The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Artie: ‘Hi everyone and welcome back to a discussion episode of the History Buff. Today, I am joined by Chris, a fellow History Buff, whose main fields are European and U.S. political and military history. He has a blog and a Patreon, and I will put the links of those in the show notes. So welcome, Chris.’

Chris: ‘Thank you for having me.’

Artie: ‘And today we are going to discuss a very, very interesting subject, and the event that you could argue, “Did fully end the Second World War which was the bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?” So it’s quite a big subject, obviously. So in order to start us off, why don’t you give us some context, Chris?’

Chris: ‘Okay, so for a quick bit of context here, I mean, you’re talking mid 1945, by May, I believe it was May 9th, Germany has surrendered. Unconditional surrender. They’re being occupied as basically as part of the process of preventing the repeat of World War I. You know, the Allies want to make sure that the Axis powers are aware that they have lost. The war is over. No rebuilding in 20 years and trying again. The Empire of Japan, meanwhile, has not surrendered. They haven’t really gotten the message that—they’ve gotten the message that they lost, but they’re still processing it, basically.’

Artie: ‘But their mantra is, “To carry on until the last man,” well, beyond the last man.’

Chris: ‘Indeed, yes. They’re, at this point, they’re fully preparing for an invasion of the home islands. I actually have a quote here. There was a school girl who was handed a metal spike and basically told, “Even if you kill one American, it will be a benefit, aim for the abdomen.” Yes, there are stories, they were basically grabbing anything they could. Old muskets, old, you know, family swords, sharpening wooden stakes into spears, they were basically willing to do everything in their power and a few—more than one Japanese official commented on, you know, the supposed beautiful glory that would come from fighting to basically the extinction of the Japanese people, to give you an idea of the mindset these people are in right now.’

Artie: ‘So I guess you could say it was quite similar to Nazi Germany. Because I guess, you know, towards the end of the European theatre, Hitler had obviously employed very young boys and old men, drafted them into the war. And the idea behind that was, you know, they were fighting for, you know, the German race. So I guess you could say it’s actually very similar.’

Chris: ‘Yes, in many regards, yes. Germany has been pounded completely pretty flat at this point. There’s been a lot of bombings. Japan similarly has been firebombed because a lot of their buildings were made of wood. There aren’t a lot of standing cities in Japan left at this point. The people have been dealing with air raids for years now. They’ve built bunkers, they’re hiding in cellars and basements whenever there are just the swarms of bombers going. So the war is definitely hitting home for them. There actually is going to—there was a famine on the rise that was about to potentially occur due to being a nation that imports foods. They’ve been blockaded. So there was a famine, a looming famine at the end of 1945 as well, that could have boiled over into civil unrest, but that was averted.’

Artie: ‘Right. But so there was still—but the Japanese government was still insisting on fighting on. And of course, after the end of the war in Europe, the Soviet Union declares war on Japan. So that ups the ante. And then of course, Franklin Roosevelt dies. On the, I believe it’s the—’

Chris: ‘April 12th of 1945. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is a democrat. He is a cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, who was a republican. The families are different politically. It’s not a big deal. Some people like to make that comment, but you know, it’s a large family. So FDR did die April 12th, 1945 from ill health. It was actually—there’s something of a mystique around Roosevelt.’

Artie: ‘I heard about this. No one really knew, although actually, no, he went to the Yalta conference in a wheelchair, didn’t he?’

Chris: ‘Yes. There was like—he worked very hard to hide his disability from the public because considering the time period, it’s honestly unlikely he would have been elected had he been more up front about it. So while people knew there was something off, I think there was a cover story of some sort, like an old sports injury, he couldn’t walk around as much as he—’

Artie: ‘When he was in the wheelchair at the Yalta conference.’

Chris: ‘Yeah. And, you know, basically covering up, you know, old sports injury or something like that. When in fact he was, you know, he could walk. It was just, there’s plenty—’

Artie: ‘I mean if you look at the pictures, if you look at the pictures, he’s very frail. Very, very frail.’

