Nagasaki before and after 1945 bombing. Public domain image.
On August 9, 1945, the B-29 bomber Bockscar dropped a 21 kilotons nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. It detonated at an altitude of about 550 meters (1,800 feet) over the city and killed an estimated 40,000 people and injured about 25,000 more.
But that wasn’t plan A.
A post-war “Fat Man” model. Public domain image.
Three days earlier, on August 6, the Enola Gay B-29 bomber had dropped the “little boy” bomb on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 90,000-140,000 people. Kokura was the secondary target, if for some reason it had been impossible to nuke Hiroshima.
Hiroshima, in the aftermath of the bombing. Public domain image.
Back to August 9, the Bockscar was flying over Kokura but it was impossible to visually see the target because of clouds and smoke coming from an earlier fire-bombing of the neighboring city of Yahata. So they moved to their secondary target which was Nagasaki.
The people of Kokura avoided nuclear death twice within 3 days, once because the Enola Gay‘s primary target wasn’t cloud-covered, and once because the Bockscar‘s primary target was. People were doing their laundry, going to work, making love while plans were made – and almost carried out – to nuke them.
I wonder how they felt when they later learned about it.
What Kokura looks like today. Credit: T.J.M., Creative Commons license (BY-NC).
See also:
February 1, 2008 at 5:49 pm |
No source, nothing? I’ve been to all three cities, and visited the museums in both, and the US documents they have under glass cases there tell a pretty different story.
February 1, 2008 at 5:49 pm |
(in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki)
February 2, 2008 at 1:19 am |
My original source, where I first learned about this, was in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Online it is mentioned in these places, among others:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokura
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE0DC133AF934A3575BC0A963958260
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8877842/
http://www.dannen.com/decision/handy.html
March 13, 2008 at 1:04 pm |
Great! Thanks.
Next time source in the article! 🙂
March 13, 2008 at 1:27 pm |
You’re right, of course. I usually always have sources. I guess I was on a roll with that post and hit “publish” more quickly than usual.
December 29, 2008 at 10:26 pm |
I remember reading a biography of the founder of Toyota, and it mentioned that he was stationed in Kokura that day. He knew what happened, and how lucky he was to survive.
September 8, 2009 at 10:18 pm |
Mr. Richard:
I can tell you as someone who’s father was a American Prisoner fo War in the hell hole known as Fukuoka #3 located several thousand yards from Kokura drop zone and who would not be alive today if not for the alternate distruction of Nagasaki I felt tickled pink:)
January 19, 2010 at 7:22 pm |
“People were doing their laundry, going to work, making love while plans were made”.
Lovely imagery, but far from the actual truth of near starvation and forced labor to produce armaments and materials for the Japanese war machine. It’s also not traditionally Japanese custom to “make love” during daylight hours.
January 19, 2010 at 10:12 pm |
Matthew,
Point taken. My goal was not to pretend that war-time Japan was a wonderful paradise and that outside forces tried to destroy it. I was just trying to picture people living their every day lives unaware that they came so close to nuclear annihilation.
If their every day lives were really bad on top of that, it just makes it even worse.
And custom or not, I bet in every city of any size, there are always people “making love” somewhere 😉
March 27, 2010 at 9:25 pm |
“And custom or not, I bet in every city of any size, there are always people “making love” somewhere”
Hahahaha
April 2, 2010 at 10:06 am |
I would love to learn the “different story” that Ben speaks of above.
November 5, 2010 at 3:16 am |
Kind of sad story. How did the men could build such a weapon…?
June 26, 2011 at 1:08 am |
I visited Hiroshima August 6th 2008 on the anniversary of the first Atomic bomb dropped on an entire civilian population. Google tropixblue, Hiroshima.
August 30, 2011 at 10:00 pm |
I went to the memorial services on the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 2008, http://tropix-blue.blogspot.com/2008/10/hiroshima-1945.html