THE HIBAKUSHA
Copy of actual orders for the atomic bomb mission over
Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 via the Enola Gay
During the late night of August 5 and into the early morning hours of August 6, Japanese radar detected a huge armada of American bombers en route to their targets on Japan’s home islands. The city of Nishinomiya appeared to be getting the blunt of the raid, 261 enemy bombers inbound. Maebashi would suffer damage from 102 bombers; Ube-111, Sage-65, and Imabari-66. An alert was sounded in other cities, including Hiroshima, but an all-clear sounded at just after midnight in the doomed city.
Hiroshima sounded another alert around 07:05 as a lone B-29 American bomber, the Straight Flush, flew over the city. The solo bomber broadcast a short message to another B-29, the Enola
Gay, due over Hiroshima about an hour later. It read: “Cloud cover less than 3/10th at all altitudes. Advice: bomb primary.”
Hiroshima sounded an all-clear at 07:09.
Another lone B-29 arrived over Hiroshima an hour later. To the civil defense personnel on the ground, a single B-29 posed no threat; most likely just a reconnaissance aircraft, so no alarm was sounded. Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay, began his bomb run at 08:09 then handed over control of the B-29 to his bombardier, Major Thomas Ferebee. At 08:15, Major Ferebee released Little Boy, the first atomic bomb to be used in war. Dropped from 31,000 feet, it took Little Boy 44.4 seconds to fall to its detonation height of 1,900 feet. Little Boy missed its aiming, the Aioi Bridge, by approximately 800 feet. Ground zero would go down in history as the Shima Surgical Clinic.
People on the ground who survived reported a ‘pika’ (brilliant flash of light) followed by a ‘don’ (loud roaring sound). About 70,000 to 80,000 people perished from the blast and resultant firestorms, another 70,000 were injured. Over 90% of doctors and 93% of nurses were killed or injured. Only one doctor was able to pull duty at the Red Cross Hospital. Astonishingly, the bomb was considered ‘inefficient’ since only 1.7 percent of its material fissioned.
The Enola Gay was ten miles away when the bomb detonated.
She was 11.5 miles away when the shock waves hit the aircraft.
The big bomber shook violently, but Tibbets and his crew flew on and landed safely on Tinian Island without further incident or damage, as did the photography aircraft, Necessary Evil, and The Great Artiste carrying instrumentation.
The second atomic bomb, Fat Man, was scheduled to drop on August 9. The primary target: Kokura. The secondary target:
Nagasaki. Major Charles W. Sweeney would carry the second bomb on his B-29, Bockscar. The Enola Gay, flown by Captain George Marquardt, participated in the second mission as the weather reconnaissance plane over the primary target, Kokura.
The B-29, Laggin’ Dragon, flown by Captain Charles McKnight, was the weather reconnaissance aircraft over Nagasaki. The Great Artiste was back for the second atomic bomb drop as the
HIROSHIMA, AFTER THE BLAST
blast measurement instrumentation aircraft, flown by Captain Fred Bock. A third aircraft was thrown into the mix, the Big Stink, as a photography and ‘strike observation’ plane, carrying VIPs including two British observers denied access to observe the first bomb drop. However, the second bomb drop did not go according to plan. Perhaps Big Stink was an omen.
En route to Kokura, Sweeney’s flight engineer informed him an inoperative fuel pump had made it impossible to use the 640 gallons in a reserve fuel tank. The useless fuel would have to be flown to Japan and back, its weight causing even more fuel consumption. Both weather planes reported clear skies over the primary and secondary targets, but as Major Sweeney in Bockscar and Captain Bock in The Great Artiste arrived at the rendezvous point, Big Stink was nowhere to be found. Major Sweeney was under orders not to wait for over 15 minutes for a late-comer, yet he continued to circle the area for 40 minutes. Big Stink never showed. Sweeney made the decision. Bockscar and The Grand Artiste headed for the primary target, Kokura, about 30 minutes away.
The delay at the rendezvous point put the citizens of Nagasaki in a nuclear Harm’s Way. Arriving over Kokura, the two B-29s
discovered that fires from a firebombing raid by 224 B-29s on nearby Yahata had caused clouds and smoke to drift over the primary target area. Plus a steel works plant had intentionally burned coal tar to produce black smoke over the area. About 70% of Kokura was obscured, including the aiming point.
Sweeney made three unsuccessful bomb runs, using precious fuel and exposing his B-29 to increasingly accurate anti-aircraft fire, plus a second lieutenant monitoring Japanese fighter radio bands reported fighter activity. Bockscar and The Grand Artiste were running out of time, and Bockscar was running out of fuel.
They headed for the secondary target, Nagasaki. Sweeney was well aware his B-29 didn’t have enough fuel for an emergency landing on Iwo Jima. After the bomb run, he’d have to head for recently-occupied Okinawa.
At 07:50, Nagasaki sounded an air raid alert, but an all clear was given at 08:30. When the Japanese spotted two B-29s at 10:53, they, like the ground personnel at Hiroshima, assumed only two B-29s meant they were on a reconnaissance mission. No alarm was sounded. A surprising break in the clouds gave Bockscar’s bombardier, Captain Kermit Beahan, a clear target. He released Fat Man at 11:01. The second atomic bomb to be used in anger detonated at 11:02 above a tennis court. The off-course B-29 Big Stink witnessed the explosion from a hundred miles away and flew to observe the destruction.