Chris: ‘Yes. And the stresses of the war, I mean, being president ages people. This has been scientifically proven. The stress of being a president does physically age a person more rapidly than just the standard time. And this is, this is Roosevelt. This is the only president in US history to serve more than two terms. He served, was elected for four terms. He did not complete his fourth term, obviously. The inner circle, his very closest inner circle, were aware of his condition. They just worked very hard to keep it a secret, a secret that honestly in the modern day would almost certainly be impossible to maintain.’

Artie: ‘Right. Okay, so he dies on the 12th of April, and he is replaced by his vice president.’

Chris: ‘Yes, Harry S. Truman, which a lot of—some of his inner circle did fear that if he was re-elected again, he would not survive his fourth term, so Truman was actually sort of picked as a successor. Like Truman was kept in mind in the possibility of, cause you know, everyone always says, you know, “The vice president’s the next in line if the president dies.” But it’s very rare for someone to actually consider, “What if the president dies, are we prepared for this person to be the next president?” And for Harry S Truman, that was very much the thought process was like, “Okay, so if Roosevelt doesn’t survive this next term, who do we want in the seat next door? Who do we want taking over?” And Truman was the choice.’

Artie: ‘And so he was also the last president to serve more than two times, wasn’t he?’

Chris: ‘Roosevelt. Yes. A constitutional amendment was instituted after the fact. So presidents are limited to two terms. They need not be consecutive. And there’s a bunch of asterisks in terms of, you know, “If a vice president takes over, can they run for reelection?” It basically depends on terms and whatnot. First and only four term president.’

Artie: ‘Right, okay, so he is replaced by Harry Truman, who, if you look at pictures of him, he does look just like a sort of rather geeky man who wears bow ties, but, mask the fact that he is actually a bit of a hawk, isn’t he?’

Chris: ‘Yeah, so, Truman, when you look at him, he does kind of remind me of a bank clerk. He does have that sort of air about him in terms of appearance, but Truman hated communism. He was very anti communist, the Truman Doctrine, which was the political idea, political and military idea, of preventing the spread of communism, which is in part of why we ended up in Korea and Vietnam. That was, it’s called the Truman Doctrine for a reason. It was put in place in 1949. And it’s basically—so Truman is very much against communism He’s been fighting on a pretty anti communist platform, which is sort of distance him from more of the some of the labor factions within the democratic party, which is one reason he was chosen as vice president to sort of balance the ticket. Because Roosevelt was very pro labor, and even when he was being elected, there were accusations that he was a communist or a socialist, which when you look at American politics, it’s just hilarious to consider that.’

Artie: ‘Right, and so he takes over, and of course, by then, the famous Manhattan Project has now been going pretty much throughout the whole war, since 1939, so when the idea was conceived, wasn’t it? Do you want to just talk to us a little bit about how the Manhattan Project was conceived?’

Chris: ‘So people have known about radiation and radioactive elements for a little while. At this point, we have x-rays, most people using them were not wearing proper equipment. So you actually see in this time period there’s a large uptick in leukemia cases because of that among radiologists, because they don’t know about lead sheets yet. So in 1939, Roosevelt receives a letter. There’s some debate on whether it was actually written by Albert Einstein, but he certainly signed it. So he was likely aware of the contents. It’s basically, and in this letter, the—’

Artie: ‘For people who don’t know, by the way, Albert Einstein was actually German, but fled to the United States when the Nazis came to power because he was Jewish.’

Chris: ‘Yes. And that’s actually a main part on why the German nuclear program failed is the massive brain drain and also sabotage efforts on their heavy water facilities. A fun fact on Albert Einstein, he was actually offered to be the first president of Israel.’

Artie: ‘Hmm. I did not know that.’ 

Chris: ‘He declined because he was a physicist and not a politician. He felt very strongly about that.’

Artie: ‘Right. Okay. So he signs this letter, and what was the contents of this letter?’

Chris: ‘So the contents of the letter were a dual prospect. One was, “So we figured out there’s this element called uranium, and it has massive potential for energy usage.” You know, splitting an atom can create a lot of energy. Nuclear fission. This is basically the beginnings of nuclear fission, as we understand the term. This is the birth of nuclear, basically the birth of nuclear physics and nuclear sciences in a modern setting, instead of just some people fiddling around with x-rays and pointing them at things to see what happens. However, with that potential for energy, there’s also a potential for destruction on a scale that we haven’t really conceived of. It’s hard to think of, you know, just snapping your fingers and a city goes away.’

