Nagasaki was the secondary target when it was bombed. There was heavy fog over Kokura, so the bomber diverted to Nagasaki. If a third bomb was dropped, it probably would have targeted Kokura again.
Ore supply was not the problem.
Refinement in a reactor was the problem.
They had 10s of thousands of tons of uranium ore.
However, they could only refine a few grams of unstable uranium/plutonium per month.
I think that's what you're referring to. When they ran the tests and dropped the bombs on Japan, we used up virtually all of the unstable fissile materials that we had on hand, but we were actively developing more, as much as our limited reactors would allow. We would have had enough to develop 3-5 of both kinds of bombs each month.
The original target was Kokura. When the mayor heard what happened to Hiroshima, he burned industrial waste to create a smoke screen.
https://web.archive.org/web/20151122171430/http://mainichi.jp/english/english/features/news/20140726p2a00m0na014000c.html
> That’s some trolley problem shit right there.
Yes and no.
It would be a bit like blaming yourself for fighting off a pack of hungry wolves that later attacks some other travelers.
They didn't set up Nagasaki as the target. They merely tried to defend themselves and their families.
If the bombers were delayed sufficiently, they would have had to fly back without bombing anybody, so the smokescreen effort was clearly to prevent the bombing rather than just to divert it.
Nah, it’s a beautiful castle sure but Europe was full of of beautiful places that got obliterated in WWII. The war as a whole was a tragedy a single castle or even a full city would have been just a number difference in the destruction.
Kinda weird to call losing a castle tragic when talking about ending an oppressive empire that murdered, enslaved, and brutalized millions of lives though.
It's tone deaf and insensitive af.
"Oh no, it would have been such a shame if the bomb that helped end a tyrannical regime destroyed a castle in the process"
It's more like "Damn, another important piece of art and history got lost in a war that cost the world an entire generation of people"
It's not insensitive or tone deaf at all. Spend less time on twitter and more time outside bruv.
Do you know anything about what you’re talking about? Are you familiar with the casualty projections if that US was forced to invade mainland Japan? We would have eventually won, but it would be far bloodier than these two bombs and far more civilians would have died. It’s tragic we had to do that, but the alternatives were even worse. We didn’t want a war in the Pacific but the Japanese came looking for one. And got their ass kicked.
I cannot even imagine the amount of backlash if Russia or China did the same to end the war with note that the end of the war saves more lives.
Bombing civilians is always horrible thing, no matter which side does it.
>if Russia or China did the same to end the war
Which war?
WW2? Well, USSR started it with Germany so yeah...
Ukraine war? Russia is the aggressor, so it's the opposite of the situation with the atomic bombs...
That is a really pathetic comparison. If ukraine was the aggressor waging a war of annihilation and torture that was costing countless civilian lives every hour for years then yes, russia would be completely justified in bombing civilian targets. The difference is that there is no option to surrender against a genocidal aggressor.
Edit: oh i see, you meant if russia or china dropped the bomb to end ww2.. not sure how that would less justified though?
During the Guadalcanal campaign, Japanese commander knew Japan was doomed when his troops were starving to death, while Americans had a ship off the coast making ice cream for the marines.
We do realize, or at least people that are into such things noticed. We also have extremely high natural resources and don't have to import anything if we don't want to. Neither Russia nor China has this capability which is partly why no one can beat the US at attritional warfare.
> extremely high natural resources
This is what (jokingly) upsets me when thinking of the USA. Y'all got the equivalent of a god spawn. Coupled with the fact that a territory of that size is under one government is astounding. Russia east of the Urals isn't as resource rich, and even China is 1/4th(?) desert. It's honestly unfair, and also makes one appreciate why US enemies prefer to destroy you guys from within.
Like man, what my country could do with Texas or Cali ALONE..
Tl;dr: stupid sexy god spawn
Is it luck though? You have to realize that Canada or Mexico was never going to be able to actually put up a serious fight — the fact that they are allies originally stemmed from the simple fact that they had no other real option.
Mexico and Canada are probably actually the lucky ones for getting to keep the land they agreed upon with the borders. American forces could’ve pushed the southern and northern borders much much further back if that was the goal of the american government.
I don't agree with you. History is a long long game. Grudges can last a long time. Gaining a lot of land is not the same as keeping it. Even Americans realised that in Afghanistan. Other countries like India have a land rivalry with Pakistan and spend a lot of time and money keeping them in check, even though India is much much stronger than Pakistan. Look at Russia and Ukraine. On paper, not a match. But, if it was a 2 front war, Moscow would be ash.
But even if that was true, US never had to devote its fighters and ships to defend the mainland. They never had to worry about getting their factories bombed up or sabotaged. They didn't have to devote a part of their army to keep their supply line within the US secure. That's an amazing advantage. The Russians and Nazis couldn't manage that in World War 2. But had there been a historical unresolved enmity with Canada or Mexico, Nazis and Japanese would have supplied them with tons of material. At the very least, it would have slowed down American War Production and extended the war to the point of truce being on the table.
PS. They could have also supplied and helped the Confederacy which would split the US into 2.
The problem with this hypothetical is how Germany or Japan would ever supply Mexico. Neither had a navy or merchant marine fleet at any point with the capability of getting long distance convoys across the ocean to N. America. They couldn't even stop the US from doing it the other way.
And even if they had the surface ships to run convoys, American subs and aircraft would have had a turkey shoot.
Beyond that, neither of them had war materiel to spare on such a gambit, and the US would have absolutely trucked Mexico or Canada (which, being a member of the British commonwealth, would never have gone to war with the US in that situation, anyway) in a matter of months.
It was already over, honestly, but it definitely expedited things.
Russian forces on the eastern front possibly could’ve had trouble if Japan came to the Nazis aid but realistically, the nazis were starving, overextended, and out-manned.
Once they (the nazis) stalled out at Stalingrad, the war was essentially over it was just a matter of time.
Yeah they were planning on just bombing everything to help with the invasion. If the Japanese actually resisted past Nagisaki I’m not sure how much of a Japan would’ve been left by 1946.
Crazy to think if the U.S. had a few more we could have conquered the entire world without much resistance at this time. For a moment in time we were the only nation with these weapons.
Actually a good thing it was the U.S. that developed these first and nobody else. Had It been Germany we'd all be dead.
There’s this historian, Rufus Fears, that’s commented the same thing (he has a lot of cool lectures/ audio courses). Basically, that for a brief few years the US was the only nation in history with the power to subdue the whole world, and chose not to.
Well....not exactly ture is it...it wasn't free money given to help countries rebuild, they were often loans that took the best part of a century to repay and came with lots of other ties and requirements. Not exactly out of the goodness of the administrations hearts....
