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

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

[rottndog]

Is it August 6th again already....

Happy Hiroshima Day!!!!

[Heatseeker]

Actually that is a picture of Wesel, Germany, after allied bombing, as can be seen by the many smaller impact craters in the image.

The image can be viewed on its Wikipedia page.

[ncountylee]

Thank you President Truman, you saved the lives of 2 of my uncles along with hundreds of thousands of other brave men.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The US certainly prepared for it. Thousands of troops and many ships were to embark from Rough and Ready Island, up river at Stockton, California, for the assault. Travel time from SF to Yokohama would have been about 15 days.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

We only had two - after Nagasaki there were no more.

Not exactly true. We had four of them. One was Trinity, one was Little Boy, one was Fat Man and the fourth was unused.

After that we had no more sitting in storage but making more was quite possible.

[bandleader]

The "Euro-Weenies"(etcetera,ad nauseum)of today would characterize this as a"Disprortionate Response"!In their eyes,we should have waited for Germany and Japan to acquire nukes so they could hit us back????

[bandleader]

The man who was to become my father had(finally)been drafted in March,1945.His designation was I.R(infantry replacement).He was(because of the atom bombs)able to marry the young woman who would become my mother at Camp Croft,Spartanburg,S.C.on Oct. 10th,1945!

[bandleader]

Would he be on his way to(or from)Potsdam?

[bandleader]

Another good one is"At War's End"by Major General Charles W.Sweeney(USAF,retired).He flew"chase"that day and then flew"Bock's Car"(Nagasaki).That plane can be seen at Wright-Patterson AFB.

[bandleader]

That's a VERY interesting assessment!I always felt it was the bombs!!You are undoubtedly CORRECT!!!

[bandleader]

I think you are making reference to that"Disproportionate Respone"BullSh*T?

[DustyMoment]

In the book "Meeting at Potsdam" the author (whose name I have regrettably forgotten) documented that Truman authorized dropping the bombs in Japan for two reasons. First among them was to lock the Russians out of the spoils of Japan. The negotiations at Potsdam over dividing the spoils of Europe were rancorous at times at times, because FDR had never shared any of the details of the Yalta and Malta conferences with Truman. As a result, what often happened was that proposals Truman made for dividing Europe were greeted with a response from Stalin along the lines of "That's not what we agreed at Yalta (or Malta)". Truman didn't want to deal with Stalin again over Japan.

While dropping both bombs on Japan was an extraordinary gamble (considering they were all we had in our arsenal), the gamble paid off when the Japanese capitulated 3 days after the bombing of Nagasaki, on August 12th.

I have visited both Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima - a journey I highly recommend. The war museum in Hiroshima is particularly noteworthy. If you want to understand why nuclear war should be avoided whenever possible, visit this museum. It's exhibits from the atomic bomb are both sobering and chilling.

[COEXERJ145]

We only had two - after Nagasaki there were no more.

There was one more bomb and Col. Tibbets had sent three B-29’s back the United States to bring it out to Tinian. However, General Groves (The head of the Manhattan Engineer District) had ordered all shipments of atomic weapons to the Pacific halted for several days to see if Japan would surrender.

At the same time, the scientists at Los Alamos were working to construct new bombs are rapidly as possible. They would have had anywhere from 4 to 10 completed by the end of 1945.

[DustyMoment]

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

In IEmperial Army surrendered and were repatriated. They had spent 30 years by themselves on a remote island, not knowing that the war had ended. They were cutoff from all communications and were the last surviving members of their units.

[AmishDude]

Let us not forget that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate military targets. They were both shipbuilding and industrial cities which were a direct part of the Japanese war machine and would have been attacked by conventional means anyway, if there had been an invasion.

There's a reason we talk about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and not Tokyo and Osaka.

[Heatseeker]

No problem, I missed the fact that Chode had already caught it.

[oh8eleven]

One was Trinity, one was Little Boy, one was Fat Man and the fourth was unused.
IIRC, Trinity was the very first A-bomb that was named for the Trinity test site in NM where it was detonated. I still believe the two we used in Japan were it, but could be wrong.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

At the same time, the scientists at Los Alamos were working to construct new bombs are rapidly as possible. They would have had anywhere from 4 to 10 completed by the end of 1945.

That fits with what I was taught.

As the invasion of Japan was scheduled for November of 1945 there was time to have atomized at least 4 more Japanese cities before the invasion was even possible.

Even if the coup had succeeded I don't think it would have been able to hold on to power with the destruction of four more cities.