Artie: ‘Yes.’

Chris: ‘And these scientists were very concerned that the Germans were working on a project, which, well, they were, and they eventually, the German scientists eventually concluded that the uranium, the amount of uranium that was needed, was impossible to actually make feasible. And again, because of the brain drain, they were not working with the best and brightest in the field. We were though.’

Artie: ‘Yeah, you had pinched from the Germans, including obviously, Oppenheimer, which film of whom has just been released. So yeah, do you want to maybe briefly introduce Oppenheimer before we move on?’

Chris: ‘Yes, so Robert Oppenheimer was actually from the, he was from New York originally, as I recall, but he did study abroad. He is very well credited. He received—he did study in Germany at various institutions. He has several, had several, very prominent degrees from very prominent schools, including Harvard. He is at this point, the four leading expert on these new sciences. And he’s also the one who famously said during the testing of the first nuclear device, it was just called the gadget, they didn’t even have a name for it yet, they just called it the gadget, he was the one that says, “Now I have become death, destroyer of worlds.”’

Artie: ‘And that was on the 16th of July, 1945, wasn’t it?’

Chris: ‘I believe so.’ 

Artie: ‘So this is obviously when the Manhattan Project takes center stage and the United States realizes, “Actually, we’ve got a whole lot of, you know, we’ve got pretty big weapon in our arsenal. You know, it’s time to use it and finish this whole thing off.” Because, as we said, the Japanese have vowed to fight on. So yeah, I guess it leads to a bunch of decisions that are made by Truman. And am I right in saying he is pressured by his cabinet?’

Chris: ‘In some ways, there was a lot of pressure to end this war divisively and quickly for several reasons. One, because the planned invasion, the operation was called Operation Downfall. It would have been the largest amphibious invasion in history. We’re talking basically invading one of the main four Japanese islands as a launching ground. There would have been tens of thousands of aircraft, hundreds of thousands of men. There were estimated to be so many Allied casualties that in preparation, they printed so many purple hearts. They are still using that stock to this day.’

Artie: ‘Oh, wow. Okay. That’s a very interesting fact. So the choices between using this devastating nuclear weapon or an armed invasion from over the sea.’

Chris: ‘Yes. And it’s important to remember that because Japan’s fighting spirit has not been fully broken yet, they still consider themselves in this fight. And they still have a somewhat decent military capacity. They still have a large number of aircrafts during the invasion. They were going to mostly be kamikazes targeting amphibious landing craft. And there’s still a couple of million Japanese soldiers around. Most of them are in China, but they are there.’

Artie: ‘Right. Okay. So basically Truman is essentially, he’s got this choice, and could you maybe shed light on the dynamics within Truman’s administration during the critical juncture? Do you know what those competing visions were?’

Chris: ‘So the main question at this point for the Truman and his cabinet is what is the post war world going to look like? Because the Soviet Union does eventually declare war on Japan, partially inspired by Lend-Lease, continued Lend-Lease support, you know, after the war helped them rebuild after the war, because this is often overlooked in Western culture. The Soviet Union did do the bulk of the fighting in Europe during World War II.’

Artie: ‘Yes, that’s something that a lot of people forget.’

Chris: ‘Yes, the Eastern Front was massive. We always talk a big deal about Normandy and the invasion of Italy and Africa, which those were very important parts of the war, but the sheer scale and scope of the Eastern Front is often overlooked.’

Artie:  ‘And the number of, and the number of Soviet deaths, they account for almost half.  Almost half the total number of deaths in the Second World War were Soviet deaths.’

Chris: ‘Yes. If you ever look at total war as a concept, the Eastern Front’s a good place to look at it because there was just massive destruction and devastation, civilian and military on both sides.’

Artie: ‘Right. Okay.’

Chris: ‘Once again, poor Poland caught in the middle.’

Artie: ‘Yes, exactly. Poor Poland caught in the middle, as always. So he obviously then eventually makes the decision to use the atomic bomb. Am I right in thinking he has an especially hawkish general who I think pushes him to use this?’

