Nagasaki, the harbour, and the historic district were shielded from the blast by the hills around the Urakami River.

The nuclear bombing did nevertheless prove devastating, with approximately 22.7% of Nagasaki’s buildings being consumed by flames, but the death toll and destruction was less than in Hiroshima. Estimates of casualties from Nagasaki have generally ranged between 50,000 and 100,000, with many dying instantaneously and others dying slowly and agonisingly as a result of burns and radiation.

Effect of a nuclear weapon

These two events still resonate to this day and serve as the greatest warning of the devastating effects of nuclear weapons.

As well as the high death toll, those that survived the initial detonation and firestorms quickly became ill with radiation poisoning with symptoms ranging from severe burns, hair loss, nausea and bleeding. This was compounded by the fact that 90% of medical staff in both cities were either killed or disabled and what medical supplies existed quickly ran out. Long after the bombings, survivors were still suffering from increased susceptibility to leukaemia, cataracts and malignant tumours with many also being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder later in life.

This suffering goes beyond the survivors. Future generations either born to survivors or born to those living in Hiroshima for years to come had increased chances of small brain sizes, delayed development, blindness and increased susceptibility to leukaemia and other cancers. The bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki represent a human tragedy which should never be repeated.

The Hibakusha (survivors of the bomb) have campaigned for many years to have the impact of nuclear weapons acknowledged. They have educated generations on the subject, a contributing factor in the growing international momentum focused on the humanitarian impact of these weapons.

International momentum

In 2010 the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference’s final document officially expressed ‘deep concern at the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons’ for the first time. Following this, a group of countries began delivering joint statements on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons: . This movement was the precursor to demands at the United Nations for a global nuclear weapons ban.

The historical experience from the use and testing of nuclear weapons, including at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has demonstrated their devastating immediate and long-term effects. No political circumstances can justify their use. And of course, today’s nuclear bombs are many times more powerful than the ones used on Japan in 1945.

The International Red Cross has identified further humanitarian consequences of a nuclear explosion, including widespread famine and the destruction of medical facilities and personnel. The organisation has stated that the global humanitarian community would never be able to effectively respond to the aftermath of a nuclear conflict. An International Red Cross report recently stated, ‘We are not talking about the possibility of another Hiroshima and Nagasaki, horrendous as they were. We are facing the prospect of something much, much worse.’

Increasing awareness of the impact of a nuclear bomb, building on what we know from the attacks in 1945, contribute to a growing sense of urgency in the international community about securing an end to nuclear weapons.

The risk of accidental or intentional use of nuclear weapons remains significant. No state or international organisation has the capacity to address or provide the short and long term humanitarian assistance and protection needed in case of a nuclear weapon explosion.

When the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the cities were obliterated. By 1950, over 340,000 people had died as a result and generations were poisoned by radiation.

Today 15,000 nuclear weapons still threaten the survival of the world, even though the majority of people in the world and their governments want to negotiate an international ban on their development and use.

As we commemorate the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, let’s remember what a nuclear bomb can do and pledge to work together to make sure no other towns suffer the same pain and devastation.

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Story of cities #24: how Hiroshima rose from the ashes of nuclear destruction

In August 1945, a 16-kilotonne atomic bomb killed 140,000 people and reduced a thriving city to rubble. Hiroshima has been reborn as a place of peace and prosperity, but will memories of those dark days die with the last survivors?

• Read more articles in the series here

The people of Hiroshima have developed a verbal shorthand for describing their city’s layout. A particular street is “about 1.5 kilometres away”; a building “500 metres north”. No further explanation is required. The unspoken reference point is the hypocentre of the world’s first nuclear attack.

At first glance, visitors arriving by bullet train to Hiroshima’s main railway station might have little inkling of the city’s singularly tragic past. On a warm spring evening, groups of European tourists pause outside restaurants offering special deals on oysters – a local delicacy – and board pleasure boats to Miyajima , an island famous for its wild deer and “floating” Shinto shrine. But reminders of history’s antithesis to these quotidian pleasures are never far away.

South-west of the station, visitors to the city’s Peace Memorial Museum fall silent in front of steps retrieved from the ruins of Sumitomo Bank, the “shadow” of a human etched into the stone. Display cases show the shredded remains of a junior high-school uniform, the irradiated contents of a lunchbox and the frame of a tricycle – the small boy riding it was incinerated by the blast.

These harrowing exhibits are among the few physical reminders of the devastation that greeted survivors after the US B-29 bomber Enola Gay released Little Boy, a 16-kilotonne atomic bomb, over Hiroshima at 8.15am on 6 August 1945 .

Less than a minute later, the bomb exploded 600 metres above Shima Hospital, creating a wave of heat that momentarily reached 3,000-4,000 degrees centigrade on the ground. Winds of up to 440 metres per second roared through the entire city. Within half an hour, almost every building within a two-kilometre radius of the hypocentre was in flames. About 90% of the city’s 76,000 buildings were partially or totally incinerated, or reduced to rubble. Of the 33m square metres of land considered usable before the attack, 40% was reduced to ashes.

The bombed city was barely recognisable. What a day earlier had been a sprawling military city and transportation hub, wedged between mountain ranges to the north and the Seto inland sea to the south, was now a nuclear wasteland. Wooden homes had been burnt to the ground by firestorms; the city’s rivers were filled with the corpses of people desperately seeking water before they died. With the exception of a handful of concrete buildings, Hiroshima had ceased to exist.

A day after the attack, Keiko Ogura, then an eight-year-old schoolgirl, could barely believe her eyes as she looked down on her hometown from a hill. “The entire city had been burned to the ground,” says Ogura, one of many hibakusha – the Japanese name given to people exposed to radiation – who pass on their experience to visitors. “None of us could comprehend what had happened … we kept asking ourselves how an entire city could have been destroyed by a single bomb.”

Ogura, whose home narrowly escaped the firestorms, recalls seeing people shorn of their skin, almost indistinguishable from what remained of their clothes. While her father cremated hundreds of corpses in the open, Ogura gave water to the severely injured, only to watch them die in front of her.

“That was the beginning of a trauma that would stay with me for many years,” she says. “Talking about it now is a way of healing the psychological scars. It feels like I am doing something useful on behalf of the people who died.”

The blast instantly killed 80,000 of the Hiroshima’s 420,000 residents; by the end of the year, the death toll would rise to 141,000 as survivors succumbed to injuries or illnesses connected to their exposure to radiation.

Yet even as they struggled to comprehend the horror visited on their homes, businesses, public buildings and fellow citizens, evidence emerged of remarkable acts of courage and resourcefulness. Incredible though it may seem, looking at the handful of black-and-white photos taken in the immediate aftermath of the attack, Hiroshima’s resurrection began just hours after it was effectively wiped from the map.

The lights came back on in the Ujina area on 7 August, and around Hiroshima railway station a day later. Power was restored to 30% of homes that had escaped fire damage, and to all households by the end of November 1945, according to records kept by the Hiroshima Peace Institute .

Water pumps were repaired and started working again four days after the bombing , although damaged pipes created vast puddles among the ashes of wooden homes. The central telephone exchange bureau was destroyed and all of its employees killed, yet essential equipment was retrieved and repaired, and by the middle of August 14 experimental lines were back in operation.

Eighteen workers and a dozen finance bureau employees at the Hiroshima branch of the Bank of Japan, one of the city’s few concrete buildings, died instantly, yet the bank reopened two days late r, offering floor space to 11 other banks whose premises had been destroyed. Tellers worked under open skies in clear weather, and beneath umbrellas when it rained.

A limited streetcar service resumed on 9 August, the same day Nagasaki was destroyed by a plutonium bomb, killing more than 70,000 people. With the need to move people and supplies into the city growing more urgent by the hour, the Ujina railway line started moving again on 7 August; a day later, trains on the Sanyo Line started running the short distance between Hiroshima and Yokogawa stations.

Higashi Police Station, despite being inside the two-kilometre radius, was commandeered by the prefectural government and turned into the nerve centre for search and rescue and relief operations.

Historians say the quick resumption of services was a civic effort, helped by the arrival of large numbers of volunteers. “I do not think the restoration of basic services was simply due to coercion from the authorities,” says Yuki Tanaka, a historian and former professor at Hiroshima City University. “Hiroshima received a lot of help from people in neighbouring towns and cities such as Fuchu, Kure, and even Yamaguchi. In this sense, the response was similar to that seen after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake , when many people throughout Japan went to the devastated areas and helped the victims.”

Weeks after Hiroshima felt the unforgiving force of nuclear fission, nature compounded the city’s misery. Makurazaki, an unusually powerful typhoon, swept through the city on 17 September, flooding large areas and ruining many of the temporary hospitals set up on the outskirts. “The only good thing that came of it was that it washed a lot of the residual radiation into the sea,” says Tanaka. “After the typhoon, radiation levels fell considerably.”

It was inevitable, given the scale of destruction, that early attempts to re-establish a semblance of civic life on the scorched earth of ground zero were marked by chaos and confusion. The mayor, Senkichi Awaya, was among the dead, leaving the city without a leader; thousands of public servants, teachers and health professionals were also among the victims. On 6 August the municipal government office employed about 1,000 people; the following day just 80 reported for duty.

“They alone had to deal with emergency medical treatment, establish a food supply and retrieve and cremate corpses,” says Tanaka. “They were incredibly difficult times.” Attempts to care for the dying and seriously wounded verged on the futile: 14 of Hiroshima’s 16 major hospitals no longer existed; 270 of 298 hospital doctors were dead, along with 1,654 of 1,780 registered nurses. Demand for housing turned the area near the hypocentre into a shantytown of 10,000 homes that were little more than wooden shacks, with sanitary facilities shared among several households.

US soldiers arrived in Hiroshima in 1946, but direct control of the city was given to troops from the British Commonwealth Occupation Force, headquartered in the nearby port city of Kure. “There are no records of foreign troops actually helping with reconstruction, but they were vital to the flow of emergency supplies,” says Ariyuki Fukushima of the Peace Memorial Museum ’s curatorial division. “And the [US-led] occupation forces facilitated the recovery in a broad sense, since they gave final approval to public works projects.”

Although it was initially one of five Japanese cities under consideration by US president Harry Truman and his advisers, there are compelling reasons why the Americans targeted Hiroshima. Having begun as a castle town at the end of the 1500s under the rule of the feudal warlord Mori Terumoto, by the end of the 19 th century it served as a regional garrison for the Imperial Japanese Army; as a major manufacturing centre, it helped fuel the Japanese empire’s military efforts in the Asia-Pacific.

Slow transformation

It was only after the strained tones of Emperor Hirohito confirmed Japan’s surrender in a radio broadcast on 15 August 1945 that reconstruction replaced war as the nation’s clarion call. With factories commandeered for the war effort now back in private ownership, local authorities launched a five-year recovery plan to dramatically raise production. Ironically, it was another conflict, on the Korean peninsula, that gave the local economy a fillip, as demand soared for canned food, cars and other goods. A second boom came in 1952, when the departing Allied occupation authorities lifted the ban on Japanese shipbuilding.

The idea of transforming a large area of Hiroshima into a memorial to the A-bomb dead gained traction in 1946, when the local Chugoku Shimbun newspaper ran a competition soliciting readers’ visions for the city. First prize was awarded to Sankichi Tōge , a poet, peace activist and A-bomb survivor – although some have speculated that his brother contributed many of the ideas in his essay. Tōge, who died in 1953 aged 36, envisioned a peace plaza memorial, a library, museum and a place where visitors from around the world could come together to dedicate themselves to peace. About 40% of the city should be covered in greenery, he said.