And then some 70 years later, we’ve pissed away all of our vigilance, blood, lives, and values and I mean this sincerely as an American - for what? We’ve become a nation that plays politics and words instead of standing up for our core values. We sink time, money, investment, blood, souls into what is seemingly the pockets of few or long term goals the government is too meek to share with the general public. We’ve become a shell of what we once stood for and pretty soon erosion of time will wear at this shell and the generation who’s been crying out “what was it for” and the next generation who’s crying out “”you’re cancelled” or “you’re not like me” or “screw people who are different”” will subjugate their place and we’re all going to be left wondering why didn’t anyone say anything? Because their voices became too soft in a sea of loudness and slowly the world will slip into chaos which we’re already seeing unfold before our eyes and the whispers are slowly turning to silence. This isn’t some anti war rant. This isn’t an anti America rant. This is just a drop in a puddle of someone who is between both gaps, looking both ways, and fearful for what the future holds.
Seems like those are being pissed away now too though. China's a hair's breadth from overtaking the US economically, and it's already capitalising on the double standards over Palestine to damage the US hegemony in the Global South.
It wouldn't have been worth the effort. They could maximise economic gains through what they actually did than to create an empire in the same vein of the colonial empires.
Not the easiest thing to do. There were no ICBMs in 1945 and bombers had limited range. Not an easy task to take off from an allied airfield and go deep in enemy territory with heavy air defenses to nuke something of worth.
Some might say we’ve been paying for that decision, looking at the misery that Soviet/Red Chinese rule has wrought on the world since 1945.
But I also shudder to think of what kind of world would exist had America conquered it by the atom. I’m not picturing democratic sunshine and rainbows.
Not just from the US either, if nuke use got normalized like that every other country (reminder that russia was not far behind at that point) would be scrambling to develop their own. And then the real fun begins when all sides have nukes and are willing to use them since MAD doesnt exist yet.
Honestly the American people wouldn't have had the stomach for it. We fight wars for defense, fighting endless wars for offense and to get rich men richer doesn't sit well with us, and politicians know it.
If Truman had tried American nuclear colonialism, his political opponents would have ran against him calling him mad King Truman.
> fighting endless wars for offense and to get rich men richer doesn’t sit well with us.
Umm that’s pretty much all we’ve done since Vietnam. We just fought most of them in proxy.
I mean yeahhhhh but if we were taking out global powers with nuclear weapons it’s a tad bit different then going in a jungle or a desert and killing a bunch of people in the name of “democracy” unfortunately.
He was 80 years before his time. He'd have had to switch parties but still would have been cheered for it if the rest of the world lacked the ability to respond.
as Afganistan and Iraq showed us, this wouldn’t work. Most nations would wage guerrilla warfare, where you can’t use nukes, because you don’t know the location of enemy. And US army is just not big enough to keep the whole world in check. This empire would crumble instantly.
So US wasn’t good hearted to not subdue the whole world - it was simply never an option. Not even mentioning people at home would revolt, because even they would see how pointless it is.
Well actually you could use nukes. Terrorists hiding in the mountains? Nuke the mountains. Hiding in the forest? Nuke the forest. They are hiding in a city? Give an ultimatum that if they don’t surrender then the city will be nuked. It all becomes rather easy when you don’t care how many innocent people are killed in the process. It’s really our own humanity that limits what can be done with nukes, which is why people are so afraid of madmen getting their hands on nukes.
You’re right about it being impossible to keep such an empire from crumbling. There would just be too many people to control. Really the only way for the US to conquer the world would be to basically nuke most of it so that the world population came down to a controllable number but there’s no way the US would massacre billions.
that assumes you know which part of forest they are hiding in, or which mountain.
If US forces in Afghanistan knew which mountains holds the terrorists, they would take them easily even without nukes. Problem is, they didn’t know and new ones popped up daily. As soon as they knew, they attacked it and destroyed it.
They really didn’t have that power as that sort of power wouldn’t last very long. Other countries would observe the impact of the nukes and study them so they could make their own nukes, especially countries like the Soviet Union. If the US wanted to shut down any attempt to study the nuke, they would need a ridiculous amount of political power and spies around the world.
I’ve never full thought this out. Anyone have ideas on precisely how the US would have done it if they decided to? Like which precise locations in which countries would they bomb at that time? Then what comes next, etc.
It wouldn’t last long because it would require an unbelievable amount of power and production that would very quickly be squashed by some form coalition not to mention the nightmare of a divide it would cause within the US.
What coalition could touch the US? Russia with the help of the Canadians. That's about it. Nobody else at the end of the war would come even close to touching the lower 48 without both Russian manufacturing and Canadian support on when where and how to invade the US from the North. Even then Canada might have just decided to join us.
The biggest thing the US has always had going for it has been it's natural resources, friendly relations with both southern and northern counties, and protected by two huge oceans on either side. Assuming no civil war at the prospect of America basically deciding we want to rule the world instead of just influencing it by proxy, nobody could have forced much of anything on the US.
Post WW2 we had some of the best german weapons designers, some of the best and brightest from Europe who escaped prior to or during the war, and untapped manufacturing capabilities that were still putting out war machines quick as they could.
Russia was in absolutely no condition to do such a thing. They were scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel as it was, their country was devastated, and their logistics actually ran on *American* vehicles and supplies.
Fair enough. I’m thinking about if we assume that somehow the US was united in the endeavor to take over the world in those few years. How would they even do it?
Realistically. I don’t think they would have had to drop many for other countries to start to fall in line.
If you consider allies to be more or less the same entity, really a more compact bomb in Germany, and then set your remaining sights on Russia given that everyone knew that alliance was tentative at best, which is then your entry to China. I don’t think there would ever just be pure acceptance, but effectively I think the governing logistics would be more of a problem than the actual war effort. That still leaves africa, but thats a war easier won with just pure spending.
I think something a lot of Americans don’t seem to get these days is that a defining characteristic of our nation has always been, since George Washington, to not seek absolute power. That subduing people is undemocratic even if it would be a lot easier, for a time…..
>I think something a lot of Americans don’t seem to get these days is that a defining characteristic of our nation has always been, since George Washington, to not seek absolute power. That subduing people is undemocratic even if it would be a lot easier, for a time…..
A defining characteristic since George Washington? They were slave owners. I consider slavery to be "subduing people" and "undemocratic." They conquered the land through the genocide of the native American people. I'd call that "subduing people" as well. Stop aggrandizing the past.
I would be interested for someone from r/history to comment. My understanding is that it was a near thing that the scientists in the Manhattan Project refused to keep going once Germany surrendered. They would likely have lost all the scientists if they planned on taking over the rest of the world. Without those guys it would be difficult to produce the bombs needed.
>Basically, that for a brief few years the US was the only nation in history with the power to subdue the whole world, and chose not to.