Chris: ‘There’s a couple of generals that are advocating for quick, decisive actions. General MacArthur is infamously known for being something of a war hawk and a go-getter. Truman will actually fire him as the commander of the allied efforts in Korea because he was, he got a little nuke happy. He wanted to nuke China as a show of, he wanted to nuke a mountain on the Chinese-North Korean or on the Chinese-Korean border to just, you know, sort of demonstrate that we meant business or start nuking Chinese facility, the factories, and Truman was like, “Yeah, no.”  There was also, we’re getting a little off topic here, but MacArthur was also becoming rather critical of Truman in tones that bordered on seditious speech. MacArthur liked the spotlight, and he knew it, but he was, he was an effective commander. This cannot be put in doubt. He was an effective commander, and so there are those in the military and the government that are like, “Let’s see, massive invasion of an island with people who are sharpening broomsticks to have spears, or we blow up a couple of cities, which, okay, counter argument, we’ve been firebombing all their cities, and they’re still fighting, but maybe a demonstration of force like this will finally tip the balance.” Because the civilian government in Japan, such as it is, it’s basically the emperor at this point, even he’s mostly a puppet of the military. Japan at this point is basically a military junta. The emperor is contemplating surrender.’

Artie: ‘He wouldn’t have ultimate say though, would he?’ 

Chris: ‘It’s complicated. The short answer is if he says we surrendered, then everyone’s going to listen. The trick is to make sure he doesn’t say that. And there’s also concerns in Japan of can they avoid unconditional surrender? Can we get terms? That’s the other idea here with this conflict. If we drag this out enough, will fatigue just get to the point where, “Maybe we can keep our empire or maybe we can, you know, keep our military jumped in command without being westernized by democracy and whatnot.”’

Artie: ‘Right, okay. So all of these considerations going on in the White House, and at Los Alamos, which is obviously the site where they were testing the nuclear weapons, they discussed the best targets in Japan on which to drop the nuclear bombs. Now, they did consider, I think, originally, the city of Kyoto, which is, I believe, the second city of Japan, and that was, I think, chosen because it was a major military port, and one of Japan’s largest shipbuilding and repair centers, and a center of naval ordinance. So that was definitely discussed. But why were the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki chosen?’

Chris: ‘Okay, so at this point, as I keep harping on, we’ve mostly firebombed Japan level. A couple of generals even remarked if they had lost the war, they probably would have been tried for war crimes for it. But there aren’t a lot of cities in Japan left. There is a handful. And of these, there were basically four that were considered as potential targets for these nuclear devices. Remembering we weren’t entirely sure how many it was going to take to get to Japan to surrender. There was an addendum to Operation Downfall where they would have just launched a bunch of small nukes on the, like, on the island to attack Japanese fortifications and military. So that would have been interesting considering we’re still learning about radiation sickness, which will actually come into play later. So we have four viable cities right now. Kyoto, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and Kokura. And I just wanna apologize in advance for any potential mispronunciations. Kyoto was a potential viable target. And for those wondering, the reason these cities are still standing is the climate wasn’t really advantageous for bombing runs, because remember we’re talking, we’re talking a massive payload of bombs dropped from very high altitude. There’s not a lot of aim in these sort of raids, and the burgeoning air force actually propped up their numbers for the steady effectiveness in order to justify the creation of air force in the German bombing runs, but accuracy by volume is an American trademark.’

Artie: ‘Right.’

Chris: ‘The downside, and the downside to that with these cities is if you only have one bomb, you want to make sure you can actually, you do actually have to try and aim this one, which is very tricky. Remember we’re talking very analog diagnostics. We’re using vacuum tubes and cameras and their eyes at this point to aim. So Kyoto, it was a viable target in their eyes, but it was also, it is, as you said, you know, Japan’s second city. It’s the ancient capital, it was the capital before Tokyo, it has a lot of cultural significance. There were concerns that it’s taking that cultural, you know, destroying basically an icon of ancient culture for the people, may have the opposite effect and make them more determined to fight.’

Artie: ‘Right.’

Chris: ‘Also, there’s an anecdote that the Secretary of State at the time, he honeymooned in Kyoto and he really liked the city and didn’t want it bombed. That’s not entirely accurate. He did vacation there once and he was an advocate for a choice of another city, but there was multiple factors. It wasn’t just—I believe his name was Henry Stimson.’

