M’ARTHUR ASSUMES RYUKYUS COMMAND TO PREPARE ‘FINAL CONQUEST OF JAPAN’ (8/5/45)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 8/5/45 | W.H. Lawrence, Frank L. Kluckhohn, John H. Crider, Charles Hurd, Albert H. Morehead, Benjamin Fine

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

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[PeterPrinciple]

Was on the Indianapolis and gave McVay his orders:

You will sail at high speed to Tinian where your cargo will be taken off by others. You will not be told what the cargo is, but it is to be guarded even after the life of your vessel. If she goes down, save the cargo at all costs, in a lifeboat if necessary. And every day you save on your voyage will cut the length of the war by just that much.[63]

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I wonder if there might be some echos of those orders still in McVays mind as he left Tinian for his next assignment, influencing his decision not to zig zag. Of course those orders were classified.

[PeterPrinciple]

Here are a couple more for you to despise from the book:

Let us sample what Japanese historians have written. A
widely read survey by Toyama Shigeki et al, Showashi [History
of the Showa period] (1959), quotes Blackett approvingly:
“The dropping of the atomic bombs was not so much the last
military act of the Second World War as the first major operation
of the Cold War with Russia.”19 The “atomic diplomacy”
thesis has filtered down even to junior high school history textbooks.
A typical sample reads: “As the Soviet Union’s entry into
the war became imminent, the United States dropped the
atomic bombs to gain supremacy over the Soviet Union after
the war.”20

Among monographs, perhaps the most quoted book is
Nishijima Ariatsu’s Gembaku wa naze toka saretaka? [Why were
the atomic bombs dropped?], originally published in 1968 and
reissued in 1985. Recapitulating the Blackett thesis, Nishijima
argues that “the most important thing” was that Hiroshima-
Nagasaki residents were “killed as human guinea pigs for the
sake of [America’s] anti-Communist, hegemonic policy.”21S imilarly,
Taiheiyo sensoshi [A history of the Pacific War] (1973),
compiled by a group of left-wing historians, states that “500,000
citizens [of Hiroshima and Nagasaki] were utterly meaninglessly
sacrificed for America’s cruel political purposes.”22 Here,
the sense of victimization takes precedence over historical
analysis.

[PeterPrinciple]

But it wasn’t for a week or two afterward that people began dying from lack of an immune system. The intense burst of radiation had destroyed their bone marrow, and without a functioning immune system, the Japanese were defenseless against the onslaught of germs our bodies slough off every day. The loss of platelets caused them to suffer and die from internal hemorrhage.

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Time has made fun of “duck and cover” and underground bomb shelters. But it is my understanding that these measures did work and we learned this in the aftermath.

[PeterPrinciple]

There were many details and activities of the Atomic Bomb that we don’t think about. Support for the idea of 3 bombs noted. They thought about evacuating 20,000 personnel on takeoff from Tinian. If you forget your parachute, you don’t get on the plane. At the end of the project some items were dumped at sea.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Alberta

Project Alberta

Project Alberta was formed in March 1945, and consisted of 51 United States Army, Navy, and civilian personnel, including one British scientist. Its mission was three-fold. It first had to design a bomb shape for delivery by air, then procure and assemble it. It supported the ballistic testing work at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, conducted by the 216th Army Air Forces Base Unit (Project W-47), and the modification of B-29s to carry the bombs (Project Silverplate). After completion of its development and training missions, Project Alberta was attached to the 509th Composite Group at North Field, Tinian, where it prepared facilities, assembled and loaded the weapons, and participated in their use.