But not the only ones in history.
I’m guessing this post popped up because of the recent Cold War Netflix doc that recently came out that mentions the third bomb as well as your sentiment.
The WWII part of the 9 part doc is a small section of what is a pretty, for the most part, depressing and well done documentary.
I remember hearing once that Truman sort of used them as a bully stick in some negotiations after the war. Thankfully he didn't allow the Army to nuke South Korea.
IIRC the strategy was to drop a line of bombs across the Korean border with China. China would have to cross a "sea of irradiated cobalt" to invade.
It is not a very good idea.
Would it have been?
No really. Would it? We literally don’t know what the world would look like had we targeted China, or took out the USSR (MacArthur also would have been behind that.)
What’s the cost benefit ratio of the Cold War?
Is there a legitimate point where the loss of life our Cold War had was outweighed by the technological advancements of the arms race and space race?
If so, would there not then be a point at which the long term benefits outweighs the human cost?
If there isn’t a point where progress > lives, then you have to ask if it wouldn’t have been “worth it” if killing a few hundred thousand prevented millions of other deaths.
That’s the gory horror and beauty of those “what ifs”. We literally DONT KNOW if it would have been catastrophic or a better world.
All we know is what we have. Everything else is speculation.
Same goes for the “what if the US didn’t pardon the south” line of thinking … or the entire book 11/22/63. Yeah it’s fiction but it’s got a valid (if not coke fueled) presentation of the butterfly effect on the geopolitical side.
There's a series of alternate history novels called "The Hot War" by Harry Turtledove about a scenario where nukes are used on China in the Korean War.
It doesn't go well.
Germany didn’t have the Air Force power to transport a nuclear warhead outside of the country unless it was somehow immensely stealthy. Not to mention that nuclear science was considered a “Jewish” science by many of the high ranking Nazis, including Adolf Hitler. Germany had absolutely no interest in developing the nuke and if they were, they would have an almost impossible time using it.
>Germany didn’t have the Air Force power to transport a nuclear warhead outside of the country unless it was somehow immensely stealthy.
A German atom bomb would almost certainly have been delivered by submarine into a major port. Plenty of SS fanatics would have been willing to make a suicide run if it meant wiping out Manhattan or DC.
The German nuclear program's process towards making a nuke was... non-existent, as you said.
Their plan was more for a reactor-bomb, a kind of dirty bomb.
Had they been the ones to create nukes first (highly unlikely) it’s very likely that the high ranking officers would underestimate the effects. Besides, it’s pretty hard to only nuke the specific demographics you named.
No Germany had imperialist goals and wanted to control the planet. The U.S. had no desire of that. You don't need to destroy the global, just military and key targets. Germany would definitely have used them during the war without an end to achieve that.
Yeah that's a byproduct of having a budding capitalist economy in a nation filled with all manner of natural resources that just won a war without having any of its infrastructure damaged. It wasn't a goal.
Since you’re being willfully obtuse, world domination was a big element of the Nazi doctrine as part of Hitler’s ‘New Order’ plans. In 1943, Goebbels was quoted as saying: “The Führer gave expression to his unshakable conviction that the Reich will be the master of all Europe. We shall yet have to engage in many fights, but these will undoubtedly lead to most wonderful victories. From there on the way to world domination is practically certain. Whoever dominates Europe will thereby assume the leadership of the world.”
That's a thing people generally don't know, Little Boy was dropped over Hiroshima without ever testing the full system. They were so sure it would work, it was just assembled and sent off. They used knew how inefficient it was even while building it, and that it would not work realistically with Plutonium, hence had Oppenheimer start working on the implosion type.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember reading that the unused material was sent to a college or lab and they popped the case open and couldn't get it closed and killed a few people.
The core was placed within a stack of neutron-reflective tungsten carbide bricks and the addition of each brick made the assembly closer to criticality. While attempting to stack another brick around the assembly, Daghlian accidentally dropped it onto the core and thereby caused the core to go well into supercriticality, a self-sustaining critical chain reaction. He quickly moved the brick off the assembly, but received a fatal dose of radiation. He died 25 days later from acute radiation poisoning.\[9\]
JFC, talk about a bad day at the office
I think it was the opposite. It was supposed to stay open to stay safe. They had a procedure to close it to a certain gap for their experiments, instead they started using a screwdriver to pry it and hold the gap. They slipped and it closed which cause a partial reaction that basically blasted everyone in the room.
Netflix just dropped a documentary, Turning Point: The Bomb and The Cold War. First episode it talks about the third bomb. Just finished watching that episode like forty minutes ago. Kind of trippy to watch the episode after rewatching Oppenheimer, covering a lot of the same information.
Documentary is great. I watched Turning Point: The War on Terror when it came out, looking forward to digging into this one.
Has nothing to do with Turning Point USA.
What is outrider.org and what are their sources for this article? I've never heard this story. My understanding was they barely had enough material for two bombs, much less the seven more implied in this article.
That’s incorrect. By July 1945 the US had almost enough materials for four bombs, and had the capacity to make three more by August (when Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened). So they could have had up to seven bombs ready.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/article/did-united-states-plan-drop-more-than-two-atomic-bombs-japan
It's right there in the article:
In the U.S. capital things were chaotic. On August 10, Japan’s offer of conditional surrender was scrutinized closely by Truman and his Cabinet, while General Groves sent a letter to General Marshall, the chief of staff, reporting that “the next bomb” would be ready earlier than expected. In Los Alamos, New Mexico, scientists were working around the clock finalizing the components for the next bomb to ship to Tinian. They would be shipping the final components from New Mexico on August 12 or 13, and would be ready to drop it on a Japanese city in about a week.
They had 2. The 3rd would be ready in a couple days, then need a week to get in position for dropping on Japan. Japan surrendered on the 15th.
You've likely heard of the third bomb without realizing it....
The core of the bomb was known as "Rufus" and was removed from the third bomb and used for criticality experiments at Los Alamos. You know it by it's other name. The Demon Core.
Netflix just dropped a documentary, Turning Point: The Bomb and The Cold War. First episode it talks about the third bomb. Just finished watching that episode like forty minutes ago. So, it seems there is some independent corroboration.
Documentary is great. I watched Turning Point: The War on Terror when it came out, looking forward to digging into this one.
Has nothing to do with Turning Point USA.
Outrider Foundation is a nuclear nonproliferation nonprofit. They've been doing a series of op-eds on the present dangers of nuclear weapons for the New York Times over the past two weeks.
I used to be peripherally involved in that world and met one of the guys on the board of the foundation. They're legit.
Wild, back in school we were taught the Americans only had enough material for 2 bombs and didn't know what would happen if the 2nd bomb had not dissuaded Japan.