Artie: ‘So ultimately, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are chosen. Hiroshima was chosen. It was a city of industrial and military significance. And yeah, a number of military units were located nearby and some various headquarters. And yeah, I think there was about 400,000 men located there, 400,000 soldiers and military men located near there. So then you have, obviously, the first expedition with one of the nuclear bombs, which was on the 6th of August, 1945. With on, so on board, a B-29 Superfortress. The bomb that was carried was called Little Boy. Now, was there any kind of particular reason that they were given these names, or was it just a bit of fun?’

Chris: ‘So each of these bombs is a weird thing to say when we consider the scale of destruction here, but each bomb was more or less a prototype. They both used different detonation mechanisms, one was uranium, one was plutonium, and they did look different. Little Boy looked like, more like a conventional explosive.’

Artie: ‘It was long and thin, right?’

Chris: ‘Yes, if you look like at one of those like cartoon bombs, it kind of looks more like that. So it was the small one, and then Fat Man was, it was a big boy. It actually looked rather rotund. It kind of looked like a, if I recall correctly, it was not too resemblant of an American football. I have to specialize. I have to specify that here.’

Artie: ‘I also read that the Fat Man, which was the bomb dropped on, for those who don’t know, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, was actually named after someone called Kasper Gutman, who was a rotund character in Hammett’s 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon, played by Sydney Greenstreet in the 1941 film version. So yeah, I don’t know if that’s, but that’s something I read, so that’s maybe an interesting little fact. So that’s the first bomb. So they approached the city fairly early in the morning, on the 6th of August.’ 

Chris: ‘Yes.’

Artie: ‘I believe what sort of time?’

Chris: ‘That’s going to be about 08:15 when they reach the city. They were actually originally planning to, I believe it was this attack or the next one, where they were going to hit Kokura, but weather conditions caused them to fly off, change targets. The Super Fortress is perhaps, very well known as, was the Enola Gay because bombers like to give their bombers’ names and knows art and the like, but it is not on its own. There are, I believe there was two other B-29s and also a lead aircraft. I don’t believe it was a Spitfire, but it was just a one man fighter plane. And the other B-29s were just completely kitted out with photography and recording equipment. Because again, it’s a prototype test run, you know, with hundreds of thousands of civilian test subjects and military test subjects. Another point on Nagasaki, it is one of the few remaining industrial centers in Japan, so it was a viable military target, as much as one can say that about these sort of warfare scenarios.’

Artie: ‘So Little Boy, when it’s finally released, it comes down onto the city, but doesn’t actually explode when it touches the ground. It actually explodes just above. And explodes with the energy of two kilotons of TNT. The radius of the total destruction was 1.6 kilometers. So with fires actually radiating across 11 square kilometers. So the instantaneous devastation is really, really, really quite horrific.’

Chris: ‘Yeah. In the initial blast alone, 80,000 people are dead. We’re talking military, civilian, there were enslaved Koreans there. I actually have a quote from a Catholic university professor at one of the Catholic universities, and he mentions that, “The whole valley is filled by a garish light, which resembles the magnesium light used in photography. I am conscious of a wave of heat.”’

Artie: ‘So one and this person was nearby?’

Chris: ‘Yes, Father John A. Seams. So he was close enough for the initial heat at least. So we were mentioning how inaccurate these old bombs were. Little boy was actually 800 feet off course. It was meant to target a bridge that was more or less in the center of the city, and it ended up going off over a clinic of all places.’

Artie: ‘So, as you say, although I have read that estimates of the number of people killed range from 66,000 up to 140,000 dead, but I guess that includes people who died from radiation burns and all of that kind of stuff afterwards.’

Chris: ‘Yes, the numbers we’re using are going to be rough estimates. 80,000 is that’s the average based on what was said, but it could have been as low as 66,000 or as high as 100. We don’t know the real numbers involved, but a lot of people died. And the radiation burns and sickness will definitely take a toll and will also provide some of the first serious studies on radiation sickness, as several clinicians in the area who survived the blast will extensively record people’s conditions, their supports, you know, those who survived the blast.’

Artie: ‘And you can see the pictures on the internet. It’s quite harrowing, really.’