The city government was sympathetic to Tōge’s utopian vision, but lacked the money to act. Tax revenue had plummeted by 80% from pre-attack levels and parts of the city, including a military base near Hiroshima castle, still belonged to the state. The turning point came in 1949, when national politicians, recognising Hiroshima’s special status, passed the Peace Memorial City Construction Law , Article 1 of which states: “Hiroshima is to be a peace memorial city symbolising the human idea of the sincere pursuit of genuine and lasting peace.”

Sources of funding once closed to city planners were opened, and the central government agreed to turn over state and military-owned land free of charge. If the reconstruction law resolved questions of land ownership and removed the financial obstacles that had slowed Hiroshima’s recovery, Japan’s postwar economic miracle heralded an age of breakneck construction. In 1958, the city’s population returned to its pre-war level of 410,000. “That was a kind of springboard for recovery,” says Fukushima.

But work on the peace memorial city project exposed social divisions that predated the bombing. The demolition of thousands of wooden shacks in the area earmarked for development forced residents – among them forced Korean labourers and members of the burakumin underclass – to relocate to the banks of the Ota River. Within months, more than 3,000 people were living on the riverbank with no access to running water or electricity. Fires regularly swept through the ramshackle huts, which remained until the local government built high-rise flats in 1970.

As Tōge and others had envisaged, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park occupies prime real estate south-west of the main railway station, with the 100m-wide peace boulevard, which traverses the city centre, running along the park’s southern boundary. Designed by the Japanese architect Kenzō Tange and completed in the late 1950s, the three-acre site now houses a museum, a conference hall and a cenotaph honouring the victims of the bombing and every survivor who has since died. As of last August that number had reached 297,684.

City planners, though, faced a dilemma: how to incorporate Hiroshima’s tragic history within its postwar reincarnation. Kenji Shiga, director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, said some officials favoured removing every last physical remnant of the tragedy, while others insisted on preserving evidence of the atomic bomb’s destructive power.

The outcome of that debate is visible in the remains of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, better known these days as the A-bomb Dome . “Some people thought it should be torn down and that Hiroshima should be a completely new city,” says Shiga. “The hibakusha in particular didn’t want to see reminders of what had happened. That was one example of how difficult it was – and still is – to strike a balance between recognising the facts of history and building a modern city.”

The A-bomb Dome’s future was secured in the mid-1960s, when officials agreed to preserve it; in 1996 it became a Unesco world heritage site . Today, it stands as one of the few relics of a Hiroshima that not many of its 1.2 million residents are now old enough to remember. Younger citizens fret over the fortunes of the local baseball and football teams, the Hiroshima Toyo Carp and Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Their hometown is now considered so typical of Japan’s cities that firms often market new products here before deciding whether to sell them nationwide.

The A-bomb Dome, the Peace Park and preserved buildings such as the former Hiroshima branch of the Bank of Japan are the only architectural reminders of the attack. Elsewhere, Hiroshima looks much like any other Japanese city: featureless office and apartment blocks, pockets of neon-lit nightlife, and the ubiquitous convenience stores and chain coffee shops. Looking down from a pedestrian bridge at trams and taxis negotiating their way through streets lined with office buildings and chain restaurants, the overriding impression is of a prosperous, friendly city that has come to terms with its past. But with adult survivors now in their 80s and 90s, fears are growing that memories of the city’s dark history will die out along with the last of those who bore witness to the violent dawn of the atomic age.

The 183,519 registered hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are entitled to a monthly allowance and free medical care. Many are succumbing to illnesses that are associated with old age but which could be connected to their exposure to radiation, as documented by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation , a Japan and US-funded body set up in 1975 to investigate the health effects among Japan’s nuclear survivors.

“The cancer rate among elderly A-bomb survivors is high,” according to Tanaka. “Many A-bomb survivors have been fighting various cancers and other illnesses typically caused by radiation, such as heart problems, cataracts and leukaemia. There are very few survivors who have not experienced health problems as they’ve grown older.”

The city they leave behind will be lasting testament to the horror they experienced, and to their determination to rebuild against the odds, according to Hiroshima’s mayor, Kazumi Matsui. “Humans destroyed Hiroshima, but humans also rebuilt it,” he says. “This is a holy site … somewhere people can come to compare the horrors of the past with the city Hiroshima has become today.”

Does your city have a little-known story that made a major impact on its development? Please share it in the comments below or on Twitter using #storyofcities

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The Hiroshima Effect

Seventy-five years after the first nuclear bomb fell, we are grateful it hasn’t happened again, mystified it didn’t, and terrified it still might..

• United States

“Why is it night already? Why did our house fall down? What happened?” The befuddlement of 5-year-old Myeko Nakamura moments after the first atomic bomb fell at 8:15 on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, as related in John Hersey’s classic account Hiroshima , remains to a large extent our befuddlement today. Seventy-five years after about 80,000 of Myeko’s neighbors died in an instant, we are, like that little girl, grateful to be alive but somewhat mystified about how it happened—and what surviving in the nuclear age really means. 

Above all we are mystified that today’s leaders aren’t doing more to prevent a greater horror than Hiroshima; if anything, led by America’s history-shredding president, Donald Trump, they are making that prospect more likely.

True, there are reasons to turn this baleful anniversary into a moment, however brief, of self-congratulation. Despite several close calls in the past 75 years—some notorious, like the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, others known to only a few—nuclear weapons were never again used in anger after the second bomb fell on Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima. The day-to-day balance of terror that defined the 40-year Cold War between the two nuclear superpowers, the United States and Soviet Union, is long over. Despite renewed tensions between the major nuclear powers and the advent of scary new technologies, no one touts the benefits of a nuclear first strike, as those satirized in the war room of black comedies like Dr. Strangelove once did. And with the exception of rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran, nuclear proliferation does not seem to be a growing threat; everyone is thankful that no terrorist group seems close to getting the bomb.

But three-quarters of a century is also an eye-blink in the history of human conflict. And if we open our eyes wide enough now we ought to be more than a little worried. 

“The fact that we have made it 75 years without another nuclear detonation as an act of war is nothing short of a miracle,” said Alexandra Bell, a former senior Obama administration official now at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “Our forays to the edge of the nuclear abyss have been more frequent than the average person knows—or possibly cares to know. Unfortunately, time and the law of odds is not on our side. There are around 14,000 nuclear weapons left in the world.”

Trump, who has demonstrated repeatedly that he has little knowledge of or respect for the lessons of history—having brazenly themed his administration along the lines of the “America first” isolationism that prevailed before Pearl Harbor—is now worsening those odds, according to Bell and many other nuclear weapons specialists. Trump “is the only president in 60 years with no real accomplishment in reducing nuclear threats after four years in office,” Bell said.  

On the contrary, Trump is pushing pell-mell for a $1.7 trillion modernization of America’s nuclear arsenal that almost guarantees a new arms race. He’s building new intercontinental ballistic missiles, artifacts of a past era in an age of submarine-launched missiles, bombers, and hypersonic missiles launched from ships and planes. Bit by bit, Trump has dismantled the nonproliferation architecture erected over decades. Building on President George W. Bush’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001, Trump renounced the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which sought to pull back from the hair-trigger calculus implicit in having NATO missiles on the edge of the Soviet bloc. More recently, Trump said he would abandon the 1992 Open Skies Treaty, which allows signatories to fly observation flights to collect data on military forces and activities. He’s failed to renew the New START treaty, which limits U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals and provides mutual verification. The treaty, if no further action is taken, will expire in February 2021—unless Joe Biden renews it, as he has promised, if he is elected president.

A magazine article from August 1945, titled “Man Enters The Atom Age.” The illustrations compare fictional cataclysms, drawn by Leonardo da Vinci (lefthand page), with actual destruction in the firebombing of Tokyo (second page, left) and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (far right) during World War II. Picture Post/IPC Magazines/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

And the new arms race has already begun in some respects. “Russia has re-embraced nuclear weapons with a scary declaratory policy of ‘escalate to de-escalate’ and the development of new strategic systems—nuclear powered cruise missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles, trans-oceanic nuclear-armed torpedoes—and more low-yield nuclear weapons, most designed to evade U.S. [missile defense], which is still a long way from providing effective defense against any sophisticated ballistic missile attack,”  said Robert Gallucci, former U.S. ambassador-at-large and special envoy for the State Department on the non-proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. “So now the Trump Administration is focused on countering the Russian threat with new, low-yield nuclear weapons.”

All Trump’s moves, with no replacement treaties in the offing, could leave governments once more in the dark about what the other side is building, as they were during the worst days of the Cold War. China until now has been restrained about tipping its long-range missiles with nuclear warheads, of which it is believed to possess up to 300, about as many as France. That restraint could fade if tensions rise and no treaty is in place to contain the threat of nuclear weapons. None has been proposed by this president.

“President Trump’s irresponsible approach to nuclear weapons has increased, not decreased, the dangers of nuclear proliferation and nuclear war,” said Matthew Bunn, the co-principal investigator at Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom. 

“He has encouraged U.S. allies such as South Korea and Japan to get their own nuclear weapons and publicly threatened not to defend U.S. allies, raising the risk that nuclear weapons will spread, putting more fingers on the nuclear button. He has ripped up the nuclear deal with Iran without achieving any deal to replace it, leaving Iran closer to the bomb than it was before. He has provoked a dangerous crisis with nuclear-armed North Korea, then rewarded its leader with summits with little preparation, leaving North Korea continuing to build up its deadly nuclear force. He has withdrawn from the INF Treaty without any plan for how to address the resulting dangers. He has announced a plan for walking out of the Open Skies treaty, and he has refused (so far) to extend the New START treaty—the last agreement imposing any limits on U.S. and Russian nuclear forces. All of these steps have made the nuclear world a more dangerous place,” Bunn said.

“The real new threat is accidental launch or unauthorized launch,” said Gallucci,  the retired dean of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. “In other words, what with cyber warfare, anti-satellite warfare and all this new offense to overcome non-existent effective defense, we will be giving over launch authority to AI [artificial intelligence] in the interest of preserving a launch on warning, or launch under attack capability—which could get us into a nuclear war nobody intended.”

There is, however, some reassuring news on the nuclear arms front. For one, the dangers of nuclear proliferation are often exaggerated. Shortly after the Cold War came to a close, there were nine nuclear states—the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, India, Israel, Pakistan (which tested its first device in 1998) and South Africa. Today there are still nine, all the same, save South Africa’s renunciation of the bomb (the only nation to have built one and then voluntarily dismantled it) and the arrival of a dangerous and threatening nuclear North Korea.  

The threat of loose nukes and nuclear black markets has also been blunted. Secret programs like the one begun by ousted Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi and fed by the rogue Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan have been mostly dismantled through international cooperation. As Gallucci once told me , proliferation fears were much greater only 25 years ago, when Gallucci was a senior arms-control negotiator in the Clinton administration. Then, U.S. officials routinely feared 50 to 60 countries might go nuclear. 

But a largely successful joint U.S.-Russian effort to roll up much of the old Soviet arsenal, a slew of tough export control agreements on dual-use technology, and the crown jewel of international arms-control agreements—the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—have together made it very difficult, expensive, and risky to seek to build a nuclear weapon. Few countries have tried. 

