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This sounds completely improbable. Phones / telegrams and cameras existed. Nagasaki happened 3 days later, I find it hard to believe information couldn't trav

• eschulz 5y ago
  You're correct, but the circumstances of the first atomic attack caused significant delays for accurate information to reach the Imperial General Headquarters. The first info stated that Hiroshima was devastated in an air raid, but the officers at high command considered this to be an error due to the lack of reports of hundreds of American bombers over the city on that day. However, they were unable to get any communication from Hiroshima (note that the military headquarters was at the Hiroshima Castle which was completely destroyed). It didn't take days, but it did take many hours for Tokyo to realize that indeed Hiroshima was devastated in an attack. Some officers even thought it was a traditional bombing raid and that there was a technical issue or even sabotage with their communication lines between Hiroshima and Tokyo. Tho Officer Corps at first had little knowledge to understand that it might have been an atomic attack, and that therefore the war had changed in a very serious manner.
• dredmorbius 5y ago
  The first outside sign of trouble at Hiroshima was actually the instantaneous loss of all commmunications. The bomb was dropped at 8:15. At 8:16, the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation in Tokyo noticed a loss of communications with their office in Hiroshima. Twenty minutes later, the Tokyo railroad telegraph office noticed communications had failed just north of Hiroshima, with confused reports of a "large explosion" in Hiroshima from other stations nearby. There were confused reports of a large explosion. As others have noted, there was no large observed flight of US/Alied aircraft, was would have been typical of a bombing raid. It wasn't until the early afternoon that a Japanese Imperial Army aircraft was flown over the city and made the first direct assessment of the damage incurred to those outside the city. It wasn't until the United States Government informed the Japanese via diplomatic cable the next day that it was clear that what had delivered the damage was a new type of weapon. That initial symptom of loss of communications is actually highly typical of major disasters. For smaller incidents, a more usual problem is that those directly involved simply fail to accept or change their viewpoint to understand what it is that's transpiring. In almost any large disaster, though, a highly consistent consequence is loss of regular or effective means of communications, such that this itself is a fair indication of the scope and scale of a disaster. Compare for example the HMS Sheffield attack during the Falklands War. http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/hiroshim/hiro_med.html#ATTACKS http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/hiroshim/hiro_med.html#AT... https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wf9yc/on_disasters_wwii_japanese_leadership_wasnt_aware/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wf9yc/on_disa... https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2ab25z/on_disasters_the_hms_sheffield_exocet_attack_and/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2ab25z/on_disa...