Chris: ‘Yes, these, those pictures can be rather graphic. There’s images of people with the patterns of their clothes burned into their skin. So not for the faint of heart and don’t need any barbecue beforehand.’

Artie: ‘I think it’s important to remember it was, you know, the first use of a weapon of mass destruction. And yeah, it’s really quite harrowing to see just how much devastation was wrought just from the single bomb.’

Chris: ‘Yes, it actually took the Japanese authorities a little day or two to realize what went, what was, what happened, because it seemed like in a blink, the city was just wiped off the map. They lost complete radio contact, obviously, because along with the initial blast, we’re talking electromagnetic pulses as much as those are a factor these days, so whatever electronics that survived the blast have more or less been completely shorted out. So it actually takes them a couple of days to realize what happened.’

Artie: ‘Yes, and matters were made worse when the Soviet Union officially declared war on Japan at two minutes after midnight on the 9th of August, so three days after the bombing. So that makes matters worse. So Truman releases a statement after the dropping of Little Boy saying, “We may be grateful to providence that the German atomic bomb project had failed and that the United States and its allies had spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history and won.” That’s, I guess, an interesting way of putting it.’

Chris: ‘Yes, and remember that’s two billion in old timey money, which when you saying two billion in 1945, I’m no inflation expert, but even back then we’re, we are talking billion with a B.’

Artie: ‘Yes, exactly. So, obviously, the White House sort of tries to frame it as something that had to be done and something that was a success. So yeah, the Japanese cabinet, as you say, it’s a few days before the Japanese government finds out about the bombing because, obviously, that all of the infrastructure had been destroyed. But I think, if I’m not mistaken, the government actually decides to fight on. And the reason Americans find out about that is because of American code breakers.’

Chris: ‘Yes, at this point in the war, pretty much every single Japanese code has been broken. We are just really listening in to all of their communications. We know what they’re talking about and what they’re doing, which is definitely a, you know, that’s what you do in war.’

Artie: ‘Yes, exactly. And so—and that’s obviously then what causes the U.S. to decide to do a second bombing because they were obviously thinking, “Okay, they’re obviously not getting the message. We need to go in there with this. Need to go in there a second time.” So I think then it is at this point that Nagasaki is selected, and it’s of great importance because of its wide ranging industrial activity and they produce ships, military equipment, and other war materials. And also the Mitsubishi shipyards, electrical shipyards, arms plants, and steel and arms works were located there. And they employed, those four companies employed, I think 90 percent of the city’s labor force. So yeah, it was actually strategically a pretty important city. On the 9th of August, two B-29 Superfortresses, again, were sighted over the city of Nagasaki at 10:53. However, the local residents thought that it was reconnaissance.’ 

Chris: ‘Yes, they made this mistake with Hiroshima as well.’

Artie:  ‘Oh, they did. And so they thought, obviously, that they didn’t realize that one of them, one of these B-29 Superfortresses, was carrying a bomb called, this time, the Fat Man. The Fat Man is dropped and again explodes just before it hits the ground. So it exploded 47 seconds after being released at 11:02 Japanese time, and exploded above a tennis court halfway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south, and the Nagasaki Arsenal in the north. Yes, so do we know how many people were killed instantly in the blast?’

Chris: ‘So this one’s a little tricky because Nagasaki is a hillier city. Even though the bomb was more efficient, it had a larger yield, it was a more refined, detonation system, it was an airburst as well, the hilly terrain of Nagasaki sort of helped to cushion the damage a bit, but we’re still talking tens of thousands dead instantly.’

Artie: ‘Yes, I think I’ve seen some estimates. It said that of the 7,500 Japanese employees who worked inside the Mitsubishi munitions plant, including mobilized students and regular workers, 6,200 killed, and some 17,000 to 22,000 others who worked in other war plants and factories in the city died as well. And that at least 35,000 to 40,000 people were killed and 60,000 others were injured. So just massive, massive scale of destruction, again, wrought on a city, which is again, obviously wiped from the map. So people, you know, are vaporized instantly. But also you have other effects from the bombing, which are, you know, people dying from the burns, which we mentioned earlier, people also got cancer. And people also born with birth defects as well. So you had all of these kinds of, I guess you could say, secondhand effects from the bombing.’

