President Truman’s reaction to the news of the Hiroshima bombing was noted by White House correspondent A. Merriman Smith in Thank You, Mr. President: A White House Notebook (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946), p. 257. For Truman’s post-Hiroshima statement, see “Statement by the President Announcing the Use of the A-Bomb at Hiroshima, 8-6-45,” Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1945–1953.
CONVERGENCE (EVENING BEFORE AND MORNING OF THE NAGASAKI BOMBING)
The newspaper headline that told Nagasaki of “Considerable Damage” at Hiroshima appeared in the Asahi Shimbun, August 8, 1945. For reactions in Nagasaki to news of the Hiroshima bombing: Dr. Tsuno-o Susumu’s report to the Nagasaki Medical College staff is quoted from Nagasaki 1945 by Tatsuichiro Akizuki. Other responses: “Walking over Red-Hot Rubble” by Kazuo Nakagawa in Testimonies of the Atomic Bomb Survivors; and Governor Nagano Wakamatsu’s testimony at the Nagasaki Broadcasting Company Web site, “Nagasaki and Peace,” http://www2.nbc-nagasaki.co.jp/peace.
Sources for the Nagasaki bomb’s preparation and delivery: The 509th Remembered, edited by Robert and Amelia Krauss, includes photographs of the signatures written on Fat Man and testimonies by Bockscar crew members. Other sources: War’s End: An Eyewitness Account of America’s Last Atomic Mission by Major General USAF (Ret.) Charles W. Sweeney with Marion K. and James A. Antonucci; “Memo, Commander F. L. Ashworth to Major General L. R. Groves, 2-24-45” (document 2) in The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II, edited by William Burr; and The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. See also We Dropped the A-Bomb by Merle Miller and Abe Spitzer; and Decision at Nagasaki: The Mission That Almost Failed by Lt. Col. USAF (Ret.) Fred J. Olivi with William R. Watson Jr.
For the aiming point of the Nagasaki mission, see “Mission Planning Summary, Report No. 9, 509th Composite Group,” GRO Entry (A1) 7530, Lt. General Leslie R. Groves Collection, General Correspondence, 1941–1970, National Archives at College Park, MD.
For the impact of the August 9 Soviet entry into the war on Japanese leaders, see the sources noted above for their early surrender debates. See also The Soviet Strategic Offensive in Manchuria, 1945: “August Storm” by David M. Glantz (London: Frank Cass, 2003); and “The Atomic Bombs and the Soviet Invasion: Which Was More Important in Japan’s Decision to Surrender?” by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa in The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals.
Yoshida remembered the “Japanese way” of following the emperor in Steven Okazaki’s film White Light/Black Rain.
Activities throughout Nagasaki on the morning of August 9 are noted in various survivor accounts. Tsukasa Kikuchi in Silent Thunder surmised that drills with bamboo spears had been taking place on the Mitsubishi athletic field when he passed by the field strewn with corpses later that afternoon. Hirata Kenshi’s story of returning home from Hiroshima carrying his wife’s remains, and the story of eight other “double” atomic bomb survivors, appeared in Nine Who Survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Robert Trumbull. Dr. Akizuki Tatsuichiro reflected, Im Westen nichts neues in Nagasaki 1945. See also Tatsue Urata in We of Nagasaki by Takashi Nagai; and the Mount Kompira antiaircraft battalion’s instrumentation chief, Yoshimitsu Nakamura, in Testimonies of the Atomic Bomb Survivors.
Wada remembered sitting down with his friends to discuss that morning’s derailment in his testimony “A Monument to 11:02 a.m.,” at Nagasaki’s “Peace and Atomic Bomb” Web site, http://www.city.nagasaki.lg.jp/peace/english/survivors/index.html.
CHAPTER 2: FLASHPOINT
FIRST SIXTY SECONDS
For technical information about the Nagasaki atomic bomb, see Hiroshima and Nagasaki, edited by the Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes; The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 3rd ed., edited by Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan; The Yields of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Nuclear Explosions by John Malik; and the Radiation Effects Research Foundation reports available at http://www.rerf.jp/library/archives_e/scids.html, including U.S.-Japan Joint Reassessment of Atomic Bomb Dosimetry in Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Dosimetry System 1986, edited by William C. Roesch; and Reassessment of the Atomic Bomb Radiation Dosimetry for Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Dosimetry System 2002, edited by Robert W. Young and George D. Kerr.
