130,000 people. That’s how many people it is estimated died
in the initial atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While many more than that had already died
in Tokyo before the first atomic bomb during a lesser known event called “Operation Meetinghouse,”
why didn’t the United States drop a nuclear device on the capital of Japan to end the
war? We will uncover the answer to this question
by following an odd series of events that resulted in one city being saved while another
was reduced to radioactive rubble. And although Tokyo was not annihilated by
an atomic bomb, it may have actually gone through something worse. On July 16, 1945, President Harry S. Truman
was notified that the Trinity Test was a success and that the United States had detonated the
world’s first atomic bomb. The question was, what should be done with
it? Truman called the nuclear weapon “the most
terrible bomb in the history of the world.” Billions of dollars and thousands of man-hours
had been spent on the development of the weapon, and now Truman needed to decide whether it
would be used in the Pacific or locked away. Tokyo would have made sense as an initial
target for the weapon of mass destruction as it was the capital of Japan. However, other factors needed to be taken
into consideration. First of all, the U.S. needed to determine
if they were even going to use the atomic bomb. There were 4 options under consideration for
what would come next. Option 1. Continue the conventional bombing of Japanese
cities instead of dropping the atomic bomb. Option 2. Invade Japan, knowing it would cost the lives
of millions of people. Option 3. Conduct a demonstration of the atomic bomb
on an uninhabited island. Option 4. Drop the atomic bomb on a Japanese city. As we know, Harry S. Truman and the United
States military chose option 4. But what was the thought process behind the
decision, and was Tokyo ever considered a target during the meetings? Let’s look at each of the options a bit
more in depth. Option 1: conventional bombing. The United States had been bombing parts of
the Japanese home islands for some time but had only begun to really ramp things up around
the middle of 1944. By the following year, it was estimated that
333,000 Japanese people were killed, with another 473,000 injured during U.S. air raids. The problem was that even though the United
States was causing massive amounts of casualties and destruction on Japanese islands, they
still refused to surrender. The thought of continuing business as usual
and expecting a different result didn’t seem to make sense at the time. Even after the Tokyo firebombing, which had
the highest mortality rate of any single air attack in the war, the Japanese leadership
still refused to surrender. This meant that Truman and his advisors needed
another option. Conventional bombing did not seem to be working,
even if it was causing massive amounts of damage. Instead, a single bomb that could obliterate
an entire city might be just what the U.S. needed. Therefore, the nuclear option was put on the
table. By August 1945, the only viable option seemed
to be either invading the Japanese home island or dropping the atomic bomb. Option 2: invading Japan. An invasion of Japan seemed inevitable unless
there was some sort of power shift in the war. The atomic bomb provided that catalyst. However, before the U.S. even knew that the
atomic bomb would successfully detonate if dropped from a plane, Truman and his advisors
had to prepare for the very real option that boots would have to be put on the ground of
the Japanese home islands. Unfortunately, over the course of several
months, whenever U.S. troops landed on Japanese-controlled islands, the enemy forces almost always refused
to surrender. Entire units would fight until the very last
man rather than give up, which inflicted massive casualties on both sides. It was suspected that if the United States
invaded Japan, not only would the soldiers fight to the bitter end, but the general population
would also refuse to give up. An invasion plan would end with the deaths
of millions of troops and civilians, and it wasn’t even clear if the U.S. could take
the home islands successfully. A preview of how brutal the fighting would
be if the U.S. invaded was seen on Iwo Jima when American soldiers attempted to take the
island on February 19, 1945. In this battle, 6,200 US soldiers died. Another 13,000 soldiers and sailors were killed
in the Battle of Okinawa, which began on March 26th of the same year. The casualty rate on Okinawa was 35%, meaning
1 out of every 3 soldiers who engaged in battle died or was wounded. Truman even voiced his concern about the invasion
option by stating invading the main island would be like "Okinawa from one end of Japan
to the other." The astonishing thing was that Harry Truman
was almost certainly right. Documents discovered in Japan after the war
ended suggested that Japan’s plan for resistance was to have every soldier, civilian, and child
fight against the Allied soldiers. The hope was to make the cost of taking the
home island so high that the United States would give up and call for a cease-fire. This would then allow the Japanese to establish
terms that would allow them to keep the territory they occupied at the time. When considering the invasion of Japan, Harry
Truman wrote: “My object is to save as many American lives as possible, but I also have
a human feeling for the women and children of Japan.” Option 3: an atomic bomb demonstration. Scientists and military officials who were
a part of the Manhattan Project were able to witness the awesome power of an atomic
bomb firsthand when Gadget detonated at the Trinity Test Site. However, the rest of the world, including
Emperor Hirohito, had no idea how powerful this weapon was. Therefore, it would have made sense to demonstrate
its capabilities in the hopes that it would cause the Japanese leadership to surrender
so that the bomb would never have to be used in combat. When a demonstration was proposed on an uninhabited
island where Japanese scientists and military leaders could see the explosion, it was shot
down for several reasons. The first was because it was unclear who would
be chosen to view the detonation and if they would have the ability to convince the Japanese
leadership to surrender. Ideally, a panel of Japanese scientists and
high-ranking military officers would have been chosen, but even then, it was unclear
how long it would take for Japan to make a final decision about surrendering, and the
U.S. couldn’t wait any longer to act. Then there was the very real possibility that
when the Japanese saw the demonstration, they would double down on their war effort and
ramp up production. They might have even begun to construct countermeasures
such as massive bunkers and increase anti-aircraft encampments to keep U.S. planes that could
be carrying the atomic bomb away from key locations. However, the biggest concern for the U.S.