Chris: ‘Yes. Yes. Most of which we weren’t entirely sure what was going to happen when we drop these bombs, which again, the early studies in radiation sickness were, have proven actually very informative and very—’ 

Artie: ‘These were probably, these were probably the initial studies.’

Chris: ‘Yes, these were very much the initial studies with, you know, live test subjects. Whoo.’

Artie: ‘Yes, exactly. Yes, yeah, and just the poor Japanese having to be those test subjects. So two cities have been utterly devastated and wiped off the map. And so, after that, you had an attempted coup. Because, obviously, by this point, you have the emperor, I think, considering surrender, don’t you?’

Chris: ‘Yes, Emperor Hirohito, at this point, is considering unconditional surrender. He is going to nationally broadcast this message to the people of Japan. And there were, there was a faction in the Japanese military that opposed this, they were going to try and stop him from recording the message, but several prominent Japanese leaders, once they found out about the coup, they actually committed ritual suicide, and that pretty much broke the back of the coup. They were like, “Oh, you’d rather kill yourself than end the war, okay?’

Artie: ‘Right. Okay. So how does this coup go?’

Chris: ‘Well, obviously, unsuccessfully. So basically there was a small military, there was a small military faction, like I said, we’re talking the surviving generals and other leaders, and they’re going to basically place the emperor under house arrest so he can’t make the recording. Several commit suicide, others sort of bumble the coup attempt, you know, not everyone’s on board, some get talked down and they just realize—’ 

Artie: ‘Oh, so it’s just pretty chaotic, basically.’

Chris: ‘It’s a pretty chaotic mess because, again, at this point they are effectively the government of Japan, as much as that means anything when you’re, when you’re governing a bunch of rubble and two million soldiers stuck in China that are facing down both the local guerrilla war or soldiers and also the Soviet Union.’

Artie: ‘But Hirohito goes onto the radio to announce to his people that Japan will surrender.’

Chris: ‘Yes, it was a pre-recorded on a phonograph and then broadcast. The actual recording isn’t of the best quality and I do have a bit of a quote here. You can also find this message translated on its entirety online. “But after pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual conditions obtaining in our empire today, we,” that is the royal we, “have decided to effect a settlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure.” The word surrender is never used in the emperor’s speech and the Japanese being used is going to be a more archaic, polished version that your local farmer may not understand. Japanese is an incredibly complex language. And so the newscaster after the speech actually had to confirm that, “Yeah, we surrendered.”’

Artie: ‘Right. Okay. I also have a quote here from him saying, from the radio speech saying, “Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb. The power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but it would also lead to the total extinction of human civilization.” Well, I mean, he was definitely alluding to something that was a very real possibility in the next years.’

Chris: ‘Very, very true. And also, there’s another concern is the Japanese didn’t actually know how many nukes the U. S. had. They actually captured a fighter pilot and tortured him to find out how many nuclear devices the U.S. had, and the poor fighter pilot had no idea what they were talking about, so he just came up with a number. He said like, “We have a thousand nukes, and we can airdrop them everywhere,” and blah blah blah. And the Japanese were like, “Wait, is he serious?” They didn’t know. The answer was,  how many nukes did America have? Enough. Now we have too many, but everyone who has nukes has too many at this point. I think you can glass the planet three times over these days.’

Artie: ‘Okay, so he announces the surrender. The surrender, I believe, takes place on an American ship.’

Chris: ‘Yes, the USS Missouri.’

Artie: ‘Right, okay, so where and when and what happens?’

Chris: ‘Okay, so it is the USS Missouri. It is an aircraft carrier. The surrender documents are signed September 2nd, 1945. They were going to use a old antique table from a British vessel, but the documents were actually too big to fit on the table. So they just grabbed the first desk they could find that was big enough, probably the captain’s. And funnily enough, that desk was manufactured in Michigan. I believe it was Grand Rapids. That’s where they used to make a lot of furniture.’

Artie: ‘Right. Okay.’

Chris: ‘Yep. So it’s just a standard desk, mass produced desk. It is currently in a museum because it’s the desk where the surrender documents were signed. MacArthur was there. There is recorded footage of the surrender.’

