During the last pages of World War II, Japan was still defiant. After losing more men and watching over Germany fall, sections of its leadership continued to hold out hope of continuing the war. The United States, on the other hand, was in an agonizing dilemma: how to conclude the war quickly without embarking on an expensive invasion.
Just sworn into office following the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman was faced with making one of the most significant decisions in the last century. Years of covert construction and an enormous investment had left America with a new type of weapon—one that could level cities with a single attack. The test of this atomic bomb in the desert in New Mexico had proved its capability, but how, and whether, to deploy it was the question now hanging over Truman and his policy-makers.
A number of alternatives were put on the table. There was first the policy of resumed conventional bombing—something the U.S. had already been carrying out with such cataclysmic effect. Between April 1944 and August 1945, air bombing had killed hundreds of thousands and maimed many more throughout the Japanese cities. Perhaps the most savage was Tokyo’s firebombing, which, during a single evening, killed more than 80,000 individuals. Truman subsequently wrote that these bombings had already done more damage than the atomic bomb ultimately did—yet Japan still refused to surrender.
The second choice was maybe the most abhorred: a complete ground invasion. From the ghastly Iwo Jima and Okinawa battles’ casualties, the military planners estimated the upcoming battle on the Japanese mainland would be even more bloody. Truman did not want to see a worst-case scenario come true—American and Japanese troops killing each other by hundreds of thousands, civilians trapped in between them, and whole cities burned to the ground in a long war.
There was a third proposal, too—a demonstration of the might of the atomic bomb on an uninhabited island to stun Japan into capitulation. But that notion was soon abandoned. Counsellors feared it would not have the psychological impact desired. Logistical questions also concerned them: who would conduct the test, and what if the bomb did not explode? Since only two bombs were ready, there was no margin for error.
Eventually, Truman made the decision that would alter the course of history: to employ the bomb directly, on militarily strategic cities. The targets were not chosen lightly. Planners balanced strategic significance with an attempt to avoid cultural and historical sites. Kyoto, one of the original contenders, was ultimately taken off the list, reportedly at the behest of Secretary of War Henry Stimson. He advocated its preservation as a cultural artifact, although the decision, ultimately, was probably more rational than emotional. The sites then became Hiroshima, Kokura, and Nagasaki—city centers with military bases and relatively intact after previous bombings.
Destiny, in the form of the weather, was instrumental in what transpired next. On August 6, 1945, the weather over Hiroshima was clear enough to allow the B-29 Enola Gay to release the uranium “Little Boy” bomb. In a matter of seconds, the city was engulfed. Temperatures at ground zero rose above 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, vaporizing individuals and creating fire throughout the city. Approximately 80,000 lives were lost in an instant, and another thousand or so would perish in the subsequent days and weeks from burns, injuries, and radiation.
Three days later, a second B-29, Bock’s Car, was bound for Kokura carrying the plutonium-based “Fat Man” bomb. Heavier cloud cover compelled the crew to make a detour to Nagasaki. An unexpected gap in the clouds provided the bombardier with a brief window. The bomb was released, and the explosion—far more powerful than at Hiroshima—ripped through the valley. The surrounding hills contained part of the force, but not nearly enough to keep from inflicting horrific destruction. Estimated deaths at first were 40,000, a total that rose higher than 100,000 in the years to come.
The double bombings of the back-to-back sort, coupled with the unexpected intervention by the Soviet Union against Jap,n; all this was too much to disregard. Breaking centuries of imperial practice, Emperor Hirohito intervened personally to seek peace. On August 14, he declared Japan’s surrender. The formal ceremony was conducted on September 2 on board the USS Missouri, after a war that cost tens of millions of lives globally.
But even as peace was proclaimed, a tempest of moral and historical controversy started brewing—a tempest that still hasn’t abated to this day. Most Americans at the time thought the bombings were justified to prevent a long and bloody occupation. Several historians, such as Tom Lewis, have gone so far as to contend that the decision potentially saved up to 30 million lives by compelling a swift ending. However, some have disputed that assessment, proposing that Japan was already heading in the direction of peace and that the Soviet advance could have been equally responsible for bringing matters to a head.
Within Japan, things were not so easy. Some of the leaders cited the atomic bomb as a reason to yield; others cited the Soviet danger. Some still hoped to fight on to achieve more advantageous terms of surrender. The emperor’s move to step in was unprecedented, and even then, hardline factions within the armed forces staged a last-gasp coup to prevent the surrender from occurring.
In contrast, the human cost continued in secrecy. The survivors of the bombings, or Hibakusha, endured not just awful physical and psychological injuries, but also decades of stigma and discrimination. It wasn’t until years afterward, late in the 1950s, that the Japanese government started providing serious assistance. For a great many, the memories and damage persist, passed down through generations.
The actual production of the bomb itself—via the huge Manhattan Project—was an appalling achievement of science and military hubris, directed by General Leslie Groves and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. It introduced not only victory, but a new age in which humanity’s capacity for self-destruction had become brutally real. The atomic age was no longer a theory. It was here.
Truman himself defended his decision throughout his lifetime. He accepted the burden it involved but maintained that he would make the same move in the same situation. He knew what the bomb represented—not only during that time, but in the future of international warfare and international relations. The ability to destroy millions of lives with one action was now a reality of the world, and that burden has been held by each president since.
The history of the atomic bomb is more than a lesson in military power. It’s a humatalele—of decisions made out of desperation, of strategy and science intertwined, and of the enormous weight those decisions bear. It’s a reminder that even the most powerful of weapons have a price, and that in war, no choices are ever not haunted by ghosts.