August 6th, 1945 ; Atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima

BBC News History ^ | 8/6/06 | BBC News

[DustyMoment]

We had four of them. One was Trinity, one was Little Boy, one was Fat Man and the fourth was unused.

Sorry, we had only two. The others were used in tests prior to dropping Little Boy. Truman gambled that Little Boy would force Japan to capitulate and, when it didn't, he authorized Dropping Fat Man and crossed his fingers. There was nothing else in the pipeline had the Japanese not capitulated on August 12th.

[oh8eleven]

Thanks, apparently that a-bomb had no name (?).

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

No, there was a fourth.

And as pointed out the pipeline would have been churning out more of them just as fast as they could. All the components were in place and they could turn out about two a month.

[JewishRighter]

Here's a Hiroshima pic, you can plainly see the previous post is not Hiroshima.

[DustyMoment]

Let me try this again:

Oh there would have been some that would have fought on until they were all dead no doubt about it.

In the 1970s, the last two surviving members of Japan's Imperial Army surrendered.

Now you can pick up the rest of the story from my previous comment. Don't know what happened to the post.

The families of the two Japanese soldiers had no idea what happened to them and were elated to have them returned alive to Japan. The men were welcome in Tokyo be a huge crowd of family and well-wishers and were treated to a pleasant retirement.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

See post #55.

There were four bombs built with uranium that we got from Canada. There was only one test.

There were more in the pipeline and we did continue to build them until the 1946 test at Bikini Atoll when we abandon atom for nuclear.

Hanford was turning out enough plutonium to produce one bomb a week. Maybe no more Little Boy's but we could have produced a multitude of Fat Man.

[COEXERJ145]

With the exception of the bomb Tibbets had sent the B-29’s to pick up, it is likely the targets for the remaining atomic bombs wouldn’t have been cities. (There weren’t that many left intact anymore.) That bomb was likely destined for Kokura which was actually the primary target for Bock’s Car. The remainder very well might have been used in the tactical role rather than the strategic role.

[COEXERJ145]

No, it didn't have a name. It was simply another Mark-III weapon aka "Fat Man."

[DustyMoment]

Maybe no more Little Boy's but we could have produced a multitude of Fat Man.

You're right. My post was intended to say that, at that time, there were no more in the pipeline. I didn't intend to convey that we were, essentially, done. I thought it, I just didn't put it in my post. Aren't you psychic eneough to sense that!!?? :-)

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Very possible.

Of course with taking out those two cities we had taken out much of Japan's ability to rebuild.

The other three cities that were considered for atomic bombing were Kyoto, Kokura and Niigata.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

LOL! I never claimed to be Miss Cleo.

[Heatseeker]

Yes, good picture: here is another one in a before/after animation showing the damage over the target area, from a DOE site on the Manhattan Project; I've linked to it rather than display it as some people may find the animation annoying:

Hiroshima Before and After

[COEXERJ145]

Kyoto was actually not an atomic target although Groves had wanted it to be the primary target for the first bomb.

Quoting from my senior thesis:

When Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson was shown the list of selected targets, he immediately focused on Kyoto. Stimson was adamant that it be removed from the target list. Groves explained that it would be the best target because of its large geographical size and population of more than one million. This would allow for easy measuring of the blast effects because it was so large and not separated by any significant bodies of water. Kyoto also had a large industrial infrastructure that was without doubt producing war materials. Nevertheless, Stimson was not going to allow Kyoto to be used as an atomic target. “The reason for his objection was that Kyoto was the ancient capital of Japan, a historical city, and one that was of great religious significance to the Japanese.” (Groves 1962, 273-274)

Even though Stimson had put Kyoto off limits, Groves continued to attempt to persuade him otherwise. While Stimson was at the Potsdam conference, Groves tried yet again to have Kyoto designated the primary target. The message that came back, this time from President Truman, stated Kyoto would not be touched. That telegram saved Kyoto from any risk of being an atomic target but almost caused it to be burned to ashes by conventional fire bomb raids. With Kyoto removed from the list of atomic targets, it was no longer protected from General LeMay’s B-29's which were starting their fire bombing campaign against Japan. When General Groves realized this, he contacted General Hap Arnold who insured that Kyoto would technically remain on the target list even though it was no longer being considered for atomic attack. (Groves 1962, 274-276) A replacement was needed now that Kyoto was removed from the list of targets. In its place, the city of Nagasaki was chosen but as a Class B Target. (Groves 1962, 309-310) An irony of the Manhattan Project is that it developed and deployed a weapon that could destroy a city with a single blast but in the process saved Kyoto and several other Japanese cities from destruction by B-29 fire bomb raids. Every city on the list would survive the war except the two destroyed by the atomic bombs.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Another event that happen on this date.First use of the electric chair in the United States (1890)***

Let's see, Thomas Edison promoted DC electric while Westinghouse promoted AC current.
Edison set up the first electric chair in AC to prove AC was too dangerous to use.

It took several tries to kill the prisoner, causing some reporters to flee the area.

AC won and that is why we use Ac today instead of DC. AC was also changable for long distance travel using transformers to up the voltage.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Very nice!

But I said it was considered and it was. Like you say it was taken off the list but if Japan had not surrendered who knows? It might have been put back on.

For sure one more city would have been gone. How many after that we can only speculate.

[Ready4Freddy]

As bandleader pointed out, Truman made the announcement while returning to the US on the Northampton class heavy cruiser Augusta from the Potsdam Conference. He made the decision to drop the bomb while in Germany.

The Augusta served as FDR's & Truman's flagship, and carried quite a few other notables in its day (Omar Bradley and his staff at Normandy). Served in both the Pacific and Atlantic, at Operation Torch and Overlord. A storied ship.

[Ready4Freddy]

Looks like Made In USA is 'pulling a Rooters' on us to keep us on our toes! ;>)

[Chode]

figgured it was just a misclick... 8^)

[Heatseeker]

An easy mistake to make - there are lots of sites that have got mushroom-cloud pictures mis-labeled as being from Hiroshima or Nagasaki for example. A particular favorite of mine, which I now can't find to cite, has a picture from the Hardtack Juniper shot, with a USAF B-57 Canberra in the foreground, as being the Nagasaki blast. ;)

[Copernicus]

There was a fair amount of tension between Tibbets and Sweeney after his (Sweeney's) run.

In one version of the Enola Gay Tibbets is muted on Sweeney's performance and in another he rips him as incompetent and a screwup.

Best regards,