Despite new fears of an AI-prompted accidental launch, there’s also some cause for optimism in the march of technology. Just as chemical weapons were once cutting-edge 75 years ago before becoming largely obsolete, nuclear arms may also someday become a footnote, some experts suggest.

Left: U.S. Air Force Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., pilot of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, waves on Aug. 6, 1945, from his cockpit before takeoff. Right: In 1947, a Japanese casualty shows the keloid scars he received from flash burns during the attack on Hiroshima. national archives/Newsmakers/US Army Signal Corps/FPG/Getty Images

“That was the last killer app, chemical weapons, and by the time you get to 1990, 75 years later, it doesn’t look like a killer app any more,” said Henry Sokolski, the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center and a former deputy for nonproliferation policy in the George H.W. Bush administration. “Military advances in precision guidance and targeting are making the targeting of cities (the massive murder of innocents) far less attractive or necessary, as is the idea of new generations of warfare including cyber and gray operations.” Big targets like airfields and aircraft carriers once required tactical nuclear weapons to take out; today, precision missiles with conventional warheads can do the job, if cyberattacks and electronic warfare don’t do it first. 

“It’s not hard to imagine a world where the advanced nations have pushed their nuclear weapons into the background,” Sokolski said. Some experts also argue that the nuclear bombing of cities is now technically prohibited by international law under the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the 1977 Additional Protocols, as well as U.S. Defense Department regulations that ban intentionally targeting civilians and require the avoidance of harm to innocents. 

But that’s in the advanced countries. That same technological development has opened new opportunities for nuclear also-rans. 

“The bad news,” Sokolski said, “is that the same revolution in precision guidance is putting long range accurate missiles into the hands of relatively weak states that might next be drawn to nuclear weapons.” Most experts focus on North Korea and Iran. But Sokolski also raises worries about South Korea, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Some even fear that Japan, faced with a rising threat from China, might consider embracing the technology that seared its national soul 75 years ago and prompted it to forswear war.

And what of Japan, the only nation to experience what nuclear war is really like? 

The Japanese response to Hiroshima and Nagasaki—as well as the firebombings that devastated 67 Japanese cities during World War II, killing far more than the atom bombs did — remains paradoxical even to this day. A visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, with the blackened husk of the famed “A-Bomb Dome” nearby, is a disorienting experience. Even today, most of the museum’s exhibits make it seem as if the bomb came out of nowhere—as if the aggression and atrocities of the Japanese imperial state had not preceded and led to President Harry Truman’s decision to drop “Little Boy” on Hiroshima that fateful morning. Other nations, in particular China and South Korea, remain outraged by meager expressions of war guilt from Tokyo. 

And yet World War II, and its terrifying finish in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, transformed Japan in a more profound way than any nation, except perhaps postwar Germany. Though some recent prime ministers such as Shinzo Abe have expressed more nationalist sentiments, the far-right remains marginalized in Japan, and Tokyo is still largely content to exist under the U.S. defense umbrella. “One of the immediate reactions the Japanese people was to hold their own government responsible for the catastrophe, and that was important,” said Marc Gallicchio, the author of the new book Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II . 

“Certainly the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki felt they were victims of a kind of unconscionable act by the Americans, but at same time they understood they had wound up in that position because of fecklessness of their own government and its stubborn refusal to surrender. That then provided momentum for development of peace education in Japan, which is pretty prevalent even today,” he said.

Indeed, Japan’s aversion to armed aggression, and to developing a nuclear arsenal that it is easily capable of achieving, has almost become part of the national character— and constitution . The nuclear bombings also transformed and traumatized the United States, making it averse to ever using nuclear weapons again, especially in Asia, Gallicchio argues.

Neither nation, in other words, ever completely recovered from that terrible day 75 years ago. Perhaps that’s the best and most hopeful thing one can say about this anniversary.

Michael Hirsh is a columnist for Foreign Policy. He is the author of two books:  Capital Offense: How Washington’s Wise Men Turned America’s Future Over to Wall Street  and  At War With Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World . Twitter:  @michaelphirsh

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Eyewitness Account of Hiroshima

By father john a. siemes, professor of modern philosophy at tokyo's catholic university.

Hiroshima- August 6th, 1945

August 6th began in a bright, clear, summer morning. About seven o'clock, there was an air raid alarm which we had heard almost every day and a few planes appeared over the city. No one paid any attention and at about eight o'clock, the all-clear was sounded. I am sitting in my room at the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Nagatsuke; during the past half year, the philosophical and theological section of our Mission had been evacuated to this place from Tokyo. The Novitiate is situated approximately two kilometers from Hiroshima, half-way up the sides of a broad valley which stretches from the town at sea level into this mountainous hinterland, and through which courses a river. From my window, I have a wonderful view down the valley to the edge of the city.

Suddenly--the time is approximately 8:14--the whole valley is filled by a garish light which resembles the magnesium light used in photography, and I am conscious of a wave of heat. I jump to the window to find out the cause of this remarkable phenomenon, but I see nothing more than that brilliant yellow light. As I make for the door, it doesn't occur to me that the light might have something to do with enemy planes. On the way from the window, I hear a moderately loud explosion which seems to come from a distance and, at the same time, the windows are broken in with a loud crash. There has been an interval of perhaps ten seconds since the flash of light. I am sprayed by fragments of glass. The entire window frame has been forced into the room. I realize now that a bomb has burst and I am under the impression that it exploded directly over our house or in the immediate vicinity.

I am bleeding from cuts about the hands and head. I attempt to get out of the door. It has been forced outwards by the air pressure and has become jammed. I force an opening in the door by means of repeated blows with my hands and feet and come to a broad hallway from which open the various rooms. Everything is in a state of confusion. All windows are broken and all the doors are forced inwards. The bookshelves in the hallway have tumbled down. I do not note a second explosion and the fliers seem to have gone on. Most of my colleagues have been injured by fragments of glass. A few are bleeding but none has been seriously injured. All of us have been fortunate since it is now apparent that the wall of my room opposite the window has been lacerated by long fragments of glass.

We proceed to the front of the house to see where the bomb has landed. There is no evidence, however, of a bomb crater; but the southeast section of the house is very severely damaged. Not a door nor a window remains. The blast of air had penetrated the entire house from the southeast, but the house still stands. It is constructed in a Japanese style with a wooden framework, but has been greatly strengthened by the labor of our Brother Gropper as is frequently done in Japanese homes. Only along the front of the chapel which adjoins the house, three supports have given way (it has been made in the manner of Japanese temple, entirely out of wood.)

Down in the valley, perhaps one kilometer toward the city from us, several peasant homes are on fire and the woods on the opposite side of the valley are aflame. A few of us go over to help control the flames. While we are attempting to put things in order, a storm comes up and it begins to rain. Over the city, clouds of smoke are rising and I hear a few slight explosions. I come to the conclusion that an incendiary bomb with an especially strong explosive action has gone off down in the valley. A few of us saw three planes at great altitude over the city at the time of the explosion. I, myself, saw no aircraft whatsoever.

Perhaps a half-hour after the explosion, a procession of people begins to stream up the valley from the city. The crowd thickens continuously. A few come up the road to our house. We give them first aid and bring them into the chapel, which we have in the meantime cleaned and cleared of wreckage, and put them to rest on the straw mats which constitute the floor of Japanese houses. A few display horrible wounds of the extremities and back. The small quantity of fat which we possessed during this time of war was soon used up in the care of the burns. Father Rektor who, before taking holy orders, had studied medicine, ministers to the injured, but our bandages and drugs are soon gone. We must be content with cleansing the wounds.

More and more of the injured come to us. The least injured drag the more seriously wounded. There are wounded soldiers, and mothers carrying burned children in their arms. From the houses of the farmers in the valley comes word: "Our houses are full of wounded and dying. Can you help, at least by taking the worst cases?" The wounded come from the sections at the edge of the city. They saw the bright light, their houses collapsed and buried the inmates in their rooms. Those that were in the open suffered instantaneous burns, particularly on the lightly clothed or unclothed parts of the body. Numerous fires sprang up which soon consumed the entire district. We now conclude that the epicenter of the explosion was at the edge of the city near the Jokogawa Station, three kilometers away from us. We are concerned about Father Kopp who that same morning, went to hold Mass at the Sisters of the Poor, who have a home for children at the edge of the city. He had not returned as yet.

Toward noon, our large chapel and library are filled with the seriously injured. The procession of refugees from the city continues. Finally, about one o'clock, Father Kopp returns, together with the Sisters. Their house and the entire district where they live has burned to the ground. Father Kopp is bleeding about the head and neck, and he has a large burn on the right palm. He was standing in front of the nunnery ready to go home. All of a sudden, he became aware of the light, felt the wave of heat and a large blister formed on his hand. The windows were torn out by the blast. He thought that the bomb had fallen in his immediate vicinity. The nunnery, also a wooden structure made by our Brother Gropper, still remained but soon it is noted that the house is as good as lost because the fire, which had begun at many points in the neighborhood, sweeps closer and closer, and water is not available. There is still time to rescue certain things from the house and to bury them in an open spot. Then the house is swept by flame, and they fight their way back to us along the shore of the river and through the burning streets.

Soon comes news that the entire city has been destroyed by the explosion and that it is on fire. What became of Father Superior and the three other Fathers who were at the center of the city at the Central Mission and Parish House? We had up to this time not given them a thought because we did not believe that the effects of the bomb encompassed the entire city. Also, we did not want to go into town except under pressure of dire necessity, because we thought that the population was greatly perturbed and that it might take revenge on any foreigners which they might consider spiteful onlookers of their misfortune, or even spies.

Father Stolte and Father Erlinghagen go down to the road which is still full of refugees and bring in the seriously injured who have sunken by the wayside, to the temporary aid station at the village school. There iodine is applied to the wounds but they are left uncleansed. Neither ointments nor other therapeutic agents are available. Those that have been brought in are laid on the floor and no one can give them any further care. What could one do when all means are lacking? Under those circumstances, it is almost useless to bring them in. Among the passersby, there are many who are uninjured. In a purposeless, insensate manner, distraught by the magnitude of the disaster most of them rush by and none conceives the thought of organizing help on his own initiative. They are concerned only with the welfare of their own families. It became clear to us during these days that the Japanese displayed little initiative, preparedness, and organizational skill in preparation for catastrophes. They failed to carry out any rescue work when something could have been saved by a cooperative effort, and fatalistically let the catastrophe take its course. When we urged them to take part in the rescue work, they did everything willingly, but on their own initiative they did very little.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon, a theology student and two kindergarten children, who lived at the Parish House and adjoining buildings which had burned down, came in and said that Father Superior LaSalle and Father Schiffer had been seriously injured and that they had taken refuge in Asano Park on the river bank. It is obvious that we must bring them in since they are too weak to come here on foot.

Hurriedly, we get together two stretchers and seven of us rush toward the city. Father Rektor comes along with food and medicine. The closer we get to the city, the greater is the evidence of destruction and the more difficult it is to make our way. The houses at the edge of the city are all severely damaged. Many have collapsed or burned down. Further in, almost all of the dwellings have been damaged by fire. Where the city stood, there is a gigantic burned-out scar. We make our way along the street on the river bank among the burning and smoking ruins. Twice we are forced into the river itself by the heat and smoke at the level of the street.

