It took two atomic bombs to end WWII and force Japan to surrender unconditionally. Wouldn’t one bomb on Tokyo have done the job instead?
So why didn’t the US drop the first atomic bomb on Tokyo instead of Hiroshima? Did they really think that keeping the Emperor alive was that important?
Didn’t the Emperor announce the surrender against the advice of some hard-line officers, who actually tried to prevent his recorded announcement from being broadcast? I think it would have been a lot harder for Japan to surrender with a dead Emperor.
Really? I hadn’t read that. Can someone confirm that with a cite?
My understanding, dolphinboy, is that the Truman Administration considered nuking Tokyo, but decided not to because of its importance to the Japanese people. I think Hiroshima was selected from a list of targets that were relatively unscathed.
Schmendrik is correct. Some officers were very opposed to Hirohito’s decision to surrender, and I think some of them actually tried to stage a coup. Sorry, but I cannot remember where I read this.
So, one nuke is OK, but two is not?
If you didn’t know, Tokyo had been hit heavilly in March of '45. They didn’t surrender with the conventional destruction of half the city. Dropping the Abomb on Tokyo woiuld have no military impact, and, IMO, no more psycological impact that the one dropped on Hiroshima did.
A couple interesting items in this article: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Wikipedia
Specifically “Realizations of the bombing” and “Events of August 7 to 9”.
You’re thinking of Kyoto. Secretary of War Henry Stimson took it off the target list personally, due to its extensive cultural heritage. Tokyo, conversely, had already been bombed extensively, in the most devastating air raid of WW2. General Groves and others wanted a relatively unscathed target in order to judge the effectiveness of the atomic bomb. About four were left at the time of Hiroshima: Hiroshima, Kyoto, Nagasaki, and Kokura.
Yes, they wanted the Emporer alive. Killing him would have hardened the resolve of the Japanese people, and would have caused problems later.
AIUI the reason Nagasaki was bombed was more a ‘message’ to the Soviets than a strategic move to end the war. Or it was meant to bring the war to an abrupt halt in order to keep the Soviets from joining in and claiming Japan for themselves.
Another item I read once said that also, after a week of no surrender, the Americans wanted the Japanese to think they had an unending supply of the bombs and were willing to use them. (I also recall some technical people in Japan argued that it would take months or years to accumulate the material for a bomb, the Americans probably did not have another) So, the Americans dropped the next one, and IIRC they would have to wait a month or two for the third to arrive. Somewhat of a bluff. It seems to have worked.
The fact that the Soviets entered the Pacific war, so getting all of Japan before the Russians got beyond the Kuriles(?) was a good strategy too.
The bombs were dropped 3 days apart – Aug 6 and Aug 9, 1945.
So had we had the bomb a year earlier we wouldn’t have bombed Berlin to end the war in Europer? The place where Hitler and all of his cronies were?
Whether Tokyo was half destroyed or not, that’s where the Japanese command center was, and more importantly, that is where the emperor was. How is taking out the enemy’s symbolic leader not a good idea?
How much harder could the Japanese have fought? We could have kept taking out their cities one at a time and not lost another soldier, until the generals finally surrendered, or until we could march unopposed into what is left of Japan.
No, dropping a atomic bomb on Nagasaki was a message to the Japanese. The message was “Surrender or we’ll keep blowing up your cities.” If we had been sending a message to the Soviets, we would have dropped a bomb on Leningrad.
I am not sure, but there were many bypassed garrisons that did not surrender until ordered to by Imperial HQ.
With no clear command authority, getting all those dudes (who were still spread out over 1/4 of the globe) to surrender would, IMO, have been much more problematic.
But that’s what we did. 
We took out their cities one at a time, until they surrendered. (Starting with Hiroshima.)
I thought you asked for an opinion in the OP: “Would simply taking out Tokyo have induced the Japanese to surrender?”
Answer: “IMO, No.” It historically took more than one (as well as the USSR kicking down the door in Manchuria), and I don’t believe that Tokyo alone held magical power in the eyes of the Imperial Army Staff.
There were still folks wanting to fight to the bitter end, even after Nagasaki. I think multiple bombs were necessary to show that the US could destroy any target it picks, and the Japanese could do little to defend against it. (There were hundreds of planes roaming the skies over Japan at the end of the war, if you also count the USN. Which one(s) have the bomb? You don’t know. Could be any of them.)
One of the dangers of completly wiping out all the national government is that there is no one left who can speak for the entire country – specifically to say “We surrender.”
For purposes of WWII we have to stop thinking of Nukes in todays post-nuclear “Nukes are super Evil & their use is unthinkable” mindset, and think of them in the WWII “The Japs are evil, they are killing our boys every day and this is just another weapon” mindset.
Tokyo was not chosen for the reasons given above. Mainly because of the damage already done to the city by the intense fire bombing. The military (for good reason) wanted a “pristine” city so the effects of the bomb could be analyzed. Also, as mentioned it was imperative that a working government be left to ensure a smooth post occupation by the Allies.
When discussing the atom bombs it is important to note that as powerful as they were, they killed a fraction of those that massive fire bombing of cities were able to achieve by creating firestorms. As awful as the bombs were, the US was just and right in deploying them and by doing so saved hundreds of thousands if not millions of Japanese and American lives by negating a conventional invasion of the Japanese mainland.
I had thought that the balance of historians’ opinions was a nuanced bit of both. Truman had post-war power-politics in mind, and didn’t mind the Soviets seeing something that would offset their otherwise vast superiority in tanks and artillery. It wasn’t “more” to send a message to the Soviets…but that motive wasn’t wholly absent either.
Anyway…that’s what my reading suggests. I may place too much trust in James F. Dunnigan, but I certainly do like his books.
I think that your reading is spot on. It was done to force and unconditional surrender of the Japanese without us having to resort to a full on invasion and to send a message to the Soviets.
It is amazing how many people seem to have a problem with us sending that message to the Soviets. They were (as proven in the post war years) a very aggressive nation and we needed to show that we were in a position to stop that aggression. It has to be remembered that the Soviets didn’t declare war on Japan until it was quite obvious that the US had them defeated. This showed a clear intent on their part to “share” in the spoils of war and to make a land grab without the sacrifice.
Correct, there was an attemted coup by a group of army officers opposed to surrender who tried to halt the playing of the Emperors recorded anouncement.
My understanding is that it was a lot closer to what DrDeth posted. We were four years into a war. We developed a new weapon. There was no real discussion about whether we’d use the new weapon. The only discussion was how it would be used most effectively. For the most part, the atomic bomb at the time was regarded as just another weapon (albeit a big one) and not a historical turning point as it would later be seen.
If anyone was thinking about how the atomic bomb would affect post-war history and relations with the Soviets, it was probably thought that the atomic bomb might someday be used in a war against the Soviets, like jets or heavy tanks or rockets would. I doubt many people in 1945 were thinking that the atomic bomb would come to be seen as so powerful a weapon that its existence would deter wars. Keep in mind that over 60,000,000 people were killed in World War II and atomic bombs only killed about 200,000 of them.
Only an utter vandal would consider dropping a nuke on Leningrad.