The Day the World Went Nuclear Page 10
Fat Man is armed.
Fat Man is placed on a trailer cradle outside the building where it was assembled. [National Archives]
CHAPTER 48
TINIAN, MARIANA ISLANDS
August 9, 1945
COLONEL PAUL TIBBETS still has not seen the awful destruction that he and his men delivered to Hiroshima. Right now that is not his primary concern. There has been a report that Bockscar, the plane carrying the second A-bomb, is lost at sea. Whether this means it has crash-landed in the Pacific or the new plutonium bomb exploded en route to the target, Tibbets does not know. Fearing the worst, he can only hope that the ominous radio message “Bockscar down” was garbled in transmission.
Even though General Curtis LeMay wanted Tibbets to lead the second atomic bombing mission, the colonel chose to hand over the job to Chuck Sweeney, his close friend. Tibbets wanted Sweeney to have a chance to go down in history. The twenty-five-year-old Bostonian flew The Great Artiste in the Hiroshima mission, witnessing the giant mushroom cloud that rose over the city as his plane’s scientific instruments measured radioactivity and blast force. Sweeney seemed an ideal choice to lead the second atomic bombing run over Japan, having served as a squadron commander for three months and flown five simulated A-bomb attack missions. Tibbets also knows him to be a rule follower, a man who will execute his orders precisely as they have been written.
The one flaw in Sweeney’s résumé is that he has never before flown in combat.
* * *
Although Tibbets is unaware of it, Bockscar has a problem. The rendezvous with the instrument plane and the photographic plane was supposed to take place at thirty thousand feet around 9:00 A.M. Sweeney had specific orders from Colonel Tibbets to remain at the rendezvous point for no more than fifteen minutes. The Great Artiste, still outfitted with scientific instruments, showed up on time, but Big Stink, the photographic plane, was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Hoppy?” Sweeney demanded, referring to the pilot of the missing B-29. “Where the hell is Hoppy?”
Defying Tibbets’s order, Sweeney circled for forty-five long minutes, burning more and more fuel. He wanted this mission to be perfect, just like that of Enola Gay. He waited at the rendezvous until he could wait no more.
Finally, just before 10:00 A.M., Sweeney broke off and flew toward Kokura.
* * *
Major James I. “Hoppy” Hopkins and Big Stink were in fact in the area the entire time. But Hopkins was at an incorrect altitude, nine thousand feet above Bockscar and The Great Artiste.
Growing more concerned by the minute, Hopkins finally disobeyed orders and broke radio silence. “Is Bockscar down?” he asked the personnel back on Tinian.
The control tower heard only the words “Bockscar down”—leading to Colonel Tibbets’s current angst and causing General Groves’s deputy to step outside the mess hall and vomit up his breakfast. All ships and planes standing by for rescue operations are now told to stand down, as Bockscar is considered lost.
But nobody has told that to Bockscar’s crew. They are on their own.
* * *
Major Sweeney has not crashed, but he is experiencing visibility problems over Japan. The target is Kokura, a historic tree-lined city just 130 miles southwest of Hiroshima. It is one of Japan’s most heavily defended cities, a hub of steelworks and munitions factories. Many Hiroshima residents who survived the first A-bomb blast have come here seeking refuge.
Sweeney’s bomb bay doors are already open. The plutonium weapon known as Fat Man is ready for release. Yet Sweeney’s orders forbid him from dropping Fat Man without a clear aerial view of the target. Thirty minutes ago the weather report said it was cloudy but visibility was still good. Yet thick clouds are now making it impossible to distinguish Kokura’s buildings from the air. Smoke from the nearby industrial city of Yawata, which was firebombed last night, has drifted over the city, mingling with the low clouds.
The crew of Bockscar. The commander, Major Charles Sweeney, stands at far right. [Los Alamos National Laboratory]
Frustrated bombardier Captain Kermit Beahan presses his left eye to the Norden bombsight’s viewfinder, straining to see the target. Today is his twenty-seventh birthday. Through the crosshairs, Beahan glimpses a few random buildings but cannot see the large weapons factory that is the aiming point for Fat Man.
