Magic- Far East Summary, War Department, 9 Aug. 1945

As usual, I will only note a few major points of the report.

The report talks about reports from Hiroshima and elsewhere about the bomb. It says the flash of the bomb was instantaneous, “...burning the exposed parts of people's bodies as far as three kilometers away [around 2 miles].

”The blast leveled completely or partially as many as 60,000 houses within a radius of three kilometers, and smashed glass blocks, etc.

”The majority of the houses within the city were completely or partially leveled.”

”The majority of government buildings were either leveled or destroyed by fire.”

There were some countermeasures that the Japanese were proposing, including moving aircraft and personnel underground.

The thinking was that 70 to 80% of the people in the city were casualties.

”...there have been an increasing number of cases in which the fighting spirits of victims or eyewitnesses has been broken.”

”About 80 per cent of the city was wiped out (destroyed or burned). ... Casualties have been estimated at 100,000 persons.”

There were also some reports on Japanese troop movements, and a section that talked about problems with their fighter, the Zeke, in Flotilla 72 of the Navy, where there were very major problems with the engines of the planes, the average life of the engines being 20 to 30 hours before they had to be broken down and reworked. [This was probably because the standards of production had fallen significantly since the regular workers were removed and drafted and replaced by women and even children who were not properly trained.]

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