Hiroshima Bombing Trial

START

HISTORY

INVESTIGATING THE ATOMIC BOMBINGS OF JAPAN

DETECTIVE

EVIDENCE

DAMAGE

SCIENTISTS

MILITARY

LEADERS

ADVISORS

JAPANESE

PLANS &

ALLIED

INDEX

Potsdam Declaration by the Allied Powers, July 1945

EVIDENCE FROM THE ALLIES

“We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.”

THE ADVISORS

• Source: Henry Stimson, U.S. Secretary of War “My chief purpose was to end the war in victory with the least possible cost in the lives of the men in the armies which I had helped to raise. In light of the alternatives which, on a fair estimate, were open to us I believe that no man in our position and subject to our responsibilities, holding in his hands a weapon of such possibilities for accomplishing this purpose and saving those lives, could have failed to use it and afterwards looked his countrymen in the face.”

THE ADVISORS

• Source: James Byrnes, special Presidential advisor “It was ever present in my mind that it was important that we should have an end to the war before the Russians came in… Personally, I was praying that the Japanese would see the wisdom of surrendering and we could bring the war to an end before the Russians got in.”

THE ADVISORS

• Source: Ralph Bard, U.S. Undersecretary of the Navy “Ever since I have been in touch with this program I have had a feeling that before the bomb is actually used against Japan that Japan should have some preliminary warning for say, two or three days in advance of use. The position of the U.S. as a great humanitarian nation and the fair play attitude of our people generally is responsible for this feeling.”

THE ADVISORS

• Source: Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Presidential military advisor “It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons… My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”

THE ADVISORS

• Source: Karl Compton, Atomic scientist & Presidential advisor “There was every reason to think that the Japanese would defend their homeland with even greater fanaticism than when they fought to the death on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. No American soldier who survived the bloody struggle on those islands has much sympathy with the view that battle with the Japanese was over as soon as it was clear that their ultimate situation was hopeless. No, there was every reason to expect a terrible struggle long after the point at which some people can now look back and say, ‘Japan was already beaten.’”

british prime minister clement atlee

"In light of what we knew at the time, which was the military were in command in Japan and that the Japanese would fight to the last man… In light of that I figure the decision was right."

U.S. President Harry Truman

"The final decision of where and when to use the atomic bomb was up to me. Let there be no mistake about it; I regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used. The top military advisors to the President recommended its use, and when I talked to Churchill he unhesitantly told me that he favored the use of the atomic bomb if it might aid to end the war."

ALLIED MILITARY

• U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Report “Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to December 31, 1945, and in all probability prior to November 1, 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

• General Carl Spaatz, U.S. Commander of Strategic Air Forces “The dropping of the bomb was done by military men under military orders. We’re supposed to carry out orders and not question them.”

• General Hap Arnold, Chief of the U.S. Air Corps “It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse… nevertheless, the abrupt surrender of Japan came more or less as a surprise, for we had figured we would have to drop about four atomic bombs.”

ALLIED MILITARY

• Letter to the son of an Enola Gay formation crewmember written as the plane returned from the bomb-run “Today the lead plane of our little formation dropped a single bomb which probably exploded with the force of 15,000 tons of high explosive. That means that the days of large bombing raids with several hundred planes are finished. A single plane disguised as a friendly transport can now wipe out a city... What regrets I have about being a party to killing and maiming thousands of Japanese civilians this morning are tempered with the hope that this terrible weapon we have created may bring the countries of the world together and prevent further wars. Alfred Nobel thought his invention of high explosives would have this effect by making wars too terrible, but unfortunately it had just the opposite reaction. Our new destructive force is so many thousands of times worse that it may realize Nobel’s dream.”

• General Leslie Groves, Officer in charge of the Manhattan Project “In my opinion, Truman’s resolve to continue with the original plan will always stand as an act of unsurpassed courage and wisdom- courage because, for the first time in the history of the U.S., the President personally determined the course of a major military strategic and tactical operation for which he could be considered directly responsible, and wisdom because history, if any thought is given to the value of American lives, has conclusively proven that his decision was correct.”

British scientist Patrick Blackett

"We may conclude that the dropping of the atomic bombs were not so much the last military acts of the second world war as the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia now in progress… One can imagine the hurry with which the two bombs- the only two existing, were whisked across the Pacific to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just in time, but only just, to insure that the Japanese government surrendered to American forces alone."

Leo Szilard, Physics Professor & leading spokesman against use of the bombs

"Mr. Byrne’s concern about Russia I fully shared, but his view that our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable in Europe I was not able to share. Indeed, I could hardly imagine any premise more false or disastrous upon which to base our policy, and I was dismayed when a few weeks later I learned that he was to be our Secretary of State."

JAPANESE PLANS

AMERICAN PLANS

• Japanese defense plans for Kyushu (Operation Ketsugo) 10,000 kamikaze planes concentrating on Allied transport ships to maximize casualties; Midget submarines & suicide boats to attack Allied ships; 900,000 soldiers just inland of beaches to avoid Allied Naval artillery; Civilian men ages 15-60 & women ages 17-40 armed with spears, bows or muskets

• U.S. Joint Chiefs’ estimates for American casualties from planned invasion of Japanese home islands Operation Olympic (Kyushu): 109,000 killed, 347,000 wounded Operation Coronet (Honshu): 158,000 killed, 744,000 wounded (500,000 Purple Heart medals were ordered prior to the invasion)

Invasion Map for Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Japan

Two aerial photographs of Hiroshima-Left: April 13, 1945Right: August 11, 1945

THE DAMAGE

Charred body of bomb victim in Hiroshima

THE DAMAGE

Colonel Saburo Hayashi, Secretary to the Japanese War Minister

EVIDENCE FROM THE JAPANESE

“We were prepared to stage the decisive battle on the Japanese mainland right before the end of the war. We thought we would be able to beat the Americans on their first landing attempt, but if the Americans launched a second or third attack our food supply would run out. We didn’t have sufficient weapons nor could we have made more.”

Hisato Itoh, 10 year old Japanese boy

“Everything in sight which can be called a building is crushed to the ground and sending out flames. People who are burned so badly that the skin of their bodies is peeling off in red strips are raising shrieking cries that sound as though the victims would die in the next minute or two. The street is so covered with dead people and burned people stretched out and groaning, and the fallen houses and things, that we can’t get through. No matter how much I might exaggerate the stories of the burned people who died shrieking and of how the city of Hiroshima was burned to the ground, the facts would still be clearly more terrible and I could never really express the truth on this piece of paper.”

Ikuko Wakara, 5 year old Japanese girl

“A man who was so badly burned that you couldn’t tell whether he was a young man or old man was lying in front of Grandpa’s house which is right next to ours. Poor thing, we laid him on the floor in our hall. Then we put a blanket down for him and gave him a pillow; while we were looking at him he swelled up to about three times his size and his whole body turned the color of dirt and got soft. Flies came all over him and he was moaning in a faint voice and an awful smell was coming from him.”

THE VICTIMS IN HIROSHIMA

Sanae Kanoh, 4 year old Japanese girl

“When we tried to cross the trolley tracks they were so hot that I jumped back. When we came to the river there was a man who was really suffering; he was black all over and he kept saying, ‘Give me water, give me water!’ I felt so sorry for him I could hardly bear it. People were in the river drinking the river water. An air raid warden was saying, ‘You mustn’t drink the water.’ He was saying it but people didn’t pay any attention to him and lots of people kept going into the water and dying.”

TIME FOR A VERDICT!

CASE CLOSED?