Frightfully burned people beckon to us. Along the way, there are many dead and dying. On the Misasi Bridge, which leads into the inner city we are met by a long procession of soldiers who have suffered burns. They drag themselves along with the help of staves or are carried by their less severely injured comrades...an endless procession of the unfortunate.

Abandoned on the bridge, there stand with sunken heads a number of horses with large burns on their flanks. On the far side, the cement structure of the local hospital is the only building that remains standing. Its interior, however, has been burned out. It acts as a landmark to guide us on our way.

Finally we reach the entrance of the park. A large proportion of the populace has taken refuge there, but even the trees of the park are on fire in several places. Paths and bridges are blocked by the trunks of fallen trees and are almost impassable. We are told that a high wind, which may well have resulted from the heat of the burning city, has uprooted the large trees. It is now quite dark. Only the fires, which are still raging in some places at a distance, give out a little light.

At the far corner of the park, on the river bank itself, we at last come upon our colleagues. Father Schiffer is on the ground pale as a ghost. He has a deep incised wound behind the ear and has lost so much blood that we are concerned about his chances for survival. The Father Superior has suffered a deep wound of the lower leg. Father Cieslik and Father Kleinsorge have minor injuries but are completely exhausted.

While they are eating the food that we have brought along, they tell us of their experiences. They were in their rooms at the Parish House--it was a quarter after eight, exactly the time when we had heard the explosion in Nagatsuke--when came the intense light and immediately thereafter the sound of breaking windows, walls and furniture. They were showered with glass splinters and fragments of wreckage. Father Schiffer was buried beneath a portion of a wall and suffered a severe head injury. The Father Superior received most of the splinters in his back and lower extremity from which he bled copiously. Everything was thrown about in the rooms themselves, but the wooden framework of the house remained intact. The solidity of the structure which was the work of Brother Gropper again shone forth.

They had the same impression that we had in Nagatsuke: that the bomb had burst in their immediate vicinity. The Church, school, and all buildings in the immediate vicinity collapsed at once. Beneath the ruins of the school, the children cried for help. They were freed with great effort. Several others were also rescued from the ruins of nearby dwellings. Even the Father Superior and Father Schiffer despite their wounds, rendered aid to others and lost a great deal of blood in the process.

In the meantime, fires which had begun some distance away are raging even closer, so that it becomes obvious that everything would soon burn down. Several objects are rescued from the Parish House and were buried in a clearing in front of the Church, but certain valuables and necessities which had been kept ready in case of fire could not be found on account of the confusion which had been wrought. It is high time to flee, since the oncoming flames leave almost no way open. Fukai, the secretary of the Mission, is completely out of his mind. He does not want to leave the house and explains that he does not want to survive the destruction of his fatherland. He is completely uninjured. Father Kleinsorge drags him out of the house on his back and he is forcefully carried away.

Beneath the wreckage of the houses along the way, many have been trapped and they scream to be rescued from the oncoming flames. They must be left to their fate. The way to the place in the city to which one desires to flee is no longer open and one must make for Asano Park. Fukai does not want to go further and remains behind. He has not been heard from since. In the park, we take refuge on the bank of the river. A very violent whirlwind now begins to uproot large trees, and lifts them high into the air. As it reaches the water, a waterspout forms which is approximately 100 meters high. The violence of the storm luckily passes us by. Some distance away, however, where numerous refugees have taken shelter, many are blown into the river. Almost all who are in the vicinity have been injured and have lost relatives who have been pinned under the wreckage or who have been lost sight of during the flight. There is no help for the wounded and some die. No one pays any attention to a dead man lying nearby.

The transportation of our own wounded is difficult. It is not possible to dress their wounds properly in the darkness, and they bleed again upon slight motion. As we carry them on the shaky litters in the dark over fallen trees of the park, they suffer unbearable pain as the result of the movement, and lose dangerously large quantities of blood. Our rescuing angel in this difficult situation is a Japanese Protestant pastor. He has brought up a boat and offers to take our wounded up stream to a place where progress is easier. First, we lower the litter containing Father Schiffer into the boat and two of us accompany him. We plan to bring the boat back for the Father Superior. The boat returns about one-half hour later and the pastor requests that several of us help in the rescue of two children whom he had seen in the river. We rescue them. They have severe burns. Soon they suffer chills and die in the park.

The Father Superior is conveyed in the boat in the same manner as Father Schiffer. The theology student and myself accompany him. Father Cieslik considers himself strong enough to make his way on foot to Nagatsuke with the rest of us, but Father Kleinsorge cannot walk so far and we leave him behind and promise to come for him and the housekeeper tomorrow. From the other side of the stream comes the whinny of horses who are threatened by the fire. We land on a sand spit which juts out from the shore. It is full of wounded who have taken refuge there. They scream for aid for they are afraid of drowning as the river may rise with the sea, and cover the sand spit. They themselves are too weak to move. However, we must press on and finally we reach the spot where the group containing Father Schiffer is waiting.

Here a rescue party had brought a large case of fresh rice cakes but there is no one to distribute them to the numerous wounded that lie all about. We distribute them to those that are nearby and also help ourselves. The wounded call for water and we come to the aid of a few. Cries for help are heard from a distance, but we cannot approach the ruins from which they come. A group of soldiers comes along the road and their officer notices that we speak a strange language. He at once draws his sword, screamingly demands who we are and threatens to cut us down. Father Laures, Jr., seizes his arm and explains that we are German. We finally quiet him down. He thought that we might well be Americans who had parachuted down. Rumors of parachutists were being bandied about the city. The Father Superior who was clothed only in a shirt and trousers, complains of feeling freezing cold, despite the warm summer night and the heat of the burning city. The one man among us who possesses a coat gives it to him and, in addition, I give him my own shirt. To me, it seems more comfortable to be without a shirt in the heat.

In the meantime, it has become midnight. Since there are not enough of us to man both litters with four strong bearers, we determine to remove Father Schiffer first to the outskirts of the city. From there, another group of bearers is to take over to Nagatsuke; the others are to turn back in order to rescue the Father Superior. I am one of the bearers. The theology student goes in front to warn us of the numerous wires, beams and fragments of ruins which block the way and which are impossible to see in the dark. Despite all precautions, our progress is stumbling and our feet get tangled in the wire. Father Kruer falls and carries the litter with him. Father Schiffer becomes half unconscious from the fall and vomits. We pass an injured man who sits all alone among the hot ruins and whom I had seen previously on the way down.

On the Misasa Bridge, we meet Father Tappe and Father Luhmer, who have come to meet us from Nagatsuke. They had dug a family out of the ruins of their collapsed house some fifty meters off the road. The father of the family was already dead. They had dragged out two girls and placed them by the side of the road. Their mother was still trapped under some beams. They had planned to complete the rescue and then to press on to meet us. At the outskirts of the city, we put down the litter and leave two men to wait until those who are to come from Nagatsuke appear. The rest of us turn back to fetch the Father Superior.

Most of the ruins have now burned down. The darkness kindly hides the many forms that lie on the ground. Only occasionally in our quick progress do we hear calls for help. One of us remarks that the remarkable burned smell reminds him of incinerated corpses. The upright, squatting form which we had passed by previously is still there.

Transportation on the litter, which has been constructed out of boards, must be very painful to the Father Superior, whose entire back is full of fragments of glass. In a narrow passage at the edge of town, a car forces us to the edge of the road. The litter bearers on the left side fall into a two meter deep ditch which they could not see in the darkness. Father Superior hides his pain with a dry joke, but the litter which is now no longer in one piece cannot be carried further. We decide to wait until Kinjo can bring a hand cart from Nagatsuke. He soon comes back with one that he has requisitioned from a collapsed house. We place Father Superior on the cart and wheel him the rest of the way, avoiding as much as possible the deeper pits in the road.

About half past four in the morning, we finally arrive at the Novitiate. Our rescue expedition had taken almost twelve hours. Normally, one could go back and forth to the city in two hours. Our two wounded were now, for the first time, properly dressed. I get two hours sleep on the floor; some one else has taken my own bed. Then I read a Mass in gratiarum actionem, it is the 7th of August, the anniversary of the foundation of our society. Then we bestir ourselves to bring Father Kleinsorge and other acquaintances out of the city.

We take off again with the hand cart. The bright day now reveals the frightful picture which last night's darkness had partly concealed. Where the city stood everything, as far as the eye could reach, is a waste of ashes and ruin. Only several skeletons of buildings completely burned out in the interior remain. The banks of the river are covered with dead and wounded, and the rising waters have here and there covered some of the corpses. On the broad street in the Hakushima district, naked burned cadavers are particularly numerous. Among them are the wounded who are still alive. A few have crawled under the burnt-out autos and trams. Frightfully injured forms beckon to us and then collapse. An old woman and a girl whom she is pulling along with her fall down at our feet. We place them on our cart and wheel them to the hospital at whose entrance a dressing station has been set up. Here the wounded lie on the hard floor, row on row. Only the largest wounds are dressed. We convey another soldier and an old woman to the place but we cannot move everybody who lies exposed in the sun. It would be endless and it is questionable whether those whom we can drag to the dressing station can come out alive, because even here nothing really effective can be done. Later, we ascertain that the wounded lay for days in the burnt-out hallways of the hospital and there they died.

We must proceed to our goal in the park and are forced to leave the wounded to their fate. We make our way to the place where our church stood to dig up those few belongings that we had buried yesterday. We find them intact. Everything else has been completely burned. In the ruins, we find a few molten remnants of holy vessels. At the park, we load the housekeeper and a mother with her two children on the cart. Father Kleinsorge feels strong enough, with the aid of Brother Nobuhara, to make his way home on foot. The way back takes us once again past the dead and wounded in Hakushima. Again no rescue parties are in evidence. At the Misasa Bridge, there still lies the family which the Fathers Tappe and Luhmer had yesterday rescued from the ruins. A piece of tin had been placed over them to shield them from the sun. We cannot take them along for our cart is full. We give them and those nearby water to drink and decide to rescue them later. At three o'clock in the afternoon, we are back in Nagatsuka.

After we have had a few swallows and a little food, Fathers Stolte, Luhmer, Erlinghagen and myself, take off once again to bring in the family. Father Kleinsorge requests that we also rescue two children who had lost their mother and who had lain near him in the park. On the way, we were greeted by strangers who had noted that we were on a mission of mercy and who praised our efforts. We now met groups of individuals who were carrying the wounded about on litters. As we arrived at the Misasa Bridge, the family that had been there was gone. They might well have been borne away in the meantime. There was a group of soldiers at work taking away those that had been sacrificed yesterday.

More than thirty hours had gone by until the first official rescue party had appeared on the scene. We find both children and take them out of the park: a six-year old boy who was uninjured, and a twelve-year old girl who had been burned about the head, hands and legs, and who had lain for thirty hours without care in the park. The left side of her face and the left eye were completely covered with blood and pus, so that we thought that she had lost the eye. When the wound was later washed, we noted that the eye was intact and that the lids had just become stuck together. On the way home, we took another group of three refugees with us. They first wanted to know, however, of what nationality we were. They, too, feared that we might be Americans who had parachuted in. When we arrived in Nagatsuka, it had just become dark.