Physical damages caused by the blast force and heat: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, edited by the Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (especially chaps. 2–4); Nagasaki Speaks; “Medical Survey of Atomic Bomb Casualties” by Raisuke Shirabe, The Military Surgeon 113:4; The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, USSBS report no. 3; Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, USSBS report no. 93; and The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Manhattan District. See also “What the Atomic Bomb Really Did” by Robert DeVore, Collier’s, March 2, 1946.
Taniguchi described clinging to the shaking ground during the explosion in an unpublished 1986 speech, translated into English for the author’s use. His memory of seeing a child tossed “like a fleck of dust” is quoted from his testimony in The Light of Morning, translated by Brian Burke-Gaffney.
UNDER THE MUSHROOM CLOUD
Views of the atomic cloud from Bockscar: Lieutenant Frederick Olivi and Captain Kermit Beahan, as quoted in “Defending the Indefensible: A Meditation on the Life of Hiroshima Pilot Paul Tibbets, Jr.” by Peter J. Kuznick, Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, http://www.japanfocus.org/-Peter_J_-Kuznick/2642; and “Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki Told by Flight Member” by William L. Laurence, New York Times, August 9, 1945.
Descriptions of the cloud from outside the city: Yasumasa Iyonaga in Doctor at Nagasaki by Masao Shiotsuki; and Shogoro Matsumoto, as quoted in Nagasaki Speaks. See also testimonies by others who were in neighboring towns on August 9, at “Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Messages from Hibakusha,” http://www.asahi.com/hibakusha.
Hibakusha testimonies: Yoshie Yokoyama described how her sister jumped out of the third-story window at Shiroyama Elementary School in her testimony translated into English by the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall. Michiko Hirata recalled the streetcar rails pulled like “taffy” in her testimony originally published in Testimonies of Nagasaki, vol. 5, edited by the Nagasaki Testimonial Society, English translation provided by the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall. Other images of the first moments after the explosion came from the anonymous testimonies in The Witness of Those Two Days, vols. 1 and 2; and Setsuko Iwanaga in Footprints of Nagasaki, edited by the Nagasaki Prefectural Girls’ High School 42nd Alumnae.
Records of instantaneous deaths: Nagasaki Speaks; Hiroshima and Nagasaki, edited by the Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and “Prompt and Utter Destruction: The Nagasaki Disaster and the Initial Medical Relief” by Nobuko Margaret Kosuge, International Review of the Red Cross 89:866. For deaths of Allied POWs in Japan, see the information compiled by the POW Research Network Japan at http://www.powresearch.jp. While only eight deaths of Nagasaki POWs from the atomic bombing have been confirmed, some researchers have estimated higher fatalities at Fukuoka Camp 14, based on eyewitness testimonies and assuming a mortality rate similar to that of other sites at the same distance from the explosion. See Hiroshima and Nagasaki, edited by the Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, pp. 478–80.
Survivors near Yoshida within the second concentric circle: Susumu Yamamura in Hand Them Down to the Next Generations!; and Sano Fujita in Voices of the A-Bomb Survivors: Nagasaki, compiled by the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Testimonial Society. Many hibakusha who had been trained as auxiliary police or volunteer aid workers reported being instructed not to give water to the injured—see, for example, Dr. Shigetsune Iikura’s testimony at the Nagasaki Broadcasting Company Web site, “Nagasaki
and Peace,” http://www2.nbc-nagasaki.co.jp/peace.
Yoshida described bodies near the river “turned into charcoal” in an interview with Jerome McDonnell of Chicago Public Radio in 2005, translated by Geoff Neill.
Do-oh recalled the silence in the destroyed factory immediately after the blast in her essay “Ikasarete ikite” [Allowed to Live, I Live], in a collection by the same name, edited by Keisho bukai (Do-oh Mineko iko shuu) henshu iinkai [Legacy Group (Do-oh Mineko Posthumous Collection) Editorial Committee], translated into English for the author’s use.
Images of the Mitsubishi Oˉhashi weapons plant: Masatoshi Tsunenari described being thrown across the factory in Our Parents Were in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Kazue Abe found herself surrounded by “gray” figures in Bearing a Small Cross. Other stories of the chaos near the Oˉhashi factory came from Senji Yamaguchi in Burnt Yet Undaunted, compiled by Shinji Fujisaki, and Ichiko Owatari’s unpublished testimony, English translation provided by the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall.
