On This Day: Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki

The second and last use of atomic weapons in combat took place on this day, August 9 1945. A B-29 named 'Bockscar' took off from Tinian in the Marianas, and finding the primary target of Kokura obscured by cloud cover and smoke, dropped its bomb on the secondary target, Nagasaki City. The bomb missed its target by approximately 3 km, exploding halfway between the naval arsenal and the Mitsubishi armament works. Taken in hand with the first atomic bombing on Hiroshima on August 6th, somewhere between 150,000-240,000 people were killed in these first and last two deployments of nuclear weapons; either from the bombs themselves or the nuclear radiation that poisoned the surrounding areas afterward.

Hours after the bombing, Manchuria was invaded by the Soviet Union's Red Army, which quickly overran Japanese lines and pushed south toward the Korean Peninsula. The devastation in Hiroshima, the additional bombing of Nagasaki, the collapse of Manchuria, and the general devastation on the Japanese mainland from constant air raids all informed the decision to end the war. The following day, August 10th, the Konoe government informed the Allies that it would accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. Five days later, after a failed coup, the Japanese public learned that they had lost the war.

I often find it difficult to write posts or short pieces on heavy and complex topics such as these. I am unwilling to dig into counter-factuals, detail the x's and o's, or debate the moral high ground. There is only one truth above it all, and that is that the dead men women and children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki joined those in the cities burned to the ground by the Allies. No Japanese person suffered more in the Second World War than those who had nothing to do with it; after the war their stories were pushed into dark corners and it's only now, after so many of them have passed, that we're uncovering their stories and discovering the depth of their suffering.

What can I do, except recommend some reading? Paul Ham's Hiroshima Nagasaki is the right place to start, for a thought-provoking read on the steps that led to the development of the atomic bomb, the men who decided to use it, and the people murdered by it. If you're in Japan, I highly recommend a visit to the peace museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is no 'real Japan', but if you want to get as close as possible to it, skip the tourist traps in Kyoto and Tokyo and head to places like these.

The ruins of Nagasaki, photo taken by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey. In the background is a one-legged torii gate.