As well as residents of Hiroshima, the victims included Koreans who had been forced to come to Japan as labourers, and American prisoners-of-war who were imprisoned in Hiroshima. The blast destroyed more than ten square kilometres six square miles of the city. And the intense heat of the explosion then created many fires, which consumed Hiroshima and lasted for three days, trapping and killing many of the survivors of the initial blast. Thousands of people were made homeless and fled the devastated city.
Hiroshima was chosen because it had not been targeted during the US Air Force's conventional bombing raids on Japan, and was therefore regarded as being a suitable place to test the effects of an atomic bomb. It was also an important military base. The Allies feared that any conventional attempt to invade the Japanese home islands would result in enormous casualties, and the bomb was seen as a way of bringing the war against Japan to a swift conclusion.
In addition, it may also have been a way of demonstrating American military superiority over the Soviet Union. On the morning of 9 August, the Americans dropped a second, bigger atomic bomb.
The original target was Kokura, but this was obscured by cloud so the bomb was dropped on nearby Nagasaki, an important port. About 40, people were killed instantly and a third of the city was destroyed. Hiroshima was also very important from a military perspective since it was home to the 2nd Army Headquarters, which were responsible for the defense of southern Japan.
It was an important center of storage, communications, and assembly of soldiers. Ultimately U. Nagasaki, another important port, was chosen as its replacement. The attack order stipulated the U. Kokura, the intended target for the second bombing, was spared only because the city was suddenly covered by a cloud on August 9. It was the most obvious military target.
Another high-powered group ran in parallel with the Target Committee: the Interim Committee of top officials convened by Secretary of War Henry Stimson to advise the president on the future of nuclear power for military and civilian use.
On paper, the Interim Committee looked omnipotent. General George Marshall, Army chief of staff, and Leslie Groves received open invitations to attend meetings. The problem was Stimson. Some turned up as a courtesy, but attendance levels swiftly declined. Groves attended once. There was a war to be won. At 10 a. The air was heavy with the presence of three Nobel laureates and Oppenheimer. It must be controlled and nurtured in the service of peace. Oppenheimer was invited to review the explosive potential of the bombs.
Two were being developed: the plutonium bomb and the fissile uranium bomb. They used different detonation methods and processes, yet both were expected to deliver payloads ranging from 2, to 20, tons of TNT. Nobody yet knew their precise power. More advanced weapons might measure up to , tons; and superbombs—thermonuclear weapons—10 million to million tons, Oppenheimer said. He was human, after all; but beyond his horror at the statistics, he silently ruminated on the wisdom, or madness, of any talk of sharing the secret with Moscow.
Discussion flared on the question of whether to share the secret with Russia by which point Stimson had left for another meeting. Such talk alarmed Byrnes, who had observed the Russians at close quarters at Yalta, and Groves, who was violently opposed to sharing with Moscow a secret he had spent almost four years trying to keep.
It would be accompanied by a brilliant luminescence which would rise to a height of 10, to 20, feet. Stimson, meanwhile, was personally preoccupied with saving Kyoto, the ancient capital whose temples and shrines he had visited with his wife in
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