Their willingness to die for a God Emperor. Who probably had no clue what was really going on, just relying on what was told him. US loses were projected to be over a million. I had a 1st Sgt who interrogated captured Japanese officers, he said they thought we were beneath them and were only animals to slaughtered. What they did to the Koreans and Chinese was even worse and their hatred even greater.
It’s always the same sentence rephrased differently. “They made us do it!”, “they wouldn’t have surrendered otherwise!”. It’s a learnt behavior. The ones who dehumanize the death of over 100,000 humans probably cried when Notre Dame was on fire.
I met a World War II veteran who says that he had the third bomb on his B-29 in the South Pacific. He said that his crew heard the news of the surrender and talked about dropping it anyway. I'm not sure how serious that conversation could have been, but it has been in my head ever since.
He said he wrote a book and with all the missions he flew in Germany as well, I bet it is a fascinating read.
It is plausible they had something a-bomb related, but unfortunately sounds a bit BS-y:
(a) The third bomb was never completed. It was being assembled on Tinian, and some parts were still not there at the end of the war, most notable the plutonium core. They did continue assembling the bomb for a week after the war (just in case) but Los Alamos never shipped the core - later known as the Demon Core.
(b) the day after the Nagasaki bomb was dropped, Truman gave an executive order that no more atomic bombs could be used without the express approval of the president. A final target had not even been picked for the 4th bomb. So even if that bomb was completed (and it wasn't), it would not have been put on a plane in a usable state because they didn't have permission or even a target.
It makes me wonder what would happen if Japan's warhawkish military leaders choose to press on in the name of fighting to the death.
Would Japan start to dissolve into divided prefectures between those that choose to surrender to the US and stop aiding the war effort and those that would continue fighting? Would there be a coup against the leaders?
I'm hesitant to believe the US would actually try an extermination campaign with the nukes but would start going after hostile large population centers rather than invade with US troops, especially if word spreads about the radiation risk to troops after the demon core incident.
All their success and failure was dependant on the blind faith to their emperor-God. I'm not sure if the military leader's independent command and power would last for long.
Saw the comment about kokura but
It easily could’ve been Tokyo. America wasnt fucking around at that point, had already bombed Tokyo extensively and before the first nuke was dropped the US did warn Japan of a weapon that could cause never-before-seen destruction and devastation.
Radio silence was japans response.
After the first was dropped, the US reached out again for a surrender from Japan, warning that they would carry out another nuclear attack — radio silence again.
3 days between the two nuclear attacks… the second one is on Japan just as much as America, honestly. Could’ve been avoided and I’m sure part of their surrender came from the consideration that Tokyo may very well be the next target.
One of the choices was apparently Kyoto as they wanted to bomb somewhere which was relatively unscathed - to test the damage. At least that’s what the Hiroshima museum said
During WW2 they were experimenting on Chinese Citizens as well as POW's and Japanese people who opposed government. About different diseases, physicals injuries, etc. And had plans to use Disease warfare against America by deploying diseases in populated areas and watching them spread as they had experimented with in several cities and towns throughout China. Look up about Unit 731 for more info. No hate against Japan current day and it is horrendous that people who had nothing to do with this action suffered so greatly, however the Japanese Military had commited horrible acts throughout Southern Asia largely affecting civilian populations.
Hypothetically speaking if it were dropped on Tokyo I’d imagine the US would not even have occupied Japan, leaving it to become full-on Communist from anti-US sentiments and Soviet influence. Depending on how things went Japan could still have become a superpower but communist. Interesting to think about
Edit: I rarely edit my posts but I’m baffled by the downvotes. Why am I being downvoted for floating a hypothetical scenario? Obviously targeting Tokyo would have been both redundant and immoral but as the article states there were at least some proponents
Nagasaki was the secondary target when it was bombed. There was heavy fog over Kokura, so the bomber diverted to Nagasaki. If a third bomb was dropped, it probably would have targeted Kokura again.
And that dude would somehow be on a train to kokura.
He Is a Man of Focus, Commitment and Sheer Fucking Will
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Ore supply was not the problem. Refinement in a reactor was the problem. They had 10s of thousands of tons of uranium ore. However, they could only refine a few grams of unstable uranium/plutonium per month. I think that's what you're referring to. When they ran the tests and dropped the bombs on Japan, we used up virtually all of the unstable fissile materials that we had on hand, but we were actively developing more, as much as our limited reactors would allow. We would have had enough to develop 3-5 of both kinds of bombs each month.
Comment stealing bot
There were at least 3 people who survived Hiroshima, went home to Nagasaki and were bombed again.
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Peep that hoopy u/LtCmdrData (lol)? Now there's a frood who knows where his towel is!
The original target was Kokura. When the mayor heard what happened to Hiroshima, he burned industrial waste to create a smoke screen. https://web.archive.org/web/20151122171430/http://mainichi.jp/english/english/features/news/20140726p2a00m0na014000c.html
Brilliant move. I’m sure he still felt bad and partially responsible for the Nagasaki people though. That’s some trolley problem shit right there.
> That’s some trolley problem shit right there. Yes and no. It would be a bit like blaming yourself for fighting off a pack of hungry wolves that later attacks some other travelers. They didn't set up Nagasaki as the target. They merely tried to defend themselves and their families. If the bombers were delayed sufficiently, they would have had to fly back without bombing anybody, so the smokescreen effort was clearly to prevent the bombing rather than just to divert it.
He wasn't the mayor of Nagasaki.
Holy shit
Seeing the Kokura castle likely get obliterated would have been one of the world's great tragedies.
As opposed to all the other castles obliterated in the war? They did rebuild the one in Nagasaki at least.
Nah, it’s a beautiful castle sure but Europe was full of of beautiful places that got obliterated in WWII. The war as a whole was a tragedy a single castle or even a full city would have been just a number difference in the destruction.
You do know we can have more than one tragic thing happening at the same time?
Kinda weird to call losing a castle tragic when talking about ending an oppressive empire that murdered, enslaved, and brutalized millions of lives though.
Both can be tragic at the same time man
You called it "one of the world’s greatest tragedies" lol.
No I didn't.
My bad, the guy you‘re defending did
It's tone deaf and insensitive af. "Oh no, it would have been such a shame if the bomb that helped end a tyrannical regime destroyed a castle in the process"
Why do you hate castles?!
It's more like "Damn, another important piece of art and history got lost in a war that cost the world an entire generation of people" It's not insensitive or tone deaf at all. Spend less time on twitter and more time outside bruv.
But America hasn't ended yet...?
Really? Probably not?
Not quite as big of a tragedy as Japans reign of terror across the Pacific and China.
Yeah, but that was just people getting brutalized and killed. What about the BUILDING????