..........................
Ramsey overcame the problem of how to ship through the San Francisco Port of Embarkation. The port wanted a detailed list of what was being sent so it could track it to ensure delivery, but what needed to be shipped was still subject to last-minute change. He simply designated everything as a “bomb assembly kit”. Three of these, one for Little Boy, one for Fat Man and one spare, were shipped to Tinian, which was now codenamed Destination O, commencing in May. Kirkpatrick arranged for everything to be shipped direct to Tinian
.......
One serious incident occurred when a Pumpkin bomb was released in the bomb bay of the B-29 Strange Cargo while it was taxiing. The bomb fell though the closed bomb bay doors onto the taxiway.[35] The plane came to a halt in a shower of sparks, but fire fighters doused the plane and the bomb in foam, and the bomb did not explode. The aircraft had to be jacked up to remove the bomb.[36]
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In the space of a week on Tinian, four B-29s crashed and burned on the runway. Parsons became very concerned. If a B-29 crashed with a Little Boy, the fire could cook off the explosive and detonate the weapon, with catastrophic consequences.[44] Consideration was given to evacuating the 20,000 personnel on Tinian from the island, but instead it was decided to load the four cordite powder bags into the gun breech to arm the bomb in flight.[45
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Purnell, Parsons, Tibbets, Spaatz and Curtis LeMay met on Guam on 7 August, the day after the Hiroshima attack, to discuss what should be done next. Parsons said that Project Alberta would have a Fat Man bomb ready by 11 August, as originally planned, but Tibbets pointed to weather reports indicating poor flying conditions on that day due to a storm, and asked if it could be readied by 9 August. Parsons agreed to do so.[53]
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Project Alberta’s Robert Serber was supposed to be on board but was left behind by the aircraft commander, Group Operations Officer Major James I. Hopkins, Jr., because he had forgotten his parachute.
.......
The unused F101, F102 and F103 assemblies were packed along with spare components and shipped back to Los Alamos. For security reasons, components not returned to the United States were dumped at sea.[59]

[PeterPrinciple]

I wonder what a bangometer was? Forgot to take the lens cap off?

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Four other members of Project Alberta flew on the Hiroshima mission. Luis Alvarez, Harold Agnew and Lawrence H. Johnston were on the instrument plane The Great Artiste. They dropped “Bangometer” canisters to measure the force of the blast, but this was not used to calculate the yield at the time.[48] Bernard Waldman was the camera operator on the observation aircraft. He was equipped with a special high-speed Fastax movie camera with six seconds of film in order to record the blast. Unfortunately, Waldman forgot to open the camera shutter, and no film was exposed.[49

[henkster]

“Duck and cover” worked if you were outside the main blast area and likely to survive anyway. Concrete shelters provided some protection closer in. But while they enhanced survivability for people, the point was that a thermonuclear exchange between the United States and Soviet Union was going to destroy the nation’s industrial and commercial fabric. Surviving the blast didn’t mean surviving a year.

The USSR placed more emphasis on a robust Civil Defense program than the United States. They believed they could actually come out of a nuclear exchange with a damaged, but still functioning country. I guess their World War 2 experience with the Germans led to that line of thinking. I doubt it would have been effective. A nuclear exchange will simultaneously and immediately eliminate all major economic nodes. The result would still have been catastrophic.

[henkster]

As I stated earlier, in a few days I will address the whole “we dropped the bombs to intimidate Russia” canard; where it came from, and why it persists.

[PeterPrinciple]

This is interesting.

Little boy was going to happen regardless of the Trinity test.

Four Little Boy casings were expended in tests? The one dropped on Hiroshima was number 11, You would think there would be one spare? L6 was dropped twice?

The trinity test was a test of a case less Fat Man.

There were five case assemblies for Fat Man. two used in drop test, one broken and two available for use? Note they are not numbered sequentially so there were others that didn’t pass quality testing that did not arrive on Tinian?

The amount of atomic material is not mentioned. Still classified? We are left with the impression that there was only enough on Tinain for two bombs but don’t know how much is in the pipeline.

But at the end of the project on Sept 7, there are 3 Fatman Assemblies F101,F102 and F103 plus the F32. The 100 series indicating some improvements made? and more flown in and available and indicating more plutonium material was available?

Pumpkin bombs dropped on the 14th Japan surrenders on the 15th so we were getting ready for the 3rd drop?

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The rest of the Fat Man team prepared the “Gadget”, the case-less Fat Man bomb used for the Trinity nuclear test. Parsons and Warner had decided that the combat use of the Little Boy would proceed regardless of the outcome of the Trinity test.[26]
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Four Little Boy assemblies, L-1, L-2, L-5 and L-6 were expended in test drops. L-6 was used in the Iwo Jima dress rehearsal on 29 July. This was repeated on 31 July, but this time L-6 was test dropped near Tinian by Enola Gay. L-11 was the assembly used for the Hiroshima bomb.[
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The first Fat Man assembly, known as F13, was assembled by 31 July, and expended in a drop test the next day. This was followed by F18 on 4 August, which was dropped the next day.[42] Three sets of Fat Man high explosive pre-assemblies, designated F31, F32, and F33, arrived on a B-29 of the 509th Composite Group and 216th Army Air Forces Base Unit on 2 August. On inspection, the high explosive blocks of F32 were found to be badly cracked and unserviceable. The other two were assembled, with F33 earmarked for a rehearsal and F31 for operational use.[43]
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Project Alberta still had three test assemblies, F101, F102 and F103, but the damaged F32 was unserviceable, so new explosive blocks would have to be flown in from Project Camel. There were also shortages of some components, notably detonator chimneys. These were fabricated on Tinian. Seven B-29s of the 509th Composite Group flew Pumpkin bomb missions on 14 August. Word that Japan had surrendered reached Tinian the following day.[57]

