60 years ago remembered

[Rhode Island Red]

Yamoto was a smart guy... He said after the attack on pearl harbor , that it was actually a failure despite the emporers position it was a success... one of the objectives was to destroy the fuel supply there in pearl harbor.. they didn't come close.. this would of DRASTICLY affected the war as we'd have no fuel supply in that part of the pacific and would limit our range drasticly, and we would be unable to defend Hawaii, or engage in battles anywhere in the south pacific. Luckily history was differnt.

My late great uncle worked on the manhatten project. It was a project so secret that if you talked about what it was.. you'd be immediately killed, no trial no nothing and people usually had no clue they were working on it at all. He knew what he was from the start as he read all the physics and theories in German, French, italian, russian. He was the guy who first discovered the properties of plutonium, specifically how toxic it is to life (another story) and he saw the film of the bombing of Hiroshima before anyone in the us, even the president, as the film developer was his neighbor there in Rochester

He agreed then and was certain his entire life that the bombing of Hiroshima/Nagasaki save millions of american and japanese lives (this coming from an insiders viewpoit)

Oh and for whey they bombed Nagasaki, well Japan and the rest of the world were skeptical that we had more than the one bomb used on Hiroshima, and thus why Japan did not immediatly surrender and called our bluff. The bombing of Nagasaki convinced Japan we had enough bombs to level the entire country... well that bluff worked .. as Fatman and Little-boy were our only two bombs we had .. and it would take months to creat enough enriched uranium and plutonium to build another bomb. Thank the heavens it convinced them

[Dave M]

As for why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen, they were industrial centers where a lot of the Japanese war machine was produced. Tokyo was much more of a commercial and residential city. And you're correct, it was already very much destroyed.

[95TransAm]

It's also interesting why Nagasaki was actually bombed. Kokura was actually the intended city...but was covered by clouds. The crew decided to fly over their secondary target...Nagasaki. If I remember my history correctly, Nagasaki was also covered by clouds that day. They flew around for a bit, and decided to give another pass before returning. Sure enough, they found a break in the clouds...and the rest is history.

A good link in case anyone is interested in reading up on it is here .

[Rhode Island Red]

another reason is that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were deliberately ordered not to be carpet-bombed... so they could see the full effects of an atomic bomb without previous bombings clouding the results (Disc. channel last sat night)