Do-oh’s memory of being frightened by a B-29 flying overhead not long after the bomb exploded is supported by numerous survivor accounts, including several who vividly recall planes spraying the ground with machine-gun fire that afternoon or evening. However, due to the anticipated level of radioactivity in the area, U.S. aircraft were officially prohibited from entering the air space within fifty miles of Nagasaki for six hours following the attack; see “Mission Planning Summary, Report no. 9, 509th Composite Group,” GRO Entry (A1) 7530, Lt. General Leslie R. Groves Collection, General Correspondence, 1941–1970, National Archives at College Park, MD. Photographic planes were given clearance after four hours, and General Spaatz reported that these planes attempted to photograph the city (hindered by heavy smoke cover) after three and a half hours; see “Blast Seen 250 Miles Away,” New York Times, August 11, 1945. Although no additional raids on Nagasaki were officially conducted following the atomic bombing, reports of “general hell raising” tactics and the strafing of civilians during the Pacific campaign have been recorded—see, for example, The Army Air Forces in World War II, vol. 5, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, p. 696—and further bombing raids and reconnaissance missions continued over Japan through August 15.
Taniguchi recalled that “there was not a single drop of blood,” in his unpublished 1986 speech, translated into English for the author’s use.
For Nagasaki’s medical preparedness prior to the atomic bombing, see Nagasaki genbaku sensaishi, vol. 1; and Field Report Covering Air-Raid Protection and Allied Subjects in Nagasaki, Japan, USSBS report no. 5. In addition, the recollections of Nagasaki doctors and other survivors provided details about emergency medical care at makeshift relief stations on the day of the bombing.
Governor Nagano Wakamatsu’s testimony is quoted in Nagasaki Speaks. See also his testimony at the Nagasaki Broadcasting Company Web site, “Nagasaki and Peace,” http://www2.nbc-nagasaki.co.jp/peace. Translations of Governor Nagano’s damage reports to the Air Defense General Headquarters in the days and weeks after the bombing, as well as other reports from various Nagasaki officials, can be found in Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, USSBS report no. 93:3, pp. 196–265.
AUGUST 9, AFTERNOON AND EVENING
Wada remembered the little girl he carried to the relief station in Genbaku ju roku nen no koe [Sixty Years of Voices: Stories of the A-Bomb Survivors], edited by Imaishi Motohisa and translated by Christopher Cruz; and in an informal 2008 interview, copy provided by Imaishi Motohisa and translated by the author.
Masayuki Yoshida recalled the citizens’ firefighting efforts in Voices of the A-Bomb Survivors: Nagasaki, compiled by the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Testimonial Society.
Nagano described encountering naked and injured people begging for water in her unpublished speech, “Watashi no hibaku taikenki” [My Atomic Bomb Memory], translated into English for the author’s use. She remembered the “patches of torn clothing stuck to their wounds” in The Light of Morning, translated by Brian Burke-Gaffney.
For hibakusha memories of the afternoon and evening of August 9, see the anonymous testimonies in The Witness of Those Two Days, vols. 1 and 2. Mikiko Tanaka in The Pain in Our Hearts: Recollections of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Okinawa described the corpses like “potatoes” in the river.
Mieko Higuchi remembered how her mother was rebuked by military police for crying at her safe return, in Footprints of Nagasaki, edited by the Nagasaki Prefectural Girls’ High School 42nd Alumnae.
Yoshida recalled the intense pain from the heat of the sun on his wounds in a History Channel interview (ca. 2009), copy provided by Yoshida Katsuji.
Do-oh described her desire for “even muddy water” to quench her thirst, and the scene that evening at Dr. Miyajima’s makeshift relief station, in her essay “Ikasarete ikite” [Allowed to Live, I Live], in a collection by the same name, edited by Keisho bukai (Do-oh Mineko iko shuu) hensho iinkai [Legacy Group (Do-oh Mineko Posthumous Collection) Editorial Committee], translated into English for the author’s use.
