The article does talk about this though and effectively dismisses your "indistinguishable from magic" argument: " Japan had a nuclear weapons program. Several

The article does talk about this though and effectively dismisses your "indistinguishable from magic" argument: " Japan had a nuclear weapons program. Several of the military men mention the fact that it was a nuclear weapon that destroyed Hiroshima in their diaries. General Anami Korechika, minster of war, even went to consult with the head of the Japanese nuclear weapons program on the night of August 7. The idea that Japan's leaders didn't know about nuclear weapons doesn't hold up." As for your " none on the level of total, wholesale destruction like the atomic bomb": " if you graph the number of people killed in all 68 cities bombed in the summer of 1945, you find that Hiroshima was second in terms of civilian deaths. If you chart the number of square miles destroyed, you find that Hiroshima was fourth. If you chart the percentage of the city destroyed, Hiroshima was 17th. Hiroshima was clearly within the parameters of the conventional attacks carried out that summer." In other words, there is nothing to suggest any of the state of shock that you suggest would prevent them from meeting earlier.