“No drop!” he yells.
An increasingly frustrated Sweeney turns Bockscar in a steep bank. Determined to follow orders, he is taking a great risk by flying a second bombing run over the city, because there is now determined opposition. Japanese antiaircraft fire explodes all around him, proving to the surprised American crew that the enemy still possesses hidden defenses. Ashworth climbs into the cockpit to remind Sweeney that Bockscar has a fully armed A-bomb in its belly. It is behind schedule and running out of gas. Everything that can possibly go wrong on this mission has gone wrong.
“Major,” says tail gunner Sergeant Albert “Pappy” Dehart over the intercom, “flak is closer.”
“Roger,” Sweeney answers, his voice flat and grim.
Dehart’s voice comes over the intercom again, this time high and tight: “Flak right on our tail and coming closer.”
“Skipper,” radar operator Sergeant Edward K. Buckley breaks in, “Jap Zeros coming up at us. Looks like about ten.”
And still bombardier Beahan cannot see a thing.
“Let’s try it from another angle,” Sweeney barks over the intercom, ignoring the news of approaching fighter planes as he lines up for a third run.
But when Beahan still cannot find the target, Sweeney and Ashworth discuss their options. Ashworth advocates turning to Nagasaki, and Sweeney turns the plane to the secondary target.
“Radar or visually,” Ashworth says, “but drop we will.”
Bockscar’s bomb bay doors are immediately closed. The Japanese Zeros have not yet arrived, but Sweeney pushes Bockscar to the limit to escape.
The crew, which has grown fearful, cheers. “Nagasaki, here we come.”
* * *
Grasping the steering wheel tightly, Sweeney banks southwest toward Nagasaki, ninety-five miles away. He turns so severely that Bockscar almost collides midair with The Great Artiste, which has been following them to record the power of the blast. Sweeney’s jitters are compounded by the knowledge that his aircraft has only enough fuel for one bombing run if he hopes to land 450 miles away at Okinawa on his return. Even that is a stretch—he may have to crash-land Bockscar in the Pacific after dropping the bomb. The thought is weighing heavily on his mind.
* * *
Nagasaki is a town of some romance, first visited by Portuguese sailors in the sixteenth century and so beloved by European tourists that it became the setting for Italian composer Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly. It is also a major port city for the Japanese war effort and home to both the Mitsubishi Steel and Armament Works and the torpedo-producing Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works.
A mushroom cloud rises over Nagasaki after the explosion of Fat Man. [National Archives]
Sweeney levels off at twenty-eight thousand feet for the bombing run, but Nagasaki is just as covered by clouds as Kokura. Bombardier Beahan is prepared to violate orders and use radar to locate the target as Sweeney begins the five-minute bombing run over the city.
“I got it,” an excited Beahan suddenly yells, seeing the unmistakable shape of a Nagasaki racetrack through a hole in the clouds. He immediately switches from radar to visual bombardment. Bockscar’s airspeed is just two hundred miles per hour.
Within forty-five seconds, Beahan spots the target and drops Fat Man.
“Bomb away,” he announces. The black five-ton bomb tumbles out of the bay, destined to explode in forty-three seconds.
Immediately, Sweeney dives Bockscar down and banks to the right, racing away from the coming mushroom cloud. The Great Artiste follows. The blast force far exceeds that of Little Boy. Five shock waves pound the two planes as they make their escape, a
sensation that feels like “being beaten by a telegraph pole” to Sweeney. Within moments, both planes are out over the sea.
“Mayday, Mayday,” Sweeney says, breaking radio silence. He is desperately trying to signal any American military craft in the area that Bockscar is in trouble—almost out of fuel. His radio call is heard back in Tinian, reassuring them that the mission has not been aborted and that the men of Bockscar are still alive. Yet there is little anyone but Sweeney can do to get Bockscar safely to Okinawa; all rescue operations were suspended when it was feared that Bockscar had crashed. The flight engineer, Master Sergeant John D. Kuharek, estimates that their three hundred remaining gallons of fuel will leave them fifty miles short.