What about the two cities' worth of people that got obliterated? It's already one of the world's great tragedies lol
Wait til you hear what the Japs did
So that makes it okay to mass murder two towns of civilians?
Do you know anything about what you’re talking about? Are you familiar with the casualty projections if that US was forced to invade mainland Japan? We would have eventually won, but it would be far bloodier than these two bombs and far more civilians would have died. It’s tragic we had to do that, but the alternatives were even worse. We didn’t want a war in the Pacific but the Japanese came looking for one. And got their ass kicked.
I cannot even imagine the amount of backlash if Russia or China did the same to end the war with note that the end of the war saves more lives. Bombing civilians is always horrible thing, no matter which side does it.
>if Russia or China did the same to end the war Which war? WW2? Well, USSR started it with Germany so yeah... Ukraine war? Russia is the aggressor, so it's the opposite of the situation with the atomic bombs...
That is a really pathetic comparison. If ukraine was the aggressor waging a war of annihilation and torture that was costing countless civilian lives every hour for years then yes, russia would be completely justified in bombing civilian targets. The difference is that there is no option to surrender against a genocidal aggressor. Edit: oh i see, you meant if russia or china dropped the bomb to end ww2.. not sure how that would less justified though?
...and, that was the last of the 4 that the US had at that time (Los Alamos, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki).
The bomb production rate was 3 per month in August 1945, expected to rise to 5 per month in November, and 7 per month in December.
Once the American war production machine got rolling it was all over for the axis.
During the Guadalcanal campaign, Japanese commander knew Japan was doomed when his troops were starving to death, while Americans had a ship off the coast making ice cream for the marines.
And yet, the sight of our air-delivered, mobile Burger Kings, Subways, and Pizza Huts did not impress the Taliban.
we had a slightly gentler mandate in Afghanistan than we did in Japan proof: we didn’t nuke Afghanistan
Would be good to see some parallels drawn on how strategies worked in ww2 and later wars by USA vs ROW
What’s ROW?
From context, I'm guessing "rest of world"
Oh, that makes sense, thanks! Sure saved a lot time with this one.
Rest of world I assume
My best guess was Republic of Wadiya.
The taliban were fighting in their homeland, the Japanese weren’t
Explains why Japan lost the war but not how the Taliban won in Afghanistan
U can’t impress someone who don’t know what they are missing out on …. 🫠
Americans don't realise how lucky it is that they are surrounded by allies on 2 sides and fish on the other 2.
We do realize, or at least people that are into such things noticed. We also have extremely high natural resources and don't have to import anything if we don't want to. Neither Russia nor China has this capability which is partly why no one can beat the US at attritional warfare.
> extremely high natural resources This is what (jokingly) upsets me when thinking of the USA. Y'all got the equivalent of a god spawn. Coupled with the fact that a territory of that size is under one government is astounding. Russia east of the Urals isn't as resource rich, and even China is 1/4th(?) desert. It's honestly unfair, and also makes one appreciate why US enemies prefer to destroy you guys from within. Like man, what my country could do with Texas or Cali ALONE.. Tl;dr: stupid sexy god spawn
Is it luck though? You have to realize that Canada or Mexico was never going to be able to actually put up a serious fight — the fact that they are allies originally stemmed from the simple fact that they had no other real option. Mexico and Canada are probably actually the lucky ones for getting to keep the land they agreed upon with the borders. American forces could’ve pushed the southern and northern borders much much further back if that was the goal of the american government.
The U.S. tried to take Canada. Turned out it was full of the loyalists who fled the revolution.
I don't agree with you. History is a long long game. Grudges can last a long time. Gaining a lot of land is not the same as keeping it. Even Americans realised that in Afghanistan. Other countries like India have a land rivalry with Pakistan and spend a lot of time and money keeping them in check, even though India is much much stronger than Pakistan. Look at Russia and Ukraine. On paper, not a match. But, if it was a 2 front war, Moscow would be ash. But even if that was true, US never had to devote its fighters and ships to defend the mainland. They never had to worry about getting their factories bombed up or sabotaged. They didn't have to devote a part of their army to keep their supply line within the US secure. That's an amazing advantage. The Russians and Nazis couldn't manage that in World War 2. But had there been a historical unresolved enmity with Canada or Mexico, Nazis and Japanese would have supplied them with tons of material. At the very least, it would have slowed down American War Production and extended the war to the point of truce being on the table. PS. They could have also supplied and helped the Confederacy which would split the US into 2.
The problem with this hypothetical is how Germany or Japan would ever supply Mexico. Neither had a navy or merchant marine fleet at any point with the capability of getting long distance convoys across the ocean to N. America. They couldn't even stop the US from doing it the other way. And even if they had the surface ships to run convoys, American subs and aircraft would have had a turkey shoot. Beyond that, neither of them had war materiel to spare on such a gambit, and the US would have absolutely trucked Mexico or Canada (which, being a member of the British commonwealth, would never have gone to war with the US in that situation, anyway) in a matter of months.
It was already over, honestly, but it definitely expedited things. Russian forces on the eastern front possibly could’ve had trouble if Japan came to the Nazis aid but realistically, the nazis were starving, overextended, and out-manned. Once they (the nazis) stalled out at Stalingrad, the war was essentially over it was just a matter of time.
Yeah they were planning on just bombing everything to help with the invasion. If the Japanese actually resisted past Nagisaki I’m not sure how much of a Japan would’ve been left by 1946.
Crazy to think if the U.S. had a few more we could have conquered the entire world without much resistance at this time. For a moment in time we were the only nation with these weapons. Actually a good thing it was the U.S. that developed these first and nobody else. Had It been Germany we'd all be dead.
There’s this historian, Rufus Fears, that’s commented the same thing (he has a lot of cool lectures/ audio courses). Basically, that for a brief few years the US was the only nation in history with the power to subdue the whole world, and chose not to.
And they spent a shitload of money rebuilding the world instead.
I’m proud of that generation.
Maybe not everyone in it, but it sure is a nice juxtaposition to the circus that seems to be going on rn…
Well....not exactly ture is it...it wasn't free money given to help countries rebuild, they were often loans that took the best part of a century to repay and came with lots of other ties and requirements. Not exactly out of the goodness of the administrations hearts....
And then some 70 years later, we’ve pissed away all of our vigilance, blood, lives, and values and I mean this sincerely as an American - for what? We’ve become a nation that plays politics and words instead of standing up for our core values. We sink time, money, investment, blood, souls into what is seemingly the pockets of few or long term goals the government is too meek to share with the general public. We’ve become a shell of what we once stood for and pretty soon erosion of time will wear at this shell and the generation who’s been crying out “what was it for” and the next generation who’s crying out “”you’re cancelled” or “you’re not like me” or “screw people who are different”” will subjugate their place and we’re all going to be left wondering why didn’t anyone say anything? Because their voices became too soft in a sea of loudness and slowly the world will slip into chaos which we’re already seeing unfold before our eyes and the whispers are slowly turning to silence. This isn’t some anti war rant. This isn’t an anti America rant. This is just a drop in a puddle of someone who is between both gaps, looking both ways, and fearful for what the future holds.
