[ RadSafe ] [EXTERNAL] Re: ATOMIC OVERLOOK

Tue Oct 28 09:28:39 CDT 2014

The primary target for the second atomic bomb was Kokura, Japan, which had a large arms manufacturing plant that produced missiles, aircraft and other weapons for the Japanese Army.   According to a 1995 NY Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/07/world/kokura-japan-bypassed-by-a-bomb.html): 

"The city was also the place where chemical weapons were secretly assembled for Japan's army. The Kyodo news agency recently turned up once-classified American military documents that show that by July 2, 1945, Washington knew that chemical weapons were being made in Kokura." 

Kokura also had been a  secondary target on August 6th if cloud cover had prevented Hiroshima from being bombed.  However on August 9th it was the bomber's view of Kokura that was blocked by clouds, thus the secondary target of Nagasaki was hit.

Rick Strickert
Austin TX

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Vernig, Peter G.
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 9:06 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) MailingList
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] [EXTERNAL] Re: ATOMIC OVERLOOK

The invasion of Japan would probably have cost a whole lot more US lives and maybe even more Japanese lives that Hiroshima.

There was a discussion apparently of doing a demo and then requesting/demanding surrender and that was decided against.

The thing I don't understand was Nagasaki. After Hiroshima, it was what 3 days and then they hit Nagasaki? I could understand not feeling the demo  would be believed or would have taken a lot of time while more fighting went on but after Hiroshima seems like they could have waited and possibly then done an actual demo without further death and destruction. And if that hadn't worked, my understanding was a third bomb was on the way.

Peter G. Vernig
Radiation Safety Officer
(303) 399-8020 ext. 2447
Fax (303) 393-5026

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Strickert, Rick (Consultant)
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 7:45 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [ RadSafe ] ATOMIC OVERLOOK

Regarding the claim about the atomic bomb used on Nagasaki (or Hiroshima):  "The monstrous crime was using it just as starting shot of the cold war."

This is simple a personal political opinion of some people, devoid of the reality of WWII.  Here's an opinion from someone else:

“The atom bomb was no ‘great decision’… It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.” – Harry S. Truman, at a Columbia University Seminar, April 28, 1959, New York City.  As quoted in The Buck Stops Here: The 28 Toughest Presidential Decisions and How They Changed History, Thomas J. Craughwell, Edwin Kiester Jr., Quarry Books, 2010, p. 178.

Here are some other relevant quotes:

“We have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history — and won,” President Harry Truman, The New York Times, Tuesday, August 7, 1945, p. 1

"Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans." 
("Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S Truman, 1945", pg. 212).

“During a meeting at the White House in October 1945, [Robert] Oppenheimer tried to convey his deep moral crisis. ‘Mr. President, I have blood on my hands,’ he remarked. ‘Never mind,’ Truman replied, ‘it’ll all come out in the wash.’ (According to some accounts he offered Oppenheimer a hankerchief.) ‘Don’t you bring that crybaby in here again,’ Truman later told an aide. ‘After all, all he did was make the bomb. I’m the guy who fired it off.’” — Excerpted from The Bomb: A Life (Gerard J. DeGroot, Harvard University Press, 2004, p. 111)

“Don’t bother me with your conscientious scruples. After all the thing’s superb physics.”  – Enrico Fermi, taken from Brighter than a Thousand Suns, Robert Jungk, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1970, p. 202.

“Science has nothing to be ashamed of, even in the ruins of Nagasaki.” – Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974), Science and Human Values Harper and Row, New York, 1959, p. 73

“No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.” – Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), New York Times Magazine 12 May 1968, pp. 102-103. 

Rick Strickert
Austin, TX

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