Artie: ‘There is, isn’t there?’ 

Chris: ‘Yes.’ 

Artie: ‘Who was the Japanese? Was it the Japanese emperor signing or was it a high military representative?’

Chris: ‘That is an excellent question. It was foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and general Yoshijirō Umezu. And again, I apologize for those.’

Artie: ‘I remember him very well from the photographs. I remember seeing he’s wearing an all white suit. Very fitting. So, with that, it was all over, but then, of course, obviously, since then, Japan has really managed to rise from the ashes, so to speak, and is now the world’s, I believe, third or fourth largest economy.’

Chris: ‘It’s definitely up there, and that was partially the intent with the surrender as well, by doing a quick, decisive end of the war. Because Truman was thinking long term, having an ally in the east to counter the Soviet Union was in consideration. Because we did, we occupied Japan, we helped rebuild it, you know, “Hey, we blew it up, may as well rebuild it.”’

Artie: ‘Did Japan get Marshall Plan money?’

Chris: ‘That I’m not sure on. We did help rebuild and repair the cities, including Nagasaki and Hiroshima.’

Artie: ‘Right.’

Chris: ‘The influx of aid actually helped prevent that looming famine I mentioned earlier. So that worked out, I guess.’

Artie: ‘Yeah. Well, it worked out very well, because obviously, you know, Japan is a very well performing economy now. It’s done very well. And I actually read somewhere that it actually is so good with money that it actually owes money to itself. So yeah, I guess you could say that that’s a, it’s a post war success story, really.’

Chris: ‘Both Germany and Japan have become prominent economies in their various spheres. Germany is basically the financial center of the European Union and Japan is one of the leading, one of the leading economies in the world, as well as a very prominent political force in East Asia.’

Artie: ‘Exactly. So it’s nice to know that the phoenix can rise from the proverbial ashes, so to speak. So from all of the horrific destruction and devastation Japan, you know, it did rise from the ashes. So I guess, you know, we should never forget the horror from the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But I guess you could say that, you know, turn themselves around and they’ve really, really managed to make the best of it.’

Chris: ‘Yes, and people sometimes think that those two bombings were the most devastating Japan faced, they were not, more people were, more people in destruction was wrought during the firebombing campaigns than from those two bombs. But for one bomb or two bombs to create such devastation so quickly is definitely a different, a different scale than just a conventional bombing run.’

Artie: ‘Of course, and those images of those bombs being tested in Los Alamos, and then obviously the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they became images that really kind of hung like a sword of Damocles over the whole world, really, throughout the whole period of the Cold War, you know. And was sort of a reminder of, you know, what could happen if the Soviets, you know, what could happen if the Soviets and Americans didn’t try and keep it under control? That was always the threat. If you grew up in the 60s, 70s, and even 80s, in school, in the United States, you were taught to get under your desks.’ 

Chris: ‘Duck and cover.’ 

Artie: ‘Duck and cover, exactly. Still in some European countries, they still test their air raid sirens, which are in certain cities and certain places.’

Chris: ‘South Korea actually has monthly air raid drills.’

Artie: ‘Yes, and they do that actually in France as well actually. I think it’s the first Wednesday of every month they test the air raid sirens all around the country and it’s a sort of relic from the Cold War era. So yeah, it’s a fascinating subject and, obviously, then kind of provided the foundation for really the kind of, I guess you could say central image to the Cold War that obviously came immediately after the Second World War, but that’s another topic entirely. Well, anyway, I think that’s sort of everything from me. Do you have anything else that you would like to add, Chris?’

Chris: ‘I believe we’ve more or less covered the general story. It seems like we have everything, you know, as you mentioned, well not right now, once we leave world war two, we started entering the cold war. At this point, we’re already being pressured into Vietnam by France. Thanks Charles de Gaulle.’

Artie: ‘Yes, exactly.’

Chris: ‘Which again, whole other topic.’

Artie: ‘Yes. Whole other topic, but that’s maybe something that you and I can cover further down the line. So yeah. Thank you very much, Chris, for joining me. And yeah, thank you everyone for listening and see you next time. Thank you very much.’

Chris: ‘Thank you.’

Artie: ‘Okay. Goodbye.’