We took under our care fifty refugees who had lost everything. The majority of them were wounded and not a few had dangerous burns. Father Rektor treated the wounds as well as he could with the few medicaments that we could, with effort, gather up. He had to confine himself in general to cleansing the wounds of purulent material. Even those with the smaller burns are very weak and all suffered from diarrhea. In the farm houses in the vicinity, almost everywhere, there are also wounded. Father Rektor made daily rounds and acted in the capacity of a painstaking physician and was a great Samaritan. Our work was, in the eyes of the people, a greater boost for Christianity than all our work during the preceding long years.

Three of the severely burned in our house died within the next few days. Suddenly the pulse and respirations ceased. It is certainly a sign of our good care that so few died. In the official aid stations and hospitals, a good third or half of those that had been brought in died. They lay about there almost without care, and a very high percentage succumbed. Everything was lacking: doctors, assistants, dressings, drugs, etc. In an aid station at a school at a nearby village, a group of soldiers for several days did nothing except to bring in and cremate the dead behind the school.

During the next few days, funeral processions passed our house from morning to night, bringing the deceased to a small valley nearby. There, in six places, the dead were burned. People brought their own wood and themselves did the cremation. Father Luhmer and Father Laures found a dead man in a nearby house who had already become bloated and who emitted a frightful odor. They brought him to this valley and incinerated him themselves. Even late at night, the little valley was lit up by the funeral pyres.

We made systematic efforts to trace our acquaintances and the families of the refugees whom we had sheltered. Frequently, after the passage of several weeks, some one was found in a distant village or hospital but of many there was no news, and these were apparently dead. We were lucky to discover the mother of the two children whom we had found in the park and who had been given up for dead. After three weeks, she saw her children once again. In the great joy of the reunion were mingled the tears for those whom we shall not see again.

The magnitude of the disaster that befell Hiroshima on August 6th was only slowly pieced together in my mind. I lived through the catastrophe and saw it only in flashes, which only gradually were merged to give me a total picture. What actually happened simultaneously in the city as a whole is as follows: As a result of the explosion of the bomb at 8:15, almost the entire city was destroyed at a single blow. Only small outlying districts in the southern and eastern parts of the town escaped complete destruction. The bomb exploded over the center of the city. As a result of the blast, the small Japanese houses in a diameter of five kilometers, which compressed 99% of the city, collapsed or were blown up. Those who were in the houses were buried in the ruins. Those who were in the open sustained burns resulting from contact with the substance or rays emitted by the bomb. Where the substance struck in quantity, fires sprang up. These spread rapidly.

The heat which rose from the center created a whirlwind which was effective in spreading fire throughout the whole city. Those who had been caught beneath the ruins and who could not be freed rapidly, and those who had been caught by the flames, became casualties. As much as six kilometers from the center of the explosion, all houses were damaged and many collapsed and caught fire. Even fifteen kilometers away, windows were broken. It was rumored that the enemy fliers had spread an explosive and incendiary material over the city and then had created the explosion and ignition. A few maintained that they saw the planes drop a parachute which had carried something that exploded at a height of 1,000 meters. The newspapers called the bomb an "atomic bomb" and noted that the force of the blast had resulted from the explosion of uranium atoms, and that gamma rays had been sent out as a result of this, but no one knew anything for certain concerning the nature of the bomb.

How many people were a sacrifice to this bomb? Those who had lived through the catastrophe placed the number of dead at at least 100,000. Hiroshima had a population of 400,000. Official statistics place the number who had died at 70,000 up to September 1st, not counting the missing ... and 130,000 wounded, among them 43,500 severely wounded. Estimates made by ourselves on the basis of groups known to us show that the number of 100,000 dead is not too high. Near us there are two barracks, in each of which forty Korean workers lived. On the day of the explosion, they were laboring on the streets of Hiroshima. Four returned alive to one barracks and sixteen to the other. 600 students of the Protestant girls' school worked in a factory, from which only thirty to forty returned. Most of the peasant families in the neighborhood lost one or more of their members who had worked at factories in the city. Our next door neighbor, Tamura, lost two children and himself suffered a large wound since, as it happened, he had been in the city on that day. The family of our reader suffered two dead, father and son; thus a family of five members suffered at least two losses, counting only the dead and severely wounded. There died the Mayor, the President of the central Japan district, the Commander of the city, a Korean prince who had been stationed in Hiroshima in the capacity of an officer, and many other high ranking officers. Of the professors of the University, thirty-two were killed or severely injured. Especially hard hit were the soldiers. The Pioneer Regiment was almost entirely wiped out. The barracks were near the center of the explosion.

Thousands of wounded who died later could doubtless have been rescued had they received proper treatment and care, but rescue work in a catastrophe of this magnitude had not been envisioned; since the whole city had been knocked out at a blow, everything which had been prepared for emergency work was lost, and no preparation had been made for rescue work in the outlying districts. Many of the wounded also died because they had been weakened by under-nourishment and consequently lacked in strength to recover. Those who had their normal strength and who received good care slowly healed the burns which had been occasioned by the bomb. There were also cases, however, whose prognosis seemed good who died suddenly. There were also some who had only small external wounds who died within a week or later, after an inflammation of the pharynx and oral cavity had taken place. We thought at first that this was the result of inhalation of the substance of the bomb. Later, a commission established the thesis that gamma rays had been given out at the time of the explosion, following which the internal organs had been injured in a manner resembling that consequent upon Roentgen irradiation. This produces a diminution in the numbers of the white corpuscles.

Only several cases are known to me personally where individuals who did not have external burns later died. Father Kleinsorge and Father Cieslik, who were near the center of the explosion, but who did not suffer burns became quite weak some fourteen days after the explosion. Up to this time small incised wounds had healed normally, but thereafter the wounds which were still unhealed became worse and are to date (in September) still incompletely healed. The attending physician diagnosed it as leucopania. There thus seems to be some truth in the statement that the radiation had some effect on the blood. I am of the opinion, however, that their generally undernourished and weakened condition was partly responsible for these findings. It was noised about that the ruins of the city emitted deadly rays and that workers who went there to aid in the clearing died, and that the central district would be uninhabitable for some time to come. I have my doubts as to whether such talk is true and myself and others who worked in the ruined area for some hours shortly after the explosion suffered no such ill effects.

None of us in those days heard a single outburst against the Americans on the part of the Japanese, nor was there any evidence of a vengeful spirit. The Japanese suffered this terrible blow as part of the fortunes of war ... something to be borne without complaint. During this, war, I have noted relatively little hatred toward the allies on the part of the people themselves, although the press has taken occasion to stir up such feelings. After the victories at the beginning of the war, the enemy was rather looked down upon, but when allied offensive gathered momentum and especially after the advent of the majestic B-29's, the technical skill of America became an object of wonder and admiration.

The following anecdote indicates the spirit of the Japanese: A few days after the atomic bombing, the secretary of the University came to us asserting that the Japanese were ready to destroy San Francisco by means of an equally effective bomb. It is dubious that he himself believed what he told us. He merely wanted to impress upon us foreigners that the Japanese were capable of similar discoveries. In his nationalistic pride, he talked himself into believing this. The Japanese also intimated that the principle of the new bomb was a Japanese discovery. It was only lack of raw materials, they said, which prevented its construction. In the meantime, the Germans were said to have carried the discovery to a further stage and were about to initiate such bombing. The Americans were reputed to have learned the secret from the Germans, and they had then brought the bomb to a stage of industrial completion.

We have discussed among ourselves the ethics of the use of the bomb. Some consider it in the same category as poison gas and were against its use on a civil population. Others were of the view that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical to me that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of war against civilians. The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good that might result? When will our moralists give us a clear answer to this question?

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombing Essay

The debate about the feasibility of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is controversial to this day. Bombing advocates tend to explain their position by arguing that the use of atomic weapons prevented the continuation of World War II and direct incursions, in which, according to statistics, many more people would die (Selden & Selden, 2015). In addition, the refusal of Japanese troops to surrender and Japan’s “all-out war” have also been put forward as arguments in favor of the bombing that stopped the atrocities of the “all-out war” of Japanese soldiers in China and ended the war in general. However, in my opinion, the use of such weapons, even in such conditions, does not justify the United States for several reasons.

First, the use of atomic weapons fundamentally carries with it at the moment the highest degree of barbarism and the grave consequences of its use. The cost of human lives determines the immorality of this weapon and the severe illnesses of the survivors, the high level of radiation at the site of the bombings, and, accordingly, the inability to use this territory for life or anything else. Second, the military necessity of using atomic weapons has not been proven. There is a point of view that Japan’s surrender would be inevitable very shortly. No wonder further agreements of many countries prohibited nuclear weapons since this is a hazardous type of weapon. Many famous personalities interpreted these bombings as crimes against humanity, state terrorism, or war crimes. Even though these episodes made it possible to end the Second World War, they led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people, including peaceful, unprotected, and uninterested in the war. Any opportunity to decide the outcome of the war in a more relaxed way, the existence of even a slight chance of reducing the number of victims ultimately outweighs the balance in the direction of the action’s illegality. No amount of military action can justify the use of atomic weapons.

Selden, K. I., & Selden, M. (2015). The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki . Routledge.

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IvyPanda . (2022) 'Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombing'. 23 October.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombing." October 23, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/hiroshima-and-nagasaki-bombing/.

1. IvyPanda . "Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombing." October 23, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/hiroshima-and-nagasaki-bombing/.

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IvyPanda . "Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombing." October 23, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/hiroshima-and-nagasaki-bombing/.

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Hiroshima Day - [August 6,1945] Cause & Effect On Hiroshima

What is hiroshima day.

Hiroshima Day is observed on 6th August every year.

The United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 th August 1945 during the course of the Second World War leading to the deaths of over 20,000 soldiers and about 70,000–126,000 civilians. A similar bomb was dropped on another Japanese city of Nagasaki three days later leading to a further 80000 deaths. This was the first and only instance of the usage of nuclear weapons in the world. Read more about this incident for the IAS exam .

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Hiroshima Day – Series of Events

• The war in Europe had concluded after Germany surrendered on 8 th May 1945. But the war in the Pacific continued between the Allies and Japan.
• The Allies asked for an unconditional surrender from Japan at the Potsdam Declaration in July 1945. This ultimatum was, however, ignored by Japan who continued waging the war.
• The US had been developing nuclear weaponry through the Manhattan Project since the 1940s, especially after receiving information that Nazi Germany was also involved in such research. By August, the project had developed two kinds of atomic bombs.
• The US army had created a separate unit in 1944 called the 509 th Composite Group in order to operationalize the nuclear weapons usage in the war.
• After shortlisting five targets, the ‘Target Committee’ selected Hiroshima and Nagasaki because of their importance and industrial and military facilities.
• The orders for the atomic bombs to be used in Japanese cities were issued on July 25 th .
• On 6 th August, a B-29 (US army bomber) dropped the ‘Little Boy’ on Hiroshima. Little Boy was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima which was a uranium gun-type bomb.

Impact of Bombing  – Hiroshima Day

• Between 90000 and 146000 people died in Hiroshima. The city was immediately devastated after the bombing.
• For months after the bombing, people continued to die because of radiation sickness, burns and other wounds. Malnutrition and illness also compounded matters. Although most of the victims were civilians, some military personnel also were killed.

