Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Fat Man Bomb - Nagasaki

One of my late uncles was a young marine that arrived in the Pacific theater in the latter stages of WW2. He would have been part of the invasion of Japan if that had occurred. When the Japanese surrendered there were a hell of a lot of young American G.I.'s who just had their lives spared and were aware of that fact.

I have the book Unbroken in the camper that I read when we take the quads out. Zamperini when through a special level of hell at the hands of the Japanese. Second guessing the decision to drop may be human nature but rewriting history is bs.
I had a great uncle that fought at Tarawa. He struggled with civility in restaurants when he saw a person of Japanese descent. Made dinner an event. Very tough old man.

"Countddown 1945" by Chris Wallace gives some great behind the scenes insight into the development and decision to drop the bomb. There were actually many alternatives considered, including a demonstration blast for the Japanese to witness. That plan was ultimately rejected out of fear that is the demonstration failed to detonate, it might give the Japanese new resolve to fight harder. The other issue that hastened the rush to bring the Pacific war to an end was the Russians scooping up and realigning Europe after the defeat of Germany.

On Jan 17, 1945 Chief of Staff Marshall and Admiral King sent a letter to the House Military Affairs Committe that 900,000 inductions were required by June 30th. JCS924 Operations Against Japan Subsequent to Formosa warned taking the Home Islands might cost us a half a million American lives and many times that number wounded. 1,531,000 Purple Hearts were produced for the war effort. In 2000, there remained 120,000 Purple Heart medals in stock. Read "Hell to Pay" by D. M. Giangreco.

‘The Making of the Atomic Bomb’ by Richard Rhodes is a fantastic book about this unique and very interesting history.

My late father was on Okinawa, would most likely have been sent to Japan.

My Filipino Ex MiL, with whom I converse regularly, witnessed the Bataan Death March as a little girl, she spent the war years hiding out while her father fought with the guerillas. My own mom still remembers the sound Luftwaffe bombers made.

It really wasn’t so long ago.

Damn, they sure did a heavy price. I have a uncle who retired from Y-12 I think it was called. Had to retire because he went blind.

They started it, we finished it. Too, bad we didnt drop them and finish it sooner.

A physicist I worked with worked at Los Alamos. All he would say about it was that he worked on the optimal design of the materials. He's gone now and is remembered as a fine man.

Jaguartx is spot on

Isn't that thing kinda like, dangerous?

He's holding it like a six pack of Banquet Beer.

The Nagasaki bomb used a mass of Plutonium of about 6.5 Kg. However, what actually was converted from Mass to Energy was somewhat less than 1 Gram. The rest was just detritus.

Think of that: a mass of 1/3 of a penny did all that.

Wrong. Japans top brass didnt have to worry about being taken out by conventional bombing.

And ‘that’ is simply astounding...! That ‘missing’ mass which is converted to energy during fission equals something real damn big when it’s multiplied by the speed of light squared...!

Thank You for pointing that out shaman.

I will take issue only with a little part of this, the only difference wasn't that it took only one plane to drop them, the big difference is they helped the war come to a more speedy end.

Yeah, they were no better or worse than the fire bombings,but, as mentioned, I have zero compassion for the japanese people.

Nope. None.

You have more knowledge than I. Do you know what happens to that 6.5 kilos of Plutonium? As I understand, the most poisonous element known to man.

Just part of the radioactive dust cloud?

The Enola Gay is hanging in the Air and Space Museum near Dulles airport. The most awesome museum I have ever been in.

Jerry

Read “Hell To Pay” by D.M. Giangreco. Talks all about the decisions leading up to the dropping the bombs. Some eye opening take aways:

West coast hospitals were told to be ready to received 70,000 to 110,000 causalities a month from the Japanese home island invasion.
England wanted to wait a a year or more to “train” for the invasion.
US told England, they would be under US command using US equipment.
Australia who had been fighting Japan did not want to be under British command for obvious reasons.
For Operation Cornet and Olympic the Japanese had over 700,000 well armed and well defended soldiers who had 7 months to get ready for the first home island invasion. Imagine if the Germans had 7 months to get ready and be ready on the Normandy beaches.
LeMay wanted to use the nukes tactically, Truman agreed to drop them on Japanese cities.
Truman authorized 700,000 Purple Heart medals that are still being used today.
I’m not sure of the exact year but I believe they said the entire US male birth population of 1926??ish would have been wiped out if the home island invasions had gone ahead,

My biggest take away from this book was that after the Japanese took almost two days to respond after the second bomb was dropped, Truman authorized I believe 9 more bombs to get readies and they would have been ready in November 1945.

You never see photos of American and British troops going into Berlin. Not because they couldn’t get there before the Russians but because they were being held back and transfers of Engineers were already starting to move to the Pacific. The Japanese were betting they could hold out for a peace deal and that we wouldn’t have the stomach for total take no prisoners warfare. They were probable correct. They also had a bunch of fuel, weapons, manpower, and aircraft in reserve.

No one thought the US would be up for another 4 to 5 years of war in Japan after the Germans surrendered.


It’s a long read and very detailed but give it to any nuke nay sayer and it will change their outlook. It did for my lib sister who was an anti nuke believer,. After the finishing the book, she got it.

Cowdoc—I know it was Independance, MO now—I didn’t then
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