Leaflets warning Japan about the atomic bomb were printed after Hiroshima and scheduled to be dropped over Japanese cities of greater than 100,000 people beginning on August 9; see “Mission No: ‘Special’; Flown: 20 July–14 August ’45, 20th Air Force, 509th Composite Group Tactical Mission Report,” Records of the Army Air Forces, Record Group 18, National Archives at College Park, MD. For Governor Nagano reporting that leaflets had been dropped on Nagasaki on the day of the atomic bombing, see “Air-Raid Damage Report no. 6, 8-10-45,” in USSBS report no. 93:3, pp. 213–14. Nagasaki survivors’ accounts vary—some report seeing leaflets being dropped on the night of August 9, while others remember that they were dropped early the following morning. Richard Rhodes, in The Making of the Atomic Bomb, cites a May 23, 1946, memo to General Groves that reported that, due to printing and distribution delays, leaflets were not dropped on Nagasaki until August 10; see pp. 736–37.
Taniguchi’s memory of the fires “illuminating the sky like a midnight sun” appeared in The Light of Morning, translated by Brian Burke-Gaffney.
CHAPTER 3: EMBERS
SURRENDER NEGOTIATIONS, AUGUST 9–10
The evidence that the Nagasaki bombing had no impact on the surrender debate comes from the official history of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, Army Division (Daihonei Rikugunbu, vol. 10). As translated by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, this volume notes that the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War received word of the Nagasaki bombing at about 11:30 a.m. on August 9, but that “there is no record in other materials that treated the effect [of the Nagasaki bomb] seriously.” See “The Atomic Bombs and the Soviet Invasion: Which Was More Important in Japan’s Decision to Surrender?” by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa in The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals. In addition, decoded Japanese communications for August 9 include reports about Hiroshima and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria but make no mention of the Nagasaki bombing; see Marching Orders: The Untold Story of World War II by Bruce Lee (New York: Crown Publishers, 1995), p. 542; and MacArthur’s ULTRA: Codebreaking and the War Against Japan, 1942–1945 by Edward J. Drea (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1992), p. 224. The August 9 meeting included some debate about Japan’s ability to defend itself against future atomic bomb attacks; see “‘Hoshina Memorandum’ on the Emperor’s ‘Sacred Decision [Go-seidan],’ 9–10 August, 1945” (document 62), in The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II, edited by William Burr. Although some analysts contend that the second atomic bomb provided additional leverage for the peace faction and the emperor to push for surrender (see, for example, Truman and the Hiroshima Cult by Robert P. Newman [East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University, 1995], chap. 5), there is no specific evidence of the Nagasaki bomb’s direct impact on the decision makers.
Additional sources for Japanese leaders’ surrender debates in Tokyo: The Rising Sun by John Toland; Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and
the Surrender of Japan by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa; Downfall by Richard B. Frank; Japan’s Struggle to End the War, USSBS report no. 2; “The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan’s Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration” by Sadao Asada, Pacific Historical Review 67:4; and the various essays in The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals, edited by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa.
Truman’s radio address on the evening of August 9: “Radio Report to the American People on the Potsdam Conference, 8-9-45,” Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1945–1953.
For U.S. leaders’ responses to Japan’s surrender communications, see The Rising Sun by John Toland; and “Diary Entries for August 10–11, Henry L. Stimson Diary” (document 66) and “Diary Entry, Friday, August 10, 1945, Henry Wallace Diary” (document 65) in The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II, edited by William Burr.
NAGASAKI, AUGUST 10
Mayor Okada’s experience is described by Governor Nagano in his testimony at the Nagasaki Broadcasting Company Web site, “Nagasaki and Peace,” http://www2.nbc-nagasaki.co.jp/peace.
For photographer Yamahata Yosuke, see the essays and interviews reprinted in Nagasaki Journey: The Photographs of Yosuke Yamahata, August 10, 1945, edited by Rupert Jenkins. Higashi Jun’s recollections were quoted in Nagasaki Speaks; his memory of stepping on the corpse of a horse appeared in Nagasaki Journey.
Hibakusha memories of August 10: Shuzo Nishio remembered crying over his family’s ashes in Living Beneath the Atomic Cloud, edited by Takashi Nagai. Other images came from Fukahori Yoshitoshi’s testimony originally published in Testimonies of Nagasaki 1970, edited by the Nagasaki Testimonial Society, English translation provided by the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall; Matsu Moriuchi in We of Nagasaki by Takashi Nagai; the collection of testimonies at “Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Messages from Hibakusha,” http://www.asahi.com/hibakusha; an anonymous survivor in The Deaths of Hibakusha, vol. 1; and Hisae Aoki in Testimonies of the Atomic Bomb Survivors. Sakue Shimohira was able to identify her mother’s body by her gold tooth; see her interview in the film The Last Atomic Bomb, directed by Robert Richter.
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