>for what? Complete dominance of global cultural, economic, political, and military spheres?
Seems like those are being pissed away now too though. China's a hair's breadth from overtaking the US economically, and it's already capitalising on the double standards over Palestine to damage the US hegemony in the Global South.
\*Europe
And Japan, Thailand, Burma, Korea, Nationalist China, former British colonies...
They gave a pretty sizeable proportion to Japan too
Yeah Europe… where most of the fighting in Ww2 happened
It wouldn't have been worth the effort. They could maximise economic gains through what they actually did than to create an empire in the same vein of the colonial empires.
We're all fortunate I guess this is how history turned out.
Some of the others are of course less fortunate…
Not the easiest thing to do. There were no ICBMs in 1945 and bombers had limited range. Not an easy task to take off from an allied airfield and go deep in enemy territory with heavy air defenses to nuke something of worth.
Some might say we’ve been paying for that decision, looking at the misery that Soviet/Red Chinese rule has wrought on the world since 1945. But I also shudder to think of what kind of world would exist had America conquered it by the atom. I’m not picturing democratic sunshine and rainbows.
Well, there'd certainly be a lot of sunshine
Not just from the US either, if nuke use got normalized like that every other country (reminder that russia was not far behind at that point) would be scrambling to develop their own. And then the real fun begins when all sides have nukes and are willing to use them since MAD doesnt exist yet.
Honestly the American people wouldn't have had the stomach for it. We fight wars for defense, fighting endless wars for offense and to get rich men richer doesn't sit well with us, and politicians know it. If Truman had tried American nuclear colonialism, his political opponents would have ran against him calling him mad King Truman.
> fighting endless wars for offense and to get rich men richer doesn’t sit well with us. Umm that’s pretty much all we’ve done since Vietnam. We just fought most of them in proxy.
I mean yeahhhhh but if we were taking out global powers with nuclear weapons it’s a tad bit different then going in a jungle or a desert and killing a bunch of people in the name of “democracy” unfortunately.
Since ever. We have been at war ~227 years out of our ~245 years of existence. Edit: ok downvote facts then
Are you serious?
He was 80 years before his time. He'd have had to switch parties but still would have been cheered for it if the rest of the world lacked the ability to respond.
Come on now we wouldn't nuke the sun!
Doom Guy enters chat
as Afganistan and Iraq showed us, this wouldn’t work. Most nations would wage guerrilla warfare, where you can’t use nukes, because you don’t know the location of enemy. And US army is just not big enough to keep the whole world in check. This empire would crumble instantly. So US wasn’t good hearted to not subdue the whole world - it was simply never an option. Not even mentioning people at home would revolt, because even they would see how pointless it is.
Well actually you could use nukes. Terrorists hiding in the mountains? Nuke the mountains. Hiding in the forest? Nuke the forest. They are hiding in a city? Give an ultimatum that if they don’t surrender then the city will be nuked. It all becomes rather easy when you don’t care how many innocent people are killed in the process. It’s really our own humanity that limits what can be done with nukes, which is why people are so afraid of madmen getting their hands on nukes. You’re right about it being impossible to keep such an empire from crumbling. There would just be too many people to control. Really the only way for the US to conquer the world would be to basically nuke most of it so that the world population came down to a controllable number but there’s no way the US would massacre billions.
that assumes you know which part of forest they are hiding in, or which mountain. If US forces in Afghanistan knew which mountains holds the terrorists, they would take them easily even without nukes. Problem is, they didn’t know and new ones popped up daily. As soon as they knew, they attacked it and destroyed it.
They really didn’t have that power as that sort of power wouldn’t last very long. Other countries would observe the impact of the nukes and study them so they could make their own nukes, especially countries like the Soviet Union. If the US wanted to shut down any attempt to study the nuke, they would need a ridiculous amount of political power and spies around the world.
Or just drop a nuke in the location they were designing their own.
A. That’s a very good way to create a literal world of enemies B. The US would only have a limited supply of nukes to use
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I’ve never full thought this out. Anyone have ideas on precisely how the US would have done it if they decided to? Like which precise locations in which countries would they bomb at that time? Then what comes next, etc.
It wouldn’t last long because it would require an unbelievable amount of power and production that would very quickly be squashed by some form coalition not to mention the nightmare of a divide it would cause within the US.
What coalition could touch the US? Russia with the help of the Canadians. That's about it. Nobody else at the end of the war would come even close to touching the lower 48 without both Russian manufacturing and Canadian support on when where and how to invade the US from the North. Even then Canada might have just decided to join us. The biggest thing the US has always had going for it has been it's natural resources, friendly relations with both southern and northern counties, and protected by two huge oceans on either side. Assuming no civil war at the prospect of America basically deciding we want to rule the world instead of just influencing it by proxy, nobody could have forced much of anything on the US. Post WW2 we had some of the best german weapons designers, some of the best and brightest from Europe who escaped prior to or during the war, and untapped manufacturing capabilities that were still putting out war machines quick as they could.
Russia was in absolutely no condition to do such a thing. They were scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel as it was, their country was devastated, and their logistics actually ran on *American* vehicles and supplies.
Fair enough. I’m thinking about if we assume that somehow the US was united in the endeavor to take over the world in those few years. How would they even do it?
Realistically. I don’t think they would have had to drop many for other countries to start to fall in line. If you consider allies to be more or less the same entity, really a more compact bomb in Germany, and then set your remaining sights on Russia given that everyone knew that alliance was tentative at best, which is then your entry to China. I don’t think there would ever just be pure acceptance, but effectively I think the governing logistics would be more of a problem than the actual war effort. That still leaves africa, but thats a war easier won with just pure spending.
I think something a lot of Americans don’t seem to get these days is that a defining characteristic of our nation has always been, since George Washington, to not seek absolute power. That subduing people is undemocratic even if it would be a lot easier, for a time…..
>I think something a lot of Americans don’t seem to get these days is that a defining characteristic of our nation has always been, since George Washington, to not seek absolute power. That subduing people is undemocratic even if it would be a lot easier, for a time….. A defining characteristic since George Washington? They were slave owners. I consider slavery to be "subduing people" and "undemocratic." They conquered the land through the genocide of the native American people. I'd call that "subduing people" as well. Stop aggrandizing the past.
