Today marks the sixty-eighth anniversary of the second – and, hopefully, last – use of nuclear weapons in the history of mankind.
At approximately 11:01 AM local time, the US Army Air Forces B-29 “Bockscar” – piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney – released a nuclear weapon (“Fat Man”) over Nagasaki. Forty-three seconds later, the device exploded. It is estimated that between 60,000 and 90,000 individuals were killed outright or died within 4 months due to acute effects directly attributable to bombing.
Nagasaki was not the original target for the raid – that was Kokura. However, Kokura’s weather that day prohibited visual bombing outright; Major Sweeny diverted to Nagasaki, his secondary target. A last-minute break in weather there allowed Nagasaki to be bombed using visual bombing procedures.
The Nagasaka bombing followed the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima by three days, two hours, and 46 minutes. In that attack, the “Little Boy” device (a highly-enriched uranium gun design vice “Fat Man’s” more advanced implosion design using plutonium) was used. This earlier attack effectively destroyed the city of Hiroshima, inflicting between 90,000 and 166,000 estimated deaths – again, either immediately or within 4 months due to acute affects directly attributable to the bombing.
The use of these two weapons had the desired effect: it broke Japan’s will to continue the war. Within a week, the Japanese Emperor had decided to “endure the unendurable” and publicly announced acceptance of Allied surrender terms, ending hostilities. A formal and unconditional surrender was signed by the Emperor of Japan 17 days later.
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Some today question the need for – and the morality of – these two bombings. Allow me to express my opinion on that issue.
Such individuals are at best damned fools. At worst, they are simply anti-American tools.
The two nuclear attacks killed between 150,000 and 256,000 individuals. The lower estimates for projected US casualties for the anticipated invasion of Japan necessary to end the war include about that many US dead alone; other estimates give a likely figure several times higher.
These figures do not include Japanese casualties; deaths for the Japanese side during an invasion were estimated to be literally in the millions. (On Okinawa and Iwo Jima, in excess of 90% of Japanese military personnel opposing Allied forces were killed or committed suicide – as did many in the civilian population.) Other alternatives that would end the war without the use of nuclear weapons – increased conventional bombings, an enhanced naval blockade to starve the Japanese into submission – were also estimated to kill literally millions of Japanese.
Yes, the use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was horrific. But war itself is by its very nature horrific. Further, all available alternatives were even worse – and would have caused more pain, suffering, destruction, and death.
To argue against using nuclear weapons to end World War II is, in effect, to argue that prolonging the war and causing several times more unnecessary deaths and grossly more destruction and suffering would have been morally superior. I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy that. I suspect the Deity doesn’t buy that, either.
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Still: if you’re inclined towards prayer, please take a moment today and say a prayer for the souls of those who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Allied, Japanese, and those of other nationalities. Their deaths indeed were necessary for a swift end to the war; their deaths saved inestimable others elsewhere. Mankind should forever remember and respect that.
And while you’re at it, please add a second prayer. Ask God to grant mankind the wisdom to ensure that Nagasaki forever remains the last use of nuclear weapons in human history.