[PeterPrinciple]

There were many that survived underground very close to Hiroshima blast site. The duck and cover wasn’t perfect but having something between you and the blast increased your chances of survival. We read of those that were very exposed, having cloth patterns on their skin. Many injuries were from broken glass and secondary blasé impact which duck and cover would help.

Perfect heck no, but the best plan there was.

[Seizethecarp]

Page 22:

Cleveland:

“The Best Location In The Nation!”

I was wondering about that debate location...

[InMemoriam]

Orders are out on Tinian.

[InMemoriam]

Someone recently commented on how lucky Kokura was that the 509th did not visit them. They will now actually receive their first combat visit on this mission.

For the mission this evening, Kokura is designated as the primary alternate target. One of the three weather planes will overfly Kokura to report on visual bombing conditions. If Hiroshima is socked in, they will report on whether Kokura can be vaporized instead.

[henkster]

The seminar offers prizes:

1st Prize is a week in Cleveland.

2nd Prize is two weeks in Cleveland.

Actually, we did a nice long weekend trip to Cleveland in 2007. Went to the last game of an Indians/Twins series Sunday, spent the evening (in a nice suburb of course), then Monday went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and that night went back to Jacobs Field for the 1st game of a series against the Tigers. It was nice going to two games and getting different teams as they switched on the home stand.

[colorado tanker]

Another of the many virtues of this day by day format (and chajin's posts) is that the lesson has been driven home to me even more forcefully that the senior Japanese leaders all recognized the war was lost but have been deadlocked for months how to end it. They will even remain deadlocked after the Hiroshima bomb.

I agree a lot of the mythology around the bombs has been created by lefties pursuing an agenda. I think another aspect of it, however, is cultural misunderstanding, which I think led to Ike, Stimson and others misreading the situation. They're thinking is that Japan is defeated, the Japanese know it, their country is being systematically destroyed, their people are starving and they have sent out peacefeelers. So, of course they would have surrendered without dropping the bombs, right? Wrong. Westerners would have surrendered, but the Big Six are still deadlocked.

[henkster]

What, other than dropping the bombs, would have broken the psychological deadlock? Would the USSR’s entry into the war have been sufficient?

We will never know definitively, of course. But as things stand in today’s Times, that deadlock shows no sign of breaking for peace.

[colorado tanker]

The invasion of Japan was called operation Downfall. The first stage was Operation Olympic, the invasion of Southern Kyushu. The southern third of Kyushu was to be used for air bases, logistics facilities and staging areas for Operation Downfall, landings on the Kanto Plain around Tokyo. We have seen for weeks references to Olympic planning documents in the Graybook. The operation would have been gigantic, with staging areas on Okinawa, the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

[mowowie]

It’s 5:55PM here on the east coast, the bombers are in the air. In exactly 20 minutes, 70 years ago today the BIG BOOM is about to happen.
Maybe the Japs are thinking that Pearl Harbor might have been a BAD idea right about now.

Thanks for these posts Homer, I have been reading them every day for a LONG time now.
Fascinating

[colorado tanker]

I'll take Rhodes just because it's such a good story.

“Sir, are we splitting atoms today?” Love it!

[Jacquerie]

<>“Yale Is Urged to Stress Religion” was a great read!<>

It sure was.

[colorado tanker]

I don't see how Russia's entry, by itself, would have broken the deadlock. The Japanese know we are on their doorstep and the next landing will be in the Home Islands, but they are still at loggerheads.

Had Russia taken Manchuria and Korea, wouldn't those same leaders say so what, Russia doesn't have amphibious capability so we'll just sit tight in our islands until we get the terms we want?