It is likely that Truman knew nothing of the Manhattan Project until he became President, but he was shrewd enough to know that something big was up. He didn’t hesitate to order the use of the two atom bombs to bring the bloodiest war in human history to a swift close. If I had been alive at the time, and if I had lost a son on Iwo Jima or Okinawa, my reaction would have been, “If you had this in the pipeline, why lose all those lives on that rock?”.
Something I have long wondered:
How did the Japanese know about the nature of the atomic bomb? Or when?
Oppenheimer certainly emphasized the devastation of the bomb, yet a nuclear weapon…wasn’t the first a Japanese city had been devastated. We had firebombed several Japanese cities with napalm before then.
Japanese high command wouldn’t automatically know about the atomic bomb, so they wouldn’t be able to advise Hirohito.
Soo… it’d be interesting to know why Hirohito directed surrender when he did.
JF:
It took three days to firebomb Dresden … The instantaneous destruction of the nuclear attacks could’ve been enough to convince the emperor.
Author D.M. Giangreco, who wrote the book “Hell to Pay”, wrote the book “Truman and the Bomb: the Untold Story” published in August 2023. He said that Truman did know about the bomb. From what I’ve heard Japan and Germany had looked into developing atomic bombs. Both of them were based on the use of uranium as the fissile material. The Japanese military didn’t think that America could produce atomic bombs in quantity. This would have been accurate if America hadn’t switched to the plutonium implosion bomb that was tested during the Trinity test and later used at Nagasaki. America had just enough uranium to build the Little Boy bomb that was used at Hiroshima. I’ve heard that in Germany that the atomic bomb development was complicated by the estimated time that it would take to produce an atomic bomb. They were concerned that it was a longer time than they thought Hitler would be willing to accept.
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The Truman book has a letter that was written by author James Michener, who was in the Pacific theater, describing the grim situation with the pending invasion of Japan. He made the friend that he wrote it to promise not to release the letter until after his death because of fear of what the people in the circles that he traveled in would do in reaction to what he wrote in the letter. The book has an appendix that deals with the revisionist histories that were written about the use of the bombs on Japan.
CAG, …yes and no.
Too often, I think we see the end of World War II through a Cold War lens.
It’s possible that Hirohito’s command staff knew of American research, …yet not any specifics. Notice, even in this news clip, Truman only says “atomic bomb” once. Even Americans watching on TV might be inclined to say “a what??”.
A very few American-sponsored scientists and officers knew about the bomb; they’d been working on it or training to use it.
Yet the entire Manhattan Project was top secret for a reason. They built it in New Mexico precisely to avoid much notice.
In August 1945, we let the genie out of the bottle; the boogeyman of nuclear war did not yet exist as a matter of public knowledge.
I dunno JF, I don’t think knowing about atomic bombs is even relevant … One flash, city gone! Not three days, three minutes! That’s what you call a game changer.
And still, it took a second one to convince him.
Unfortunately the Manhattan Project was penetrated by Soviet spies. Stalin knew about the bomb project before Truman told him about it at Potsdam. Truman was informed about the success of the Trinity test bomb at Potsdam.
The A bomb was scheduled for Toyko, but the planes could not make the trip. So, the bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Still, it took Hirohito seven days to surrender. In surrendering, Hirohito took no responsibility for the war.
Lisa Meitner discovered nuclear fission but refused to help build the bomb.
Some scientists believed that once the chain reaction started, it would not stop until the atmosphere was consumed.
“why lose all those lives on that rock?” WWII was a war of Japanese aggression. We did not start the war, but we had to end it.
No, Hiroshima was the target of the initial a-bomb. Kokura was the primary target on the Nagasaki run, with Nagasaki the secondary target. Kokura was covered with smoke and clouds, so Nagasaki was attacked.
GregB,
Does Giangreco talk much about the decisions or discussions on the Japanese side? That would be as interesting as would be the Allies.
The Truman book has material about Japan’s objectives. The “Hell to Pay” book covers the planned land invasion of Japan. There is a great, if long, video, based on the “Hell to Pay” subject, on the Military History Visualized YouTube Channel, “D.M. Giangreco on the Invasion of Japan, Lend Lease & much more” It has timestamps for those who want to jump around between topics.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4uDfg38gyk
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At around the 11 minute mark he said that after the war that the UN estimated that about 400,000 Asians were dying per month for every year the war went on. He said that the Pacific deaths were astounding in magnitude. That most histories of WWII are Eurocentric. He pointed out how differently the Japanese military viewed things like casualties. That the Japanese military treated their civilians more like hostages. At around the 50 minute mark he says that the internal Japanese estimates were for 20 million Japanese casualties. He said that the emperor had to send out personal envoys to deliver the surrender instructions to forces out in the field to insure compliance. There were a large number of Japanese forces based off the Japanese homeland. The Japanese military wanted a land invasion bloodbath to stretch out the war. That entire video is a real eyeopener. From documentaries that I’ve seen the Japanese military had both the will and the armaments to have made a land invasion costly.
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The last submarine to leave Germany for Japan carried with it some nuclear material and what information the Nazis had at the time on possible bomb construction. The actual construction, as noted, was beyond the technical capabilities of both countries at the time. Had Hitler listened to his military planners and started the war in 1942 or 45 as they wanted, things might have turned out quite differently. The actual method of building a bomb was known for some time and even made it into a couple of science fiction stories which greatly upset the FBI when they heard about them long after the Manhattan project started.