Other Similar Events (Cause & Impact)

• In Nagasaki, which was bombed on 9 th August, about 80000 people were killed. The bomb dropped on this city was nicknamed ‘Fat Man’. It was a plutonium implosion-type bomb.
• On 15 th August 1945, Japan surrendered to the Allies. The War officially ended on 2 nd September when Japan signed the instrument of surrender.
• While many in the US defended its use of the atomic bombs arguing that it brought an end to the war which otherwise would have cost more lives, the legality and ethicality of the use of those weapons are still debated.
• Japan became a pacifist and non-nuclear country as a result of the horrendous effects of nuclear weapons.
• The effects of the radiation on the cities continued for decades with increased risks of cancer, birth defects and other anomalies in the survivors.
• In Japan, the survivors are called ‘Hibakusha’ (Japanese for ‘explosion-affected people’). There is about 650000 Hibakusha recognised by the government.
• Every year, August 6 th is observed as ‘Hiroshima Day’ in memory of the victims.
• The use of atomic bombs by the US also led to the Soviet Union starting its nuclear weapons program. The Soviet Union detonated an atomic bomb in 1949. This was the beginning of the Cold War .

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The legacy of john hersey’s “hiroshima”.

Seventy-five years ago, journalist John Hersey’s article “Hiroshima” forever changed how Americans viewed the atomic attack on Japan.

On August 31, 1946, the editors of The New Yorker  announced that the most recent edition “will be devoted entirely to just one article on the almost complete obliteration of a city by one atomic bomb.” Though President Harry S. Truman had ordered the use of two atomic bombs  on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a year earlier, the staff at The New Yorker  believed that “few of us have yet comprehended the all but incredible destructive power of this weapon, and that everyone might well take time to consider the terrible implications of its use.”

Theirs was a weighty introduction to wartime reporter John Hersey’s four-chapter account of the wreckage of the atomic bomb, but such a warning was necessary for the stories of human suffering The New Yorker ’s readers would be exposed to.

Hersey was certainly not the first journalist to report on the aftermath of the bombs. Stories and newsreels provided details of the attacks: the numbers wounded and dead, the staggering estimated costs—numerically and culturally—of property lost, and some of the visual horrors. But Hersey’s account focused on the human toll of the bombs and the individual stories of six survivors of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima rather than statistics. 

View of Hiroshima after the bombing, courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.

Hersey was both a respected reporter and a gifted novelist, two occupations that provided him with the skills and compassion necessary to write his extensive essay on Hiroshima. Born in Tientsin, China in 1914 to missionary parents, Hersey later returned to the states and graduated from Yale University in 1936. Shortly after, he began a career as a foreign correspondent for Time  and Life  magazines and covered current events in Asia, Italy, and the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1946. Hersey won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel A Bell For Adano  (a story of the Allied occupation of a town in Sicily) in 1944, and his talents for fiction inspired his later nonfiction writing. He spent three weeks in May of 1946 on assignment for The New Yorker  interviewing survivors of the atomic attacks and returned home where he began to write what would become “Hiroshima.”

Hersey was determined to present a real and raw image of the impact of the bomb to American readers. They could not depend on censored materials from the US Occupying Force in Japan to accurately present the wreckage of the atomic blast. Hersey’s graphic and gut-wrenching descriptions of the misery he encountered in Hiroshima offered what officials could not: the human cost of the bomb. He wanted the story of the victims he interviewed to speak for themselves, and to reconstruct in dramatic yet relatable detail their experiences. 

Portrait of John Hersey by Carl Van Vechten from 1958, courtesy of The Library of Congress.

Hersey organized his article around six survivors he met in Hiroshima. These were “ordinary” Japanese with families, friends, and jobs just like Americans. Miss Toshiko Sasaki was a 20 year old former clerk whose leg had been severely damaged by fallen debris during the attack and she was forced to wait for days for medical treatment. Kiyoshi Tanimoto was a pastor of a Methodist Church who appeared to be suffering from “radiation sickness,” a plight that befell another of Hersey’s interviewees, German-born Jesuit Priest Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge. Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura’s husband died while serving with the Japanese army, and she struggled to rebuild her life with her young children after the attack. Finally, two doctors—Masakazu Fujii and Terufumi Sasaki—were barely harmed but witnessed the death and destruction around them as they tended to the victims.

Each of the essay’s four chapters delves into the experiences of the six individuals before, during, and after the bombing, but it’s Hersey’s unembellished language that makes his writing so haunting. Unvarnished descriptions of “pus oozing” from wounds and the stench of rotting flesh are found throughout all of the survivors’ stories. Mr. Tanimoto recounted his search for victims and encountering several naked men and women with “great burns…yellow at first, then red and swollen with skin sloughed off and finally in the evening suppurated and smelly.” Tanimoto—for all of the chaos that surrounded him—recalled that “the silence in the grove by the river, where hundreds of gruesomely wounded suffered together, was one of the most dreadful and awesome phenomena of his whole experience.” 

“The hurt ones were quiet; no one wept, much less screamed in pain; no one complained; none of the many who died did so noisily; not even the children cried; very few people even spoke.” 

John Hershey 

At the same time, Hersey also describes the prevalence of radiation sickness amongst the victims. Many who had suffered no physical injuries, including Mrs. Nakamura, reported feeling nauseated long after the attack. Father Kleinsorge “complained that the bomb had upset his digestion and given him abdominal pains” and his white blood count was elevated to seven times the normal level while he consistently ran a 104 degree temperature. Doctors encountered many instances of what would become known as radiation poisoning but often assured their patients that they would “be out of the hospital in two weeks.” Meanwhile, they told families, “All these people will die—you’ll see. They go along for a couple of weeks and then they die.”

Hersey’s interviews also highlighted the inconceivable impact of the nuclear blast. Americans may have believed that such a powerful explosion would be deafening, but the interviewees offered a different take. More than a sound, most of the interviewees described blinding light at the moment of the attack. Dr. Terufumi Sasaki remembered the light of the bomb “reflected, like a gigantic photographic flash,” through an open window while Father Kleinsorge later realized that the “terrible flash” had “reminded him of something he had read as a boy about a large meteor colliding with the earth.” Hersey’s title of the first chapter is, in fact, “A Noiseless Flash.”

The attack also left a bizarre mark on the landscape. While buildings were reduced to rubble, the power of the bomb “had not only left the underground organs of plants intact; it had stimulated them.” Miss Sasaki was surprised upon her return to Hiroshima in September by the “blanket of fresh, vivid, lush, optimistic green” plants that grew over the destruction and the day lilies that blossomed from the heaps of debris. Others remembered eating pumpkins and potatoes that were perfectly roasted in the ground by the fantastic heat and energy of the bomb.

With its raw descriptions of the terror and destruction faced by the residents of Hiroshima, Hersey’s article broke records for The New Yorker  and became the first human account of the attack for most Americans. All 300,000 editions of The New Yorker  sold out almost immediately. The success of the article resulted in a reprinted book edition in November that continues to be read by many around the world. Meanwhile, Hersey remained relatively removed from his work, refusing most interviews on the book and choosing instead to let the work speak for itself. 

Decades later, his six interviewees remain a human connection to the attacks and the deep, philosophical questions they raised. “A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb, and these six were among the survivors,” Hersey said, leaving them to “still wonder why they lived when so many others died,” or “too busy or too weary or too badly hurt to care that they were the objects of the first great experiment in the use of the atomic power which…no country except the United States, with its industrial know-how, its willingness to throw two billion gold dollars into an important wartime gamble, could possibly have developed.”

This article is part of a series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible by the Department of Defense.

Stephanie Hinnershitz, PhD

Stephanie Hinnershitz is a historian of twentieth century US history with a focus on the Home Front and civil-military relations during World War II.

From Hiroshima to Human Extinction: Norman Cousins and the Atomic Age

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The Most Fearsome Sight: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima

On the morning of August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay  dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

FALLOUT: The Hiroshima Cover-Up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World with Author Lesley Blume

This presentation of FALLOUT , which premiered on the Museum’s Facebook page, recounts how John Hersey got the story that no other journalist could—and how he subsequently played a role in ensuring that no nuclear attack has happened since, possibly saving millions of lives.

Should Atomic Bombs Never Be Used as a Weapon?

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Hiroshima And Nagasaki: 75 Years On World Remembers The Horror

75 years of hiroshima and nagasaki day: on august 9, 1945, the us dropped the second nuclear bomb on nagasaki, three days after hiroshima was destroyed by the first one. this led to japan's unconditional surrender in second world war..

Nagasaki Day 2020 images: On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki was bombed by the US

Nagasaki Day 2020: The pictures of mushroom clouds after the nuclear bombs were detonated by the United States over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan have gone down in history as the worst kind of devastation humans can unleash on earth. On August 9, 1945, the US dropped the second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, three days after Hiroshima was destroyed by the first one - a uranium bomb- 'Little Boy'. Code-named the 'Fat Man', the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, killed over 80,000 people. This led to Japan's unconditional surrender in Second World War. 

At least 70,000 people were killed in the initial blast at Nagasaki, while approximately another 70,000 more died from radiation-related illnesses later. According to the Department of Energy's history of the Manhattan Project, "The five-year death total may have reached or even exceeded 200,000, as cancer and other long-term effects took hold." 

Nagasaki Day 2020 images: Today marks 75 years after the atomic bomb was dropped on the city

A US warplane Enola Gay, dropped the 'Fat Man' at 11:02 am, about 1,650 feet above Nagasaki, known for its beautiful off-shore islands. It was also one of the key shipbuilding centers of Japan. The nuclear bomb unleashed the equivalent force of 22,000 tons of Trinitrotoluene (TNT). 

Today Nagasaki Day is being observed across the world to promote peace and create awareness about the threat of nuclear weapons.

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Nagasaki must forever remain the last city to suffer a nuclear attack. The only way to eliminate the risk of a nuclear detonation is to eliminate nuclear weapons. Urge your government to ratify the UN nuclear weapon ban treaty without delay. #nuclearban #Nagasaki75 pic.twitter.com/Tofw4TJy1n — ICAN (@nuclearban) August 9, 2020   

75 years since the last atomic bombing, let us remain committed to ensuring Nagasaki is the last place on Earth to suffer such devastation. -- @antonioguterres on #Nagasaki75 https://t.co/SGd8B18RGP pic.twitter.com/inXXVsT5IK — United Nations (@UN) August 9, 2020

Nagasaki Day 2020: Quotes to remember

• "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky...That would be like the splendour of the Mighty One...I am become Death, The shatterer of worlds." - J. Robert Oppenheimer
• "If I had foreseen Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I would have torn up my formula in 1905." - Albert Einstein
• "Nagasaki and Hiroshima remind us to put peace first every day; to work on conflict prevention and resolution, reconciliation, and dialogue; and to tackle the roots of conflict and violence." - Antonio Guterres
• "Science has nothing to be ashamed of even in the ruins of Nagasaki. The shame is theirs who appeal to other values than the human imaginative values which science has evolved." - Jacob Bronowski

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Modern-Day Lessons From Hiroshima

A simple plea: don’t forget, and never again..

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Editor’s note:  The below article   first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter,  Our Land . The newsletter   comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial of  Our Land  here .

For four decades, I’ve had a recurring nightmare in which a nuclear blast occurs. The scenario is not always the same. Occasionally, the detonation is an escalation in an ongoing conventional war. More often, it’s a bolt out of the blue: I and others are on the street, and we spot incoming missiles and have but a moment to realize what is about to transpire before the warheads explode.