For more than an hour, Sweeney and the men of Bockscar pray. They fly over open ocean, knowing all too well there is no margin for error. Each man dons his flotation device in case of a water landing. Sweeney slows the propellers to decrease fuel use and lowers his elevation a little at a time, allowing gravity to provide airspeed. Many of the men believe they will not make it. Bockscar’s navigator, Lieutenant Fred Olivi, wonders if the water will be cold.
Okinawa finally comes into view. In the short few weeks since the Allies conquered the island, its runways have become congested and busy; rows of bombers preparing for takeoff line the runway apron. Unable to raise the control tower on the radio, Sweeney orders that emergency flares be fired out the plane’s upper porthole, hoping the runways will be cleared.
They are.
Bockscar lands at 1:51 P.M., traveling so fast that upon initial impact it bounces twenty-five feet into the air. One by one, the engines shut down for lack of fuel. Struggling to control his floundering aircraft, Sweeney just misses a row of B-24 bombers laden with incendiary bombs, which would have killed him and his crew in a massive fiery explosion.
Finally, Bockscar comes to a halt. Emergency fire trucks and ambulances race to its assistance. The bomber has hardly enough fuel to taxi off the runway. Incredibly, no one has informed the airfield that Bockscar was en route.
“Who the hell are you?” demands base commander Lieutenant General Jimmy Doolittle, the man whose daring raid on Tokyo in 1942 marked the first American attack on Japanese soil. It is a fitting moment: the first man to bomb Japan in the Second World War is squaring off with with the man who hopes to be the last.
“We are the 509, Bockscar,” comes the reply. “We dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.”
CHAPTER 49
NAGASAKI, JAPAN
August 9, 1945
FAT MAN IS INDEED off target, missing the Mitsubishi torpedo plant by almost two miles.
On the ground, an estimated 45,000 men, women, and children die instantly; another 60,000 are badly injured. Although there are fires in the city, there is no firestorm, as in Hiroshima, because Fat Man detonates in the steep, wooded Urakami Valley. The uneven terrain prevents the blast from expanding far outward and blocks winds that would stoke the flames. However, the traumatic flash burns and the carbonization of the dead and dying are no less intense.
Once again, thousands are crushed in the rubble of their own homes and businesses. The unique construction of Nagasaki’s bomb shelters, which are mostly caves dug into the hillsides, turns the stone passageways into ovens that burn hundreds alive in an instant. Throughout the city, many of the burned walk for miles before collapsing and dying. Thousands of victims watch their skin grow yellow; they are doomed to die weeks and months later from radiation poisoning. The city of Nagasaki, having no place to bury all the bodies, establishes open-air crematoriums to burn the dead.
Survivors evacuate Nagasaki after the bombing. [National Archives]
The gate to a Shinto shrine still stands one-half mile from ground zero in Nagasaki, August 10, 1945. [National Archives]
CHAPTER 50
THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON, D.C.
August 9, 1945 • 10:46 A.M.
A VICIOUS WAVE OF HEAT and humidity envelops the nation’s capital. President Truman has received news of the successful Nagasaki mission.
Truman does not wish to obliterate the Japanese; he wants them to surrender. Early reports show heavy civilian casualties in Nagasaki, just as in Hiroshima. Yet the Japanese military seems willing to endure such horrific losses.
“For myself, I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the ‘pigheadedness’ of the leaders of a nation,” Truman will write to Senator Richard Russell, a Democrat from Georgia. “My object is to save as many American lives as possible but I also have a humane feeling for the women and children in Japan.”
Truman is expressing his sympathy, not reversing his position. He is as adamant as ever that he will do what it takes to defeat the Japanese.
The president makes this abundantly clear to Samuel McCrea Cavert of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, who has demanded that the president justify the dropping of atomic bombs.