was what would happen if the demonstration turned out to be a failure. What if they dropped one of the bombs and
it didn’t explode? It is important to remember that only one
nuclear device had been successfully detonated at this point in time. It was not entirely clear if the success could
be repeated, especially when the bomb was dropped from a plane and had to be triggered
at a specific altitude. If the test itself was a failure, the Japanese
might believe the U.S. was desperate, or worse, incompetent, and start to fight even harder. Then there was the fact that only 2 atomic
bombs existed in the entire world. These would be the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. If the United States detonated one in a demonstration,
it would only have one left over if Japan refused to surrender. There were more bombs being produced, but
at the time the decision to use nuclear weapons was being made, Harry Truman and his advisors
only had the 2 on their way to Tinian island to work with and it would be a while before
they more. Some of the military advisors who were on
the committee to decide what should be done warned that a demonstration would not be impressive
enough to force a surrender. Instead, they stated, “We can propose no
technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war. We can see no acceptable alternative to direct
military use.” The Japanese needed to experience the destructive
capabilities and mass casualties firsthand. All of these factors led the U.S. to go with
option 4. Option 4: Drop the atomic bomb on Japan. It was suggested that perhaps the best way
to use the bomb was to drop it in Tokyo Harbor. This would allow the Japanese leadership to
see and experience the weapon's awesome power. However, most military advisors agreed this
would not have the desired effect and concluded the bombs must be released over densely populated
cities that met certain criteria. The first criteria was that target cities
had to have suffered little or no damage from conventional bombing runs in the past so that
it was clear the atomic blast was responsible for the destruction and casualties sustained
after the detonation. The second criteria, and one that appeared
to be less important, was that there should be some type of military production happening
in the city. However, since workers' homes and entire neighborhoods
were built around military factories, it would be impossible to find a strictly military
target. These criteria eventually led to a short list
of possible targets. The original list consisted of Hiroshima,
Kokura, Niigata, and Kyoto. However, a substitute was made at the last
moment, and Kyoto was replaced with Nagasaki. We are going to examine exactly why Hiroshima
and Nagasaki were ultimately chosen, but it is worth noting that Tokyo was never actually
on the list of possible cities to bomb. Later on, it will become apparent why this
was the case, but suffice it to say Tokyo didn’t meet all of the criteria outlined
by the advisory board. In the final days before the atomic bombs
were dropped, a committee made up of scientists including J. Robert Oppenheimer, politicians
such as Henry Lewis Stimson, who was also the Secretary of War, and Generals like Leslie
Groves deliberated on how best to use the atomic bomb. On May 10th, the committee met to discuss
several aspects of the bombs and which cities to target. Joyce C. Stearns, a scientist from the Air
Force, told the rest of the committee the names of four locations that were on the shortlist
of targets. At the time, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and
Kokura had been chosen. Each were “large urban areas of more than
three miles in diameter; capable of being effectively damaged by the blast, and likely
to be unattacked by next August.” In the meeting, someone suggested bombing
the emperor's palace in Tokyo, which would have sent a clear message to the Japanese
leadership. But this plan was dismissed for several reasons
that we will get into later. It was decided that using the bomb must have
two psychological effects along with destroying military facilities and infrastructure. The atomic bomb must scare the Japanese into
surrendering while simultaneously showing the rest of the world how powerful the United
States’ new weapon was. Really what it came down to was that the bomb
must cause a massive amount of damage and result in a staggering number of casualties. The committee believed this would be the only
way that Japanese leadership would surrender unconditionally. And since the United States had been engaging
in firebombing campaigns that wiped entire cities off the map, detonating an atomic bomb
to level a key target seemed like the next logical step. Almost everyone on the committee agreed that
Hiroshima would be a good first target as it was compact, had military factories, and
if the bomb were dropped directly in the middle of the urban center, it would end up destroying
most, if not all, of the city. Hiroshima would show the true potential of
the bomb and scare the Japanese population into submission; at least, that was what everyone
hoped. Let’s now look at where the two atomic bombs
were actually dropped, how these locations were ultimately decided upon, and why Tokyo
never made it onto the list of candidate cities and was therefore spared from a nuclear blast. After analyzing weather conditions, timing,
and maps of Hiroshima, the orders were given to make the city the primary target. It was noted in reports that the city was
“the largest untouched target,” which meant that any destruction done would be the
