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Why Did The U.S. Choose Hiroshima? (2015)
- Someone 3y agoThat target selection committee didn’t mince its words. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb525-The-Atomic-Bomb-and-the-End-of-World-War-II/documents/009.pdf https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb525-The-Atomic-Bomb-...: It should be remembered that in our selection of any target, the 20th Air Force is operating primarily to laying waste all the main Japanese cities […] Their existing procedure has been to bomb the hell out of Tokyo […] The 20th Air Force is systematically bombing out the following cities with the prime purpose in mind of not leaving one stone lying on another: Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Yawata and Nagasaki. Colonel Fisher also advised that the 20th Air Force existing operational plans pointed toward dropping 100,000 tons of bomb per month by the end of 1945.
- jleyank 3y agoAs I recall, the atomic raids did not do the most physical damage they were merely the most efficient by far. There is no comparison to the radiological damage. There are museums in Hiroshima and Tokyo that document these things. Kyoto was spared by Stimson’s familiarity with it and some concern about its significance. As the imperial palace was (mostly) spared. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Niigata and Kokura were reserved vs b-29 bombing so they had a means of checking the blast effect of an intact city. Sux to be on either side in a total war with no quarter given.