These dreams began, not surprisingly, when I was a reporter-editor in the 1980s for a now-defunct publication that covered arms control issues. After several years in the job, I found the task of constantly thinking about nuclear warfare psychologically burdensome and moved on—though I have dutifully maintained an interest in the subject. During my stint at that magazine, I met victims of the nuclear era, including downwinders (people suffering severe medical ailments due to exposure to radioactive contamination and nuclear fallout from nuclear tests) and survivors of the US nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Their tales were haunting and cautionary, descriptions of the past and foretellings of a possible and awful future. Given all this, when I visited Japan as a tourist last month, I felt compelled to go to the first of the only two cities that have experienced nuclear devastation.

Hiroshima is a wonderment. At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, on the orders of President Harry Truman, an American B-29 dropped a bomb that contained 141 pounds of uranium-235 over the center of the city. Hiroshima had been selected as a target by a committee comprising military officials and scientists from the Manhattan Project because it was an industrial center and home to a major military command—and its surrounding hills, according to the committee, would likely “produce a focusing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage.” The bomb detonated about 1,900 feet above ground. The blast leveled a 4.5-square-mile area and set off a firestorm that spread throughout the city. Tens of thousands of civilians were incinerated or injured that day. An estimated total of 140,000 Hiroshima residents were killed by the bombing or the ensuing radioactive fallout over the next few months. Many more died in succeeding years.

Today, 79 years later, Hiroshima, founded as a castle town in 1589, is a thriving city of 1 million people that boasts an active port and assorted industrial facilities and that is renowned for its delicious oysters. After the bombing, experts proclaimed that nothing would grow for at least 75 years in the wasteland created. Yet today the main avenue that leads to the blast site—Peace Boulevard—is lined with large leafy trees that were donated to Hiroshima from cities across Japan. And Peace Memorial Park, located where the bomb fell, is lush with flora. On the day I visited, it was full of life and people: families, tourists, young couples, street performers. It is a testament to resilience. What was once a hellscape is now a lovely spot where one can watch a Japanese troupe performing traditional Hawaiian dances alongside the Motoyasu River and eat takeout sushi beneath the iconic Atomic Bomb Dome, the only structure that was left standing in the blast zone. It was hard to reconcile the utter pleasantness of this Saturday morning with the horrific destruction that had occurred here merely a single lifetime ago.

Children playing beneath the Atomic Bomb Dome

The resurrection of Hiroshima—evidence that the greatest of calamities can be surmounted—is not the only lesson the city offers. The Peace Park is home to several memorials and a museum each designed to convey the message that the horrors of nuclear warfare must not be forgotten and, moreover, must be prevented by the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons. At the Children’s Peace Monument, glass booths are full of thousands of colorful paper cranes—a symbol of peace—folded and sent in from kids around the globe.

The Children’s Peace Monument features booths with thousands of colorful paper cranes—a symbol of peace—folded and sent to Hiroshima by kids around the world.

The years since the bombings, the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have not wallowed in victimhood. Instead, they have attempted to use their experiences to serve as peace advocates and messengers warning of the immense danger of nuclear weapons. The Hiroshima Peace Museum chronicles the nightmarish details of what occurred on August 6. It is full of harrowing descriptions of individual deaths. The museum displays the two known photographs from that day, showing survivors seeking assistance. More disturbing are the many drawings from people who lived through the blast. They depict scenes of a previously unfathomable human-made inferno showing, for example, civilians—men, women, and children—on fire. (There were many children in the center of Hiroshima that day, enlisted for work crews that were razing buildings to create fire breaks in case the Allies added Hiroshima to the list of cities targeted for their ongoing firebombing campaign.) Display cases contain artifacts of the blast: a melted Buddha, the charred uniform of a schoolchild, a kitchen clock stopped at 8:15.

One of the many drawings made by Hiroshima survivors on display at the Hiroshima Peace Museum

The museum presents the stories of scores of victims, including those later stricken by cancer and other diseases caused by radioactive poisoning. (Hiroshima has strived to identify all 140,000 victims, and these names are contained in a crypt in the park, close to the museum. Inscribed on this tomb: “Let all souls here rest in peace; for we shall not repeat the evil.”) It’s unsettling, as it should be, to confront such graphic accounts of carnage and pain. (As I noted last year , the blockbuster  Oppenheimer  film mistakenly opted not to include any scenes depicting the death and destruction caused by the bombing.) With its intent to share the full horror of the bombing, the museum is not for the faint of heart. But at the end of the exhibition, a visitor is guided to a room dedicated to efforts to reduce and eliminate the world’s nuclear arsenal. It describes the global lobbying work of Hiroshima and Nagasaki officials and residents who for decades have been pressing for nuclear disarmament. Their simple plea: Don’t forget and never again.

The tomb in Hiroshima’s Peace Park contains the names of the 140,000 victims of the atomic bombing.

A sidenote: Everyone gets to write their own history. One display in the museum explains that the United States decided to use the A-bomb because it believed that “ending the war with an atomic bombing would help prevent the Soviet Union from extending its sphere of influence” and that this would “also help the US government justify to the American people the tremendous cost of atomic bomb development.” These might have been factors in the decision, but this simple explanation leaves out Truman and his advisers’ desire to end World War II and avoid a massive and costly invasion of Japan, which was refusing to surrender unconditionally. I’ve long been sympathetic to the argument that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not justified, but it was bemusing to see how the custodians of Hiroshima contend with this question.

That exhibit highlighted the  Franck Report , a document signed by a number of nuclear physicists who recommended in June 1945 that the United States not deploy the atomic bomb against Japan. It cited this passage: We believe that these considerations make the use of nuclear bombs for an early, unannounced attack against Japan inadvisable. If the United States would be the first to release this new means of indiscriminate destruction upon mankind, she would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race of armaments, and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control of such weapons.

That was rather prescient.

It is moving and inspiring to see how Hiroshima has combined its remembrance of the atomic bombing with a passionate call for action to prevent any future use of nuclear weapons. And that means finding ways to avoid war. While absorbing the horrendous accounts in the museum, it was tough not to think about other bombings of civilian targets—past and present—that have caused tremendous casualties. (The American firebombing of Tokyo on a single night in March 1945 killed 100,000 civilians and left 1 million homeless.) This obviously includes Israel’s assault on Gaza following the October 7 attack from Hamas. The images we see of destruction in the Palestinian territory are not dissimilar to those of Hiroshima.

If the world cannot move beyond the use of war, the odds are that one day the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be repeated—and probably on a much larger scale. In March, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the architect of the brutal and criminal invasion of Ukraine,  said  that he was “ready” for nuclear war if American troops were deployed to Russia in that conflict. Earlier this year, the  Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists   noted  that its Doomsday Clock—which characterizes the threat to the planet from nuclear weapons—is still set at 90 seconds to midnight.

The museum and the memorials in the Peace Park tell a blended story of human darkness and human hope. The United States caused terrible suffering and colossal damage—demonstrating what could become the fate of the world—and the victims responded by assuming the grand task of trying to protect others from such a catastrophe. A plaque in the museum describes the mission of Hiroshima:

On August 6, 1947, Hiroshima city delivers its first Peace Declaration. Ever since, the city has been telling the world about the reality of the A-bomb damage and calling for lasting world peace…Nuclear weapons and humankind cannot coexist indefinitely. Today more than ever, we must all embrace the A-bomb survivors’ desire to ensure that no one else will suffer their pain and sorrow. We must inherit their determination and pass it on to future generations.

My trip to Hiroshima felt like a pilgrimage. As I walked through the museum (packed with visitors, mainly Japanese) and strolled in the Peace Park, I wondered if this visit would trigger the return of that all-too-familiar nightmare. Yet there was something reassuring—and, yes, peaceful—in experiencing a collective witnessing of this catastrophe and in seeing the transformation of an apocalypse into a splendid site of community gathering. Hiroshima is certainly a reminder that we live in a world imperiled by nuclear arsenals and that we have yet to fully address that danger—and that human cruelty can be excessive and that the total annihilation of human civilization remains a possibility. But the city’s commemoration of the tragedy has a beautiful side. And so far, no nightmares.

David Corn’s  American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy ,   a  New York Times  bestseller, is available in a new and expanded paperback  edition.

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Japan FM reacts to US Senate atomic bombings remarks

Japan's foreign minister has reacted to a discussion in the US Senate that touched on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombings were invoked during a debate over US military support for Israel in its fight against Hamas.

It happened during a Senate subcommittee hearing on Wednesday involving the partial suspension of American arms shipments. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has urged weapon deliveries be resumed, referring to the atomic bombings in 1945.

The senator said: "Give Israel what they need to fight the war they can't afford to lose. This is Hiroshima and Nagasaki on steroids."

At one point, Graham pressed senior US defense officials on whether they thought the use of nuclear weapons was justified.

Graham asked, "In hindsight do you think that was the right decision for America to drop two atomic bombs on Japanese cities in question?"

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Gen. Charles Q. Brown answered, "I'll tell you it stopped a world war."

Graham then asked US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: "Do you agree General Austin? If you'd been around, would you say drop them?"

Austin replied, "I agree with the Chairman here."

On Friday, Japanese Foreign Minister Kamikawa Yoko was asked for her thoughts on those remarks by a reporter. She said: "I believe those remarks about Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not appropriate. Japan is aware that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took so many precious lives and caused an extremely regrettable humanitarian situation in which people suffered indescribable hardships due to illness and disabilities."

The foreign minister added: "As the government has been saying for a long time, we believe the use of nuclear weapons does not match the spirit of humanitarianism, which is the ideological foundation of international law, because of their tremendous destructive and lethal power."

Kamikawa said Tokyo conveyed that view to Washington, as well as to the office of Senator Graham.

Here's Why 'Oppenheimer' Doesn't Show the Hiroshima or Nagasaki Bombings

By avoiding a direct depiction of the bombings, the film puts a spotlight on Oppenheimer's loss of control.

The Big Picture

• Christopher Nolan's film Oppenheimer focuses on the man himself and his distance from the violence of the atomic bombings.
• The movie doesn't show the bombings but instead highlights Oppenheimer's inner turmoil and diminishing power.
• Oppenheimer's guilt is partly self-serving, and he struggles to face the actual consequences of the bomb.

Christopher Nolan 's Golden Globe-winning film about the "father of the atomic bomb," Oppenheimer , follows J. Robert Oppenheimer (brilliantly played by Cillian Murphy ) from his beginnings in academia through the Manhattan Project, culminating in a dramatic fall from grace engineered by government bureaucrats when he starts speaking out against his most famous invention . Based on an 800-page, Pulitzer-winning biography called American Prometheus , Oppenheimer is scrupulous in its detail: care is taken to avoid composite characters, and everything from a New Mexico camping trip to an impulsive apple poisoning is included. It has everything, in fact, but the bombings themselves . Nolan shows the first test in an awe-inspiring set piece; he shows us the political sausage-making ahead of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the toll the attack takes on Oppenheimer’s psyche; he even shows us the horrific effects of the bomb in one of Oppenheimer’s nightmarish, stress-induced hallucinations, depicting the flesh melting off of a woman’s body before Oppenheimer steps over a charred carcass. But Nolan never shows us the Enola Gay dropping its payload, or the quiet summer days shattered by the terrifying new weapon. Instead, we see Oppenheimer awake in the small hours of the morning, waiting for the speech from Harry S. Truman , which declared that the United States “spent $2 billion on the greatest scientific gamble in history — and won.”

