3 ms·

> The justification at the time for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was field testing two different novel bomb designs That was probably one reason, but by no me

by pdonis 3y ago

> The justification at the time for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was field testing two different novel bomb designs That was probably one reason, but by no means the only one, nor even IMO a very significant one (and the article you link to, which is a good one from a good historian whose entire nuclear secrecy blog is worth reading, does not make the claim you are making--it gives a number of justifications that were made at the time, and the one you give is not one of them). The Gar Alperovitz book referenced in the article is also worth reading, as is another historical study, Racing the Enemy [1] by Hasegawa. The latter book is not solely about the decision to use the bomb, but more generally about the process by which the war with Japan ended, but that decision and the process that produced it of course play a large role. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Enemy-Stalin-Truman-Surrender/dp/0674022416 https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Enemy-Stalin-Truman-Surrender/... > it wasn't even certain at the time that this would work as a bomb AFAIK there was no doubt that the implosion method used in the Nagasaki bomb would work after the Trinity test. And there was never any doubt that the gun-type method used in the Hiroshima bomb would work--they didn't even bother to test it before the Hiroshima bombing. The only question was what the practical yield would be under bombing conditions. But that could have been assessed by bombing tests on uninhabited locations, as was done after the war. > it was never as clear cut and about swift endings and saving casualities as came to be believed. People forget that atomic bomb or not the US was already committed to levelling all cities within Japan. These things are quite true. They do not, however, mean that wanting to field test two different bomb designs was a significant factor. Based on my reading I don't actually think it was one at the political level (what the military people thought was another matter, but the key decisions were made at the political level). Politically, I think the biggest factors involved were uncertainty about what it would actually take to get Japan to surrender, and the desire (at least once Truman came into office) to keep the Soviet Union from playing any part in postwar Japan, and more generally to deter them from expanding further.

defrost 3y ago
All good points, and as you say there's little on the record that supports my take on why the two post trinity bombs were always going to be used. Circling back to at the time, there are copious notes on materials, orders, deployments, and boxes of documentation, and then there is relatively little on the underlying thought given to whether the two bombs should even be used at all. At the time. No shortage of after the fact recollections of course. While I'm not a historian, more an applied geophysics dabbler, I'm familiar with the material, I've met and talked with Alex Wellerstein, I once interviewed Mark Oliphant, and I've spoken with a number of the technical people who came out for the Emu Fields and Montebello tests. In the context of an ongoing bombing campaign and truly vast amounts money and resources spent on creating new weapons it's difficult to imagine a scenario in which the bombs would not have been field tested. If that kind of take is a foundation then everthing written becomes bookkeeping and for the record. In life, where there's momentum politics will often follow rather than lead. Regardless, I simply have an opinion (well, many and not all consistent with each other) and not a book or a career; I principally enjoy jolting people who have a particular fixed view of many events in history to become aware of wider fields of opinion and to consider how consensus views evolve over time.

by pdonis 3y ago

defrost 3y ago

All good points, and as you say there's little on the record that supports my take on why the two post trinity bombs were always going to be used. Circling back to at the time, there are copious notes on materials, orders, deployments, and boxes of documentation, and then there is relatively little on the underlying thought given to whether the two bombs should even be used at all. At the time. No shortage of after the fact recollections of course. While I'm not a historian, more an applied geophysics dabbler, I'm familiar with the material, I've met and talked with Alex Wellerstein, I once interviewed Mark Oliphant, and I've spoken with a number of the technical people who came out for the Emu Fields and Montebello tests. In the context of an ongoing bombing campaign and truly vast amounts money and resources spent on creating new weapons it's difficult to imagine a scenario in which the bombs would not have been field tested. If that kind of take is a foundation then everthing written becomes bookkeeping and for the record. In life, where there's momentum politics will often follow rather than lead. Regardless, I simply have an opinion (well, many and not all consistent with each other) and not a book or a career; I principally enjoy jolting people who have a particular fixed view of many events in history to become aware of wider fields of opinion and to consider how consensus views evolve over time.