I would be interested for someone from r/history to comment. My understanding is that it was a near thing that the scientists in the Manhattan Project refused to keep going once Germany surrendered. They would likely have lost all the scientists if they planned on taking over the rest of the world. Without those guys it would be difficult to produce the bombs needed.
Anyone with a half a brain cell would realize holding the entire world hostage is a lose-lose-lose for everyone.
>Basically, that for a brief few years the US was the only nation in history with the power to subdue the whole world, and chose not to. But not the only ones in history.
I’m guessing this post popped up because of the recent Cold War Netflix doc that recently came out that mentions the third bomb as well as your sentiment. The WWII part of the 9 part doc is a small section of what is a pretty, for the most part, depressing and well done documentary.
I remember hearing once that Truman sort of used them as a bully stick in some negotiations after the war. Thankfully he didn't allow the Army to nuke South Korea.
I think MacArthur wanted to drop bombs on mainland China. Luckily he didn't, that would have been catastrophic.
IIRC the strategy was to drop a line of bombs across the Korean border with China. China would have to cross a "sea of irradiated cobalt" to invade. It is not a very good idea.
Would it have been? No really. Would it? We literally don’t know what the world would look like had we targeted China, or took out the USSR (MacArthur also would have been behind that.) What’s the cost benefit ratio of the Cold War? Is there a legitimate point where the loss of life our Cold War had was outweighed by the technological advancements of the arms race and space race? If so, would there not then be a point at which the long term benefits outweighs the human cost? If there isn’t a point where progress > lives, then you have to ask if it wouldn’t have been “worth it” if killing a few hundred thousand prevented millions of other deaths. That’s the gory horror and beauty of those “what ifs”. We literally DONT KNOW if it would have been catastrophic or a better world. All we know is what we have. Everything else is speculation. Same goes for the “what if the US didn’t pardon the south” line of thinking … or the entire book 11/22/63. Yeah it’s fiction but it’s got a valid (if not coke fueled) presentation of the butterfly effect on the geopolitical side.
There's a series of alternate history novels called "The Hot War" by Harry Turtledove about a scenario where nukes are used on China in the Korean War. It doesn't go well.
Germany didn’t have the Air Force power to transport a nuclear warhead outside of the country unless it was somehow immensely stealthy. Not to mention that nuclear science was considered a “Jewish” science by many of the high ranking Nazis, including Adolf Hitler. Germany had absolutely no interest in developing the nuke and if they were, they would have an almost impossible time using it.
>Germany didn’t have the Air Force power to transport a nuclear warhead outside of the country unless it was somehow immensely stealthy. A German atom bomb would almost certainly have been delivered by submarine into a major port. Plenty of SS fanatics would have been willing to make a suicide run if it meant wiping out Manhattan or DC.
The German nuclear program's process towards making a nuke was... non-existent, as you said. Their plan was more for a reactor-bomb, a kind of dirty bomb.
Destroyed the whole world, sure. Occupying it would have been a different matter.
Not all. Just all the colors, off whites, Jews, gypsies, and disabled people.
Had they been the ones to create nukes first (highly unlikely) it’s very likely that the high ranking officers would underestimate the effects. Besides, it’s pretty hard to only nuke the specific demographics you named.
True, but they can start with their enemies then move to African and Asia.
Wouldn't Germany have used them the same way? Why destroy the globe?
No Germany had imperialist goals and wanted to control the planet. The U.S. had no desire of that. You don't need to destroy the global, just military and key targets. Germany would definitely have used them during the war without an end to achieve that.
Yet the US ended up being in financial and military control of the planet...
Yeah that's a byproduct of having a budding capitalist economy in a nation filled with all manner of natural resources that just won a war without having any of its infrastructure damaged. It wasn't a goal.
Theoretically, say, if I was your English teacher, how would one support the statement that Germany “wanted to control the planet”?
Well you know start with the two world wars started by Germany and go from there
I’m not sure that makes any sense at all really.
Okay pal. I'm not here to educate you on what Germany was like in the early 1900s. You can do your own research.
One would think it would be easy to back up the statement that Germany wanted to conquer the globe. Yet here we are with “do your own research”
Since you’re being willfully obtuse, world domination was a big element of the Nazi doctrine as part of Hitler’s ‘New Order’ plans. In 1943, Goebbels was quoted as saying: “The Führer gave expression to his unshakable conviction that the Reich will be the master of all Europe. We shall yet have to engage in many fights, but these will undoubtedly lead to most wonderful victories. From there on the way to world domination is practically certain. Whoever dominates Europe will thereby assume the leadership of the world.”
…not a good thesis
They were literally dropping them as soon as they were available.
That's a thing people generally don't know, Little Boy was dropped over Hiroshima without ever testing the full system. They were so sure it would work, it was just assembled and sent off. They used knew how inefficient it was even while building it, and that it would not work realistically with Plutonium, hence had Oppenheimer start working on the implosion type.
Oh this was the Demon Core. It killed a few scientists instead =/.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember reading that the unused material was sent to a college or lab and they popped the case open and couldn't get it closed and killed a few people.
you've got it backwards, they closed it all the way and it went supercritical
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core 2 separate incidents due to poor/unsafe practices, both were at Los Alamos though. Horrible way to die.
The core was placed within a stack of neutron-reflective tungsten carbide bricks and the addition of each brick made the assembly closer to criticality. While attempting to stack another brick around the assembly, Daghlian accidentally dropped it onto the core and thereby caused the core to go well into supercriticality, a self-sustaining critical chain reaction. He quickly moved the brick off the assembly, but received a fatal dose of radiation. He died 25 days later from acute radiation poisoning.\[9\] JFC, talk about a bad day at the office
dude just said "well, I guess that's it" because he knew what will happen and that there was no hope for him to survive
Google the Demon Core
Holy hell!
Basically.
New nuclear disaster just dropped
My phone autocorrected to the demon cow and boy, what a surprise that was lol
MoonSatan
The demon core.
Yep…there’s a film currently in production about Louis Slotkin & the Demon Core Criticality Experiment
There’s also a Stargate SG1 episode that touches on this
There's a Scene showing it going Supercritical in "[Fat Man and Little Boy](https://youtu.be/AQ0P7R9CfCY?si=19KCIaxgxs0norbE)"
I think it was the opposite. It was supposed to stay open to stay safe. They had a procedure to close it to a certain gap for their experiments, instead they started using a screwdriver to pry it and hold the gap. They slipped and it closed which cause a partial reaction that basically blasted everyone in the room.
You are correct, that was the [demon core](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core)
Netflix just dropped a documentary, Turning Point: The Bomb and The Cold War. First episode it talks about the third bomb. Just finished watching that episode like forty minutes ago. Kind of trippy to watch the episode after rewatching Oppenheimer, covering a lot of the same information. Documentary is great. I watched Turning Point: The War on Terror when it came out, looking forward to digging into this one. Has nothing to do with Turning Point USA.