direct result of the atomic blast. Hiroshima had a population of approximately
318,000 and was an important depot and port of embarkation for Japan. The hills that surrounded the city were also
thought to provide a focussing effect that would increase the blast damage. It had been decided earlier in the war that
Hiroshima wasn’t a very good target for firebombing as the Ota River ran through it
and would act as a firebreak. However, an atomic blast would have no problem
decimating structures on both sides of the river. On August 6, 1945, at 0915:15, Thomas Ferebee
announced “bomb away” over the Enola Gay’s radio as Little Boy was released from the
belly of the plane and fell towards the Aioi Bridge in Hiroshima. At 0916:02, the bomb detonated 1,968 feet
or 600 meters above the city. Estimates vary, but it is likely that between
70,000 and 100,000 people died in the initial blast. However, some estimates have this number closer
to 140,000 deaths. For the scientists and military advisors choosing
the targets for the atomic bombs, Hiroshima was an obvious choice. However, the second city that would be hit
if the Japanese didn’t surrender after the first blast was hotly disputed by some. In fact, Nagasaki wasn’t even supposed to
be on the list of targets on August 9th. Through a series of unforeseen events, the
people of Kyoto and Kokura were spared, and the population of Nagasaki was decimated by
the Fat Boy atomic bomb. Kyoto had originally been chosen as the second
target in Japan. It had a population of approximately 1 million
and met almost all of the criteria that the committee had laid out. The city was a cultural and intellectual center
as it once served as the ancient capital of the country. The downside was that Kyoto had no significant
military installations. However, since the goal was to show the destructive
power of the bomb and put the fear of God into the Japanese people, Kyoto remained high
on the list of targets. Henry L. Stimson had traveled to Kyoto with
his wife before the war and felt a personal connection to the city. He made it his mission to remove the former
capital from the list of targets. Stimson argued that the atomic bomb should
“be used as a weapon of war in the manner prescribed by the laws of war” and “dropped
on a military target.” Kyoto did not meet these requirements. However, other than Stimson’s objections,
none of the other committee members saw dropping the atomic bombs on Japanese cities full of
civilians as unethical or immoral as this was war. Stimson met with General Groves and asked
that Kyoto be removed from the list. Groves argued that Kyoto “was large enough
an area for us to gain complete knowledge of the effects of the atomic bomb.” But on June 30th, Groves finally gave in and
removed the former capital from the list of atomic bomb targets. On July 24, 1946, the day that the official
strike orders were issued, a handwritten note was attached to the list of targets that just
said “and Nagasaki.” This put the city in the fourth-place position,
which indicated it was least likely to be bombed. The reason that Nagasaki was chosen to replace
Kyoto was because of its large shipbuilding industry and its importance as a trade center. There were also two munitions factories in
the city: the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Torpedo Works. However, the hilly geography and presence
of a POW camp in the city made it less desirable than the others on the list. When the B-29 named Bockscar took off from
Tinian island in the early hours of the morning on August 9th, its target was Kokura, which
had been chosen because of the Japanese Imperial Army’s massive arsenal located there. However, when the bomber arrived above the
city at 10:00 a.m., clouds and bad weather obscured the ground below. The aircraft circled Kokura three times, looking
for an opening, but the cloud cover never dissipated. Running low on fuel, Major Charles W. Sweeney
decided to proceed to his alternate target of Nagasaki. The plane reached its destination but found
that the weather was just as bad, if not worse. Running out of time and fuel, Sweeny was about
to order the plane to return to base without dropping its payload when an opening appeared
in the clouds, and the city could be seen below. At 11:02, Fat Boy was dropped over Nagasaki
and detonated. This was a larger bomb than had been dropped
on Hiroshima and produced an explosion with more than 21 kilotons of power, killing as
many as 40,000 to 70,000 people and leveling the city. Less than a week later, on August 15th, Emperor
Hirohito announced to the Japanese people that he would be surrendering to the United
States, signaling the beginning of the end of World War II in the Pacific. But what about Tokyo? What specific reasons did the committee have
for omitting the capital of the Japanese empire from their list of targets? The first was that Tokyo housed many of Japan’s
military and government leaders. Since the bombs were to be dropped without
warning, the blast could kill key members of the Japanese administration, thereby causing
a breakdown in command. If this were to happen, the surrender might
actually have been delayed as power shifted within the government. The United States was looking for a quick
end to the war and still needed a functioning Japanese government to negotiate with. An atomic bomb dropped on Tokyo may have ended
up prolonging the war. But the main reason why Tokyo was not considered
a target for the atomic bombs was because the city was already in ashes from the deadliest
bombing runs of the war. On the night of March 9th and into March 10th,