Fat Man was more powerful than Little Boy, but less destructive due to the confining terrain of the narrow Urakami Valley. Still, casualty estimates range widely, from 22,000 to 75,000 deaths with about 60,000 injured. At least 8, possibly 13, Allied POWs died in the blast. The 8 confirmed deaths: a British POW and 7 Dutch POWs. An American POW, Joe Kieyoomia, survived the blast due to the thick concrete walls of his cell. The Australian POWs, 24 of them, all survived. Unlike Hiroshima, no firestorm developed in Nagasaki since the winds pushed the resultant fires along the Urakami Valley.
Dangerously low on fuel, Major Sweeney flew Bockscar on to Okinawa. Arriving at Yontan Airfield, Sweeney could see heavy air traffic coming and going. He needed landing clearance. He tried several times to contact the control tower but received no answer. With only enough fuel for one landing attempt, his crew
NAGASAKI, AFTER THE BLAST
fired off every flare aboard Bockscar to alert the airfield they were coming in for an emergency landing. No one seemed to notice.
Sweeney didn’t have any options. He came in fast at 140mph instead of the normal landing speed of 120mph. Number two engine coughed, sputtered, then died from fuel starvation as Sweeney made his final approach. Bockscar was halfway down the runway before the big bomber touched down on 3 engines.
It bounced back up then slammed back down hard and veered towards a row of parked B-24 Liberators. Luckily, Sweeney and his copilot regained control of the wayward bomber, sort of, as another engine gave up the ghost for lack of fuel. The engines were in reverse, but their power was insufficient to decelerate the B-29. Both pilots stood on the brakes as the heavy bomber made a 90% swerve at the end of the runway to avoid running off of it. Bockscar came to a stop; the second atomic bombing mission was over.
How did our politicians and military leaders decide which cities were to be targeted and churned up in a mushroom cloud and its citizens vaporized? The Japanese city of Kyoto was removed from the target list. Why? Well, the Secretary of War, Henry L.
Stimson, had honeymooned in Kyoto. He liked the city. Kyoto had military and industrial significance, but Stimson went to the top man, President Harry Truman, to have the city removed as a target. Truman conceded. Kyoto was removed from certain
destruction. In the place of Kyoto, Nagasaki was added to the target list.
The geopolitical consultations, the arguments and debates and morality issues, President Truman’s final decision, the training, the money to develop the atomic bomb, the effects of radiation on humans, the cancers, the burns, the lives lost to bring World War II to its conclusion are the subjects of history books written and yet to be written. The reality is, Japan surrendered rather than face more atomic bomb attacks, plus Russia had declared war on them, too. The planned invasion of Japan was shelved, an invasion expected to cost one million American casualties and between 10 to 20 million Japanese lives battling to their deaths to save a dying empire and their emperor.
“SHADOW HUMAN” – SHADOW OF VAPORIZED HUMAN ON CONCRETE STEPS
However, little is written about the ‘explosion-affected people’, the Hibakusha. They were the survivors, about 650,000 from both bombs, with approximately 125,000 remaining. Radiation illnesses, feasible birth defects, lack of knowledge and fear still causes discrimination and exclusion in Japanese society when it comes to work or marriage. Yet they have their stories.
Eizo Nomura is recognized the only known survivor closest to the Hiroshima detonation. Nomura was in the basement of a reinforced concrete building, 560 feet from ground zero. He died in 1982 at the age of 84.
The Bank of Hiroshima was a solidly-built structure. A woman, Akiko Takakura, was in the bank when the bomb exploded over the city; she survived, 980 feet from ground zero. Photo was taken when Akiko was 88 years old, leading children in prayer at the Hoonji Temple.
Most of the people who survived the Hiroshima bombing left the city and traveled to other locations seeking safety. Around 200 Hiroshima survivors sought refuge in Nagasaki. They are called the ‘niju hibakusha’ (double explosion-affected people). About 165 have been identified, 9 of which were in the blast zones of both cities. One officially recognized ‘niju hibakusha’ is Tsutomu Yamaguchi. He was in Hiroshima on a business trip when Little
Boy detonated. Mr. Yamaguchi was 1.9 miles from ground zero.
Seriously burnt on his left side, he returned to his hometown of Nagasaki the next day, August 8, one day before Fat Man detonated above a tennis court. Exposed to radiation after the detonation, Yamaguchi continued to search for his missing relatives. On January 4, 2010, Yamaguchi died at the age of 93 from stomach cancer. Photo was taken of Yamaguchi in 2009.
People, human beings, die in war, and a nuclear war knows no bounds. One of my Intelligence responsibilities while stationed at a Strategic Air Command base in 1967 was plotting nuclear bombing runs for B-52s over Russia. The first time I was given the classified map showing the targets and how many times we were going to hit each one with nuclear weapons educated me on the meaning of Mutual Assured Destruction – MAD – as in insane. It was also sobering to know a young Russian airman was
probably staring at a map of the United States at the same time.
Folks, believe me, we never want to execute the plan.
JOHN HERSEY: “What has kept the world safe since 1945 has not been deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it’s been memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima.”
“SHADOW HUMANS” – SHADOWS OF VAPORIZED CHILDREN JUMPING ROPE
