A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arms Race

This is another of the books dealing with the atomic bombing of Japan, but it also relates this to the post-war arms race.

Although the book itself is quite good, I'm only going to point out a few things that I found significant.

In relation to Secretary of War Stimson and his role:

”By March he was convinced that its development raised issues that 'went right down to the bottom facts of human nature, morals and government.'”

The book also notes that, unlike some others in the leadership, he “harbored no crude hatred or racial antagonism for the Japanese people. Nor was he blind to moral considerations that might affect world public opinion.”

A direct quote from him: “The same rule of sparing the civilian population should be applied as far as possible to the use of any new weapon.”

”No one could think of any way to employ the new weapon that offered the same attractive combination of low risk and high gain as a surprise attack.”

This was noted in relation to the discussion about whether or not to just have a demonstration in a relatively unpopulated area. Not also that it uses the term “surprise attack” which is exactly the same term used to describe Pearl Harbor some years earlier.

As to why the bomb was not used on Germany but on Japan, the book notes that the European war was already almost over. Putting the bomb together was safer to do on a Pacific island than in Europe. It would also be a US bomb delivered by a US plane in a war theater that was almost exclusively the US's.

There was another of the many committees, this one called the Franck Committee, that was against a surprise dropping of the atomic bomb. They thought it was inadvisable on moral, political and diplomatic terms.

The book also stresses the psychological effects the atomic bombing would have on the Japanese leadership, and notes that one of the purposes of all the firebombings was “...to weaken the will of the people and government to continue the war.”

As I have read elsewhere, Stimson was the one to strike Kyoto off the list of a-bomb targets. What I didn't read elsewhere was that, six weeks after he made his decision, others wanted to put Kyoto back on the target list and he refused again to allow that to happen. He said that “...the bitterness which would be caused by such wanton act might make it impossible during the long postwar period to reconcile the Japanese to us in that area rather than the Russians.” In other words, he wanted Japan to side with the US after the war rather than with the Russians.

In relation to future a-bombs, three were expected to be produced in September and seven or more in December. If the Japanese had not surrendered, and if Truman held to his own position, it's probable that more atomic bombs would have been dropped on Japan.

(The general plan was, if Operation Olympic was to go forward, which was the actual invasion of Kyushu, some nine atomic bombs would be available. Three would be dropped on the three beachs US troops were to land on; three more a little more inland to destroy any concentrations of Japanese troops, and three held in reserve to be used if any massive movement of Japanese troops was detected rushing to the area. This was also planned before any one had any idea about the effects of lingering radiation on the soldiers.)

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