1945, 334 B-29 bombers flew from the Mariana Islands to Tokyo. The code name for this mission was Operation
Meetinghouse, and many military leaders hoped the attack would force the Japanese to surrender. The B-29s had conducted bombing runs in Japan
before, and they had even unleashed a fiery hell on other cities, but this time things
were different. General Curtis LeMay had been newly appointed
as the head of B-29 operations in the region. He noticed that in past missions where the
bombers dropped their payloads from high altitudes, they were incredibly inaccurate. The planes were more protected high up, but
they were ineffective at such altitudes. In fact, their accuracy was less than 10%. Therefore, on the night of Operation Meetinghouse,
LeMay ordered the fleet of airships to descend from 30,000 feet to 7,000 feet. As they approached Tokyo, the B-29s broke
formation and fell into a single file line. The decision to bomb the city at night resulted
in Japanese fighters being unprepared and made it more difficult for the bombers to
be spotted by anti-aircraft guns. To increase speed, maneuverability, and payload
size, the bombers had been stripped of all nonessential components, including guns and
gunners. This allowed them to be loaded with more bombs
but left the aircraft completely defenseless. However, on the night of March 9th, this didn’t
matter. The 334 bombers met very little resistance
as they approached their targets. These B-29s were not just loaded with regular
ordinances. Instead, they carried napalm-filled incendiary
bombs that were designed to create a firestorm in the city below. United States military strategists knew that
Japan, and Tokyo in particular, constructed most of its buildings using wood and were
tightly packed together. This meant that once the bombs went off, the
city would ignite, and there would be no stopping the fire from burning its way across the city. U.S. strategists marked 3 key locations in
Tokyo that needed to be hit as they were the most flammable sectors and would cause the
largest fire. Army engineers had actually created a mock
Japanese village where they tested setting fires in order to figure out the best combination
of explosives and napalm. The model Japanese village was constructed
in Dugway Proving Ground in Utah and served as an important preparation tool before the
bombing run. By the time Operation Meetinghouse began,
the engineers knew that Tokyo would burn to the ground that night. Between March 9th and March 10th, 15 square
miles or nearly 40 square kilometers were consumed by flames. At the time, Tokyo was one of the most densely
packed cities in the entire world. The fire raged for nearly 4 days leaving more
than a million people homeless. Reports that came out after the Tokyo firebombing
were horrific. In some places, the flames were so intense
that canals began to boil, metal frames melted, and men, women, and children caught in the
fire burst into flames. When the operation was over, 1,667 tons of
napalm-filled incendiary bombs had been dropped on Tokyo. Some historians have argued that the firebombing
of Tokyo was the single deadliest airstrike of the entire war and that it likely caused
more death and destruction than either of the atomic bombs. More than 100,000 people died in the firebombing,
and hundreds of thousands more suffered from third-degree burns and disfigurement. Just for a comparison, the firebombing of
Dresden in Germany resulted in 25,000 deaths, which at the time seemed unfathomable. So, this brings us back to the question of
why didn’t the United States bomb Tokyo. The simplest explanation is that there was
nothing left to bomb. The entire city had been burnt to the ground
as a result of Operation Meetinghouse, which meant that it didn’t meet the criteria of
being relatively untouched by other attacks. The population had been decimated, and the
city was little more than charred piles of wood. If an atomic bomb had been dropped on Tokyo,
it would have created a massive mushroom cloud and blown a ton of debris outwards from its
epicenter, but it wouldn’t have shown off the weapon's destructive power. At that point, the bomb would have only affected
the already injured population, and it wouldn’t have really disrupted the Japanese military
as there were very few factories or military buildings still operational in the city. So the main reason an atomic bomb wasn’t
dropped on Tokyo was because of the firebombing of the city 5 months prior. It is estimated that the total civilian casualties
in Japan as a result of Allied air attacks was around 806,000. Of these casualties, 330,000 people died. Japan also suffered another 780,000 combat
casualties due to American bombing runs. Not every Japanese target would have been
as affected by a firebombing run as Tokyo was, just like not every city would have suffered
as much death and destruction as Nagasaki and Hiroshima did due to the atomic bomb. U.S. strategists meticulously decided on targets
and attack methods where the most destruction could be done and fear could be instilled
in the Japanese people. Even though these actions are controversial
and can be debated, the result was that the Japanese surrendered unconditionally to the
United States after the atomic bombs were dropped. Although it is worth mentioning that the Soviet
Union declaring war on Japan and the Red Army barreling through East Asia also played a
role in Japan’s decision to surrender. Now watch “Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki (Minute by Minute).” Or check out “The Truth About Why America
Dropped Atomic Bombs on Japan.”