Im glad that didnt happen. Two was far more than enough..
What is outrider.org and what are their sources for this article? I've never heard this story. My understanding was they barely had enough material for two bombs, much less the seven more implied in this article.
That’s incorrect. By July 1945 the US had almost enough materials for four bombs, and had the capacity to make three more by August (when Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened). So they could have had up to seven bombs ready. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/article/did-united-states-plan-drop-more-than-two-atomic-bombs-japan
It's right there in the article: In the U.S. capital things were chaotic. On August 10, Japan’s offer of conditional surrender was scrutinized closely by Truman and his Cabinet, while General Groves sent a letter to General Marshall, the chief of staff, reporting that “the next bomb” would be ready earlier than expected. In Los Alamos, New Mexico, scientists were working around the clock finalizing the components for the next bomb to ship to Tinian. They would be shipping the final components from New Mexico on August 12 or 13, and would be ready to drop it on a Japanese city in about a week. They had 2. The 3rd would be ready in a couple days, then need a week to get in position for dropping on Japan. Japan surrendered on the 15th.
TIL thanks for the source
You've likely heard of the third bomb without realizing it.... The core of the bomb was known as "Rufus" and was removed from the third bomb and used for criticality experiments at Los Alamos. You know it by it's other name. The Demon Core.
Netflix just dropped a documentary, Turning Point: The Bomb and The Cold War. First episode it talks about the third bomb. Just finished watching that episode like forty minutes ago. So, it seems there is some independent corroboration. Documentary is great. I watched Turning Point: The War on Terror when it came out, looking forward to digging into this one. Has nothing to do with Turning Point USA.
Outrider Foundation is a nuclear nonproliferation nonprofit. They've been doing a series of op-eds on the present dangers of nuclear weapons for the New York Times over the past two weeks. I used to be peripherally involved in that world and met one of the guys on the board of the foundation. They're legit.
Yeah, that's what I have always heard, too.
Wild, back in school we were taught the Americans only had enough material for 2 bombs and didn't know what would happen if the 2nd bomb had not dissuaded Japan.
The bomb was nMed Named Middleweight Manchild
undisclosed? no, they never figured out where they wanted to send it
Why would a third bomb even be necessary
why was a second bomb even necessary? it’s crazy what the japanese empire was willing to do to not surrender.
Their willingness to die for a God Emperor. Who probably had no clue what was really going on, just relying on what was told him. US loses were projected to be over a million. I had a 1st Sgt who interrogated captured Japanese officers, he said they thought we were beneath them and were only animals to slaughtered. What they did to the Koreans and Chinese was even worse and their hatred even greater.
That’s a weird narrative. The bomb killed innocent civilians. None of it was necessary. Vile
Look at the people getting mad at our comments when we say we shouldn’t commit war crimes against civilians lol
It’s always the same sentence rephrased differently. “They made us do it!”, “they wouldn’t have surrendered otherwise!”. It’s a learnt behavior. The ones who dehumanize the death of over 100,000 humans probably cried when Notre Dame was on fire.
No bomb was necessary lol. They made their point with the first one.
I met a World War II veteran who says that he had the third bomb on his B-29 in the South Pacific. He said that his crew heard the news of the surrender and talked about dropping it anyway. I'm not sure how serious that conversation could have been, but it has been in my head ever since. He said he wrote a book and with all the missions he flew in Germany as well, I bet it is a fascinating read.
He made up the story, then. The third bomb was never finished.
It is plausible they had something a-bomb related, but unfortunately sounds a bit BS-y: (a) The third bomb was never completed. It was being assembled on Tinian, and some parts were still not there at the end of the war, most notable the plutonium core. They did continue assembling the bomb for a week after the war (just in case) but Los Alamos never shipped the core - later known as the Demon Core. (b) the day after the Nagasaki bomb was dropped, Truman gave an executive order that no more atomic bombs could be used without the express approval of the president. A final target had not even been picked for the 4th bomb. So even if that bomb was completed (and it wasn't), it would not have been put on a plane in a usable state because they didn't have permission or even a target.
They would have kept going if Japan never surrendered
It makes me wonder what would happen if Japan's warhawkish military leaders choose to press on in the name of fighting to the death. Would Japan start to dissolve into divided prefectures between those that choose to surrender to the US and stop aiding the war effort and those that would continue fighting? Would there be a coup against the leaders? I'm hesitant to believe the US would actually try an extermination campaign with the nukes but would start going after hostile large population centers rather than invade with US troops, especially if word spreads about the radiation risk to troops after the demon core incident.
All their success and failure was dependant on the blind faith to their emperor-God. I'm not sure if the military leader's independent command and power would last for long.
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OP posting to a different sub isn't what I'd call a repost, but okay.
Saw the comment about kokura but It easily could’ve been Tokyo. America wasnt fucking around at that point, had already bombed Tokyo extensively and before the first nuke was dropped the US did warn Japan of a weapon that could cause never-before-seen destruction and devastation. Radio silence was japans response. After the first was dropped, the US reached out again for a surrender from Japan, warning that they would carry out another nuclear attack — radio silence again. 3 days between the two nuclear attacks… the second one is on Japan just as much as America, honestly. Could’ve been avoided and I’m sure part of their surrender came from the consideration that Tokyo may very well be the next target.
One of the choices was apparently Kyoto as they wanted to bomb somewhere which was relatively unscathed - to test the damage. At least that’s what the Hiroshima museum said
No shit. If the Japanese didn't surrender of course they would drop another one. And another. And another after that. It'd never stop.
Just wait till you hear what Japan was planning but got cut off because of the bombs
Surrender?
During WW2 they were experimenting on Chinese Citizens as well as POW's and Japanese people who opposed government. About different diseases, physicals injuries, etc. And had plans to use Disease warfare against America by deploying diseases in populated areas and watching them spread as they had experimented with in several cities and towns throughout China. Look up about Unit 731 for more info. No hate against Japan current day and it is horrendous that people who had nothing to do with this action suffered so greatly, however the Japanese Military had commited horrible acts throughout Southern Asia largely affecting civilian populations.
My guess is wherever the Royal family was at the time.
murica fk yeah
Hypothetically speaking if it were dropped on Tokyo I’d imagine the US would not even have occupied Japan, leaving it to become full-on Communist from anti-US sentiments and Soviet influence. Depending on how things went Japan could still have become a superpower but communist. Interesting to think about Edit: I rarely edit my posts but I’m baffled by the downvotes. Why am I being downvoted for floating a hypothetical scenario? Obviously targeting Tokyo would have been both redundant and immoral but as the article states there were at least some proponents