A telegram from Cavert to the president reads, “Their use sets extremely dangerous precedent for future of mankind.” The cable goes on to urge that “ample opportunity be given Japan to reconsider her ultimatum before any further devastation by atomic bomb is visited upon her people.”
Cavert’s message angers Truman. He will not be cowed. Normally he would not respond, particularly at a time when he is immersed in the high-stakes decisions of war, but this is not a time for silence. Truman dictates a direct response.
“Nobody is more disturbed over the use of Atomic bombs than I am but I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and the murder of our prisoners of war,” Truman says. “The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them.
“When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true.”
CHAPTER 51
TOKYO, JAPAN
August 10, 1945 • 2:00 A.M.
THE LEADER OF THE BEAST, Emperor Hirohito, rises to speak in his underground bunker. He wears a full-dress military uniform. The weariness of yet another day and night of ruination is etched upon his face. Witnesses to this moment will remember the emperor being disheveled, his face flushed, his hair unkempt.
The emperor has hosted the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War and their assorted secretaries and assistants in the underground conference room for almost three hours. The thick wooden door is closed, and the ventilation is not working, causing every man to sweat from the extreme humidity in the chamber that is no bigger than a large bedroom. Even the lacquered wall panels bead with condensation.
The subject of this midnight meeting is unconditional surrender. It is the continuation of a long day of high-level war discussions, following close on the heels of the Soviet invasion and the Nagasaki bombing. Every man is exhausted. Each individual in this room has a personal stake in the discussion. Not only would surrender mean the end of the Japanese empire, but two days ago in England the Allies formalized an agreement stipulating the proper punishment of war criminals. The first men to be tried will be the Nazis; their trials will convene in the German city of Nuremberg starting this November.
If they surrender, the men in this overheated room will be next—and they know it.
All associated with the war realize they will most likely be tried and found guilty, even the emperor. Current Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki, War Minister Korechika Anami, Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, Chief of the Navy General Staff Soemu Toyoda, and Chief of the Army General Staff Yoshijiro Umezu recognize that whether they committed atrocities or not doesn’t matter—they directed the soldiers and sailors who did.
Of course, Hirohito was the ultimate authority.
* * *
Particularly responsible is the man viewed worldwide as the Hitler of Japan, Hideki Tojo, the architect of the Japanese war effort who served as prime minister from October 1941 until July 1944. It was the unassuming but manipulative
Tojo who convinced Hirohito that war was necessary “to establish a new, stable order in East Asia.” Tojo oversaw the surprise attacks throughout the Pacific that began this brutal war—a conflict that has now claimed twenty-four million lives in the Pacific and Asia alone. And it was Tojo who not only started the war but also authorized the inhumane policies that will define the Japanese war effort far longer than any moment of strategic brilliance.
Emperor Hirohito (center), at a military review in Tokyo, has just handed a message to his war minister, Lieutenant General Hideki Tojo, October 21, 1941. [National Archives]
But he is not here for this imperial conference, and the men in this bunker allowed it all to happen.
* * *
Hirohito is at last ready to offer his opinion to the Supreme Council. Every man in the room rises and bows to his ruler. As they take their seats, the emperor is momentarily overcome by what he is about to say. But he gathers himself and proceeds. “Thinking about the world situation and the internal Japanese situation … to continue the war now means that cruelty and bloodshed will still continue in the world and that the Japanese nation will suffer severe damage.”
The emperor’s voice is high. He speaks quietly, in clipped sentences. As Hirohito’s emotions get the best of him, he begins to cry. Many in the room are also overcome; they hurl themselves forward onto their conference tables and begin to sob.
Hirohito continues: “When I think about my obedient soldiers abroad, and of those who died or were wounded in battle, about those who have lost their property or lives by bombing in the homeland—when I think of all those sacrifices I cannot help but feel sad.
“I cannot stand the disarming of loyal and gallant troops and punishment of those responsible for war.…
“It is now necessary to bear the unbearable.”