Oppenheimer

The story of American scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.

Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer' Stresses the Scientist's Distance From the Violence

To some, this may seem like an egregious oversight. While a pop culture website is no place to hash out the ethics of nuclear warfare, the bombing of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was undeniably barbaric . Even if it was necessary to save the lives of millions in a more conventional invasion (which is debatable), it was an act of staggering violence that, as with the Trail of Tears and Abu Ghraib, every American citizen must come to terms with. Clothing patterns were seared into the skin, for crying out loud — should the guilt of the white guy who invented the bomb be given more weight than the hundreds of thousands who died in agony?

The answer, of course, is no. But the interesting thing about Oppenheimer , and part of what makes it an all-time great biopic, is that it doesn’t suggest otherwise. In fact, that sense of removal from the carnage is part of the film’s whole point . There’s a reason why the film is called Oppenheimer , rather than American Prometheus or Destroyer of Worlds or something: it is intensely focused on the man himself, to the point where much of the script is written in the first person . Rather than “Oppenheimer walks across the room,” it might read “I walk across the room” — an unorthodox approach for a screenplay, to say the least. As the leader of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, he is in full control of what happens: he makes personnel decisions, steers the project in one direction or another, and asserts himself with confidence against brusque military man Leslie Groves ( Matt Damon ). Like some combination of a mayor and a conductor, Oppenheimer shepherds the bomb to a successful test — and then begins to learn just how little control he has over his invention.

'Oppenheimer' Review: Christopher Nolan Delivers His Most Colossal and Mature Film Yet

Fat Man and Little Boy are loaded into a military convoy, and Oppenheimer asks Groves (who has proven himself to be a staunch, if grouchy, ally) if he’ll be needed in Washington. “Why?” Groves responds, and what stings is that it’s a genuine question: as far as the military is concerned, the scientist’s work is done . While Oppenheimer does end up in a Cabinet meeting ahead of the attacks, his input is limited, and the discussion of possible targets reveals how capricious the whole enterprise really is: Secretary of War Henry Stimson ( James Remar ) spares the city of Kyoto because he went on a honeymoon there with his wife. (This is admittedly not entirely true — Stimson feared the galvanizing effect an attack on such a culturally important city might have on the Japanese, but it’s a disquieting example of America’s thoughtless power all the same.)

Oppenheimer's Guilt Was Partially Self-Serving

The bombings occur, and because Oppenheimer doesn’t see them, we don’t see them. We see his inner turmoil, certainly, but he has no inside information at this point: as Nolan points out , he’s in the same boat as the average civilian at home . When Oppenheimer approaches President Truman ( Gary Oldman ) with concerns that he has “blood on his hands,” Truman responds with scorn. “Do you think the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki give a shit who made the bomb?” he sneers, before dismissing the scientist as a “crybaby.” It’s shockingly callous, but further illustrates Oppenheimer’s diminishing power while also pointing towards another potent theme: guilt, consequences, and how much (or how little) they really matter.

Oppenheimer has plenty to feel guilty about, even before he successfully tests the atomic bomb: his love affair with Jean Tatlock ( Florence Pugh ) leads to her death, whether by suicide or homicide, and his work on the Manhattan Project makes him an absent husband for his wife Kitty ( Emily Blunt ) . By the time the bomb is made and the U.S. military makes use of it, he’s a haunted husk of a man, gaunt and distant with a thousand-yard stare. He tries to tell anyone who will listen about the dangers of the hydrogen bomb and nuclear proliferation, and it’s clear that he sincerely believes what he’s saying. But there’s a self-serving element to his public penance, as well, which both Kitty and Oppenheimer’s nemesis Lewis Strauss ( Robert Downey Jr. ) point out. “You don’t get to commit the sin and have the rest of us feel sorry for you for there being consequences,” Kitty tells Oppenheimer; she’s speaking in the context of her husband’s affair with Tatlock, but it rings true for the creation of the bomb, as well.

There is only one point in the movie where Oppenheimer is directly faced with the horrors of the nuclear bomb. Unseen to the audience, a presenter goes through slides of photographs taken in the aftermath of Hiroshima, showing an auditorium of people (including Oppenheimer) the effects of firestorms and radiation poisoning. And despite his lamentations, despite his hand-wringing, despite his genuine fear for the future of humanity, Oppenheimer can’t bring himself to look . This one moment is more impactful — and more damning — than any dutiful depiction of an atrocity would be.

Oppenheimer is now available to stream on Peacock in the U.S.

Rent on Peacock

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“This is Hiroshima and Nagasaki on steroids”: Lindsey Graham rails against U.S. pausing shipments of bombs to Israel.

• Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday questioned senior defense leadership about the United States pausing the shipment of thousands of bombs to Israel — and he appeared to make a comparison to World War II while doing so.

“Would you have supported dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... to end World War II? … Do you think that was disproportionate?” the Republican from South Carolina asked Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Charles Q. Brown Jr. and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing about the fiscal year 2025 budget request.

“Well, I'll tell you: it stopped the World War,” Brown said.

“I agree with chairman here,” Austin said. “I think the leadership was interested in curtailing —”

“Well, what's Israel interested in?” Graham said, before he brought up Israel facing several threats in the region.

“Israel's been hit in the last few weeks by Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, dedicated to their destruction. And you're telling me you're going to tell them how to fight the war, and what they can and can't use when everybody around them wants to kill all the Jews?” Graham said, a reference to the pause on arms transfers. “And you're telling me that if we withhold weapons in this fight — the existential fight for the life of the Jewish state — it won't send the wrong signal?”

“If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the state of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price. This is obscene. It is absurd,” Graham continued. “Give Israel what they need to fight the war they can’t afford to lose. This is Hiroshima and Nagasaki on steroids.”

The U.S. confirmed Tuesday that it paused the shipment of thousands of weapons to Israel last week, including 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, amid concerns about an expanding Israeli military operation in the Gazan city of Rafah that experts warn could lead to a dramatically higher civilian death toll. A U.S. official reportedly said the Biden administration is concerned about how Israel would use the larger bombs in a dense urban setting. It’s the first confirmed time the United States has paused sending arms since Israel’s invasion of Gaza following Hamas’ October 7th terrorist attacks. The U.S. is reportedly also reviewing other planned transfers.

It’s not clear whether these shipments would resume down the line. The U.S. has provided Israel with tens of thousands of bombs and missiles since the war began. Last month, Congress approved another $14 billion in military aid, which is not affected by this pause.

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Transcript: Sen. Chris Van Hollen on "Face the Nation," May 12, 2024

Updated on: May 12, 2024 / 12:38 PM EDT / CBS News

The following is a transcript of an interview with Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, that aired on May 12, 2024.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And we go now to Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen. Senator, the White House is continuing to send weapons to Israel. But as you've heard the Secretary of State say they're narrowly tailoring this to withhold specific kinds of munitions. Does this policy and the administration's explanation of it make sense to you?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Margaret, it's good to be with you and Happy Mother's Day. And let me just say that, you know, Senator Cotton totally misrepresented the position of President Biden and the Biden administration. So I think the President is absolutely right to withhold these big, big bombs that could be used in Rafah. Remember, the president of the United States warned Prime Minister Netanyahu repeatedly that if there was an all out invasion in Rafah that the United States would make policy changes and Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly ignored the President of the United States, ignored the President's efforts to try to reduce civilian casualties, ignored our efforts to try to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza and ignored the priority of trying to bring back the hostages. So yes, I support the President's actions here. I thought that were very important to take. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: You though, were part of this national security memorandum that we talked about with the Secretary, you help tailor it and you said after it came out, that the expertise and analysis of the State Department has been swept aside to facilitate a predetermined policy outcome based on political convenience. Are you saying that Secretary- the Secretary of State's inability to conclude anything in this report is a political choice, not based on fact?

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: Well, I believe the facts and the law show what a lot of independent groups that the administration often relies on shows. So Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, an independent task force that was established to review the facts and the law, all concluded that you look at some of these incidents these clearly were violations of international humanitarian law. So while I appreciate the fact that as Secretary Blinken said, the administration determined that it was reasonable to conclude that violations of international law had- had happened. I think there's enough on the books to be able to point to specific cases and make specific determinations. And on that score, the administration did duck the hard questions.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, specifically, do you fear that this report helped essentially give political cover to Prime Minister Netanyahu to continue to do what he's doing?

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: Well, I fear that by not providing an unvarnished accounting of the facts and the law, we have essentially stated that what is happening in Gaza- so for example, with respect to the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and the total restriction of delivery of humanitarian assistance since the beginning of the war, by not calling that out flatly and saying that there have been arbitrary restrictions put on it, I fear that we have set a very, very low bar.  A very low standard for what's acceptable, and I think that will come back to haunt us. So yes, Margaret, I worry that we didn't call out very clearly, the fact that those restrictions on humanitarian assistance, which is leading to hundreds of thousands of people on the verge of starvation, over 25 people already starve to death, including kids. I do worry that that has essentially allowed a low bar to go without pointing it out very clearly.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But this week, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley said, "before we get self righteous about what Israel is doing", we shouldn't forget the US killed a lot of innocent people in Iraq, in Syria. He said the US killed 12,000 Innocent French civilians, bombed Hiroshima, Nagasaki, 69 Japanese cities. What do you make of statements like that? Because Prime Minister Netanyahu says something very similar.

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: Well, Margaret, there's no doubt that- excuse me, that the United States has not been perfect- far from perfect. But since World War Two, we've adopted many more measures to try to restrict civilian harm and we try to improve it all the time. And of course, after World War Two, the world adopted the fourth article of the Geneva Conventions which is designed specifically to protect civilians at war. So, you know, Milley can talk about the things that happened in World War Two, but the world tried to learn some of the lessons after World War Two. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. We're gonna take a break and come back and finish this conversation, Senator. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

MARGARET BRENNAN: And welcome back to Face the Nation. We return now to our conversation with Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen. Senator, we've been talking about the Biden administration. But I want to refer to what's happening in our own domestic politics right now, related to Gaza. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on another network this week that the failed diplomacy of her husband's administration was a the best missed opportunity for a Palestinian state. She's said that before. But she said student protesters don't know very much about the history of the Middle East or, frankly, about history in many areas of the world, including in our own country. What do you make of the characterization and the concerns right now, among so many young voters?

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: Well, I thought, Margaret, that Secretary Clinton's comments, in that regard, were quite dismissive of students' concerns about the awful humanitarian crisis and high civilian death toll in Gaza. And I should point out that we should be held to keep two ideas in our head at the same time. One is the right of Americans to peacefully protest, but also the need to make sure that students feel safe on campus. And of course, we also need to make sure that we stamp out antisemitism and hate wherever we see it. But I believe that the great majority of the students are protesting, are following very closely what's happening in Gaza. They see what's a very high civilian death toll. And so we can certainly revisit history and past negotiations. But I believe that the overwhelming majority of the students, not all and there are some, there are some very bad elements that are involved, as well as on the counter protests side. But I believe that the students do understand what's happening in Gaza with respect to the civilian casualties.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Van Hollen, thank you very much for your insight today and your reaction. And we'll be back with more Face the Nation-- 

SEN. VAN HOLLEN: -- Thank you, Margaret. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: -- and a very special Mother's Day story.

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