# Atomic Weapons and The End of WW2 **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 30, 2006, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526 "2006-03-30T09:42:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/1 "2006-03-30T09:42:00Z")
It’s 1945 and after the weapon used at Nagasaki, Japan surrenders. If Japan had not surrendered, did the USA have any more atomic weapons available for another strike? ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/2 "2006-03-30T09:50:55Z")
The History Channel ran a very good special all about the A-bombs a couple weeks ago and I think they said that we would have had another 2 or 3 in 30 to 60 days and more than a dozen in about six months (it was though that we might need that many if Japan didn’t surrender and we still had to invade). ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/3 "2006-03-30T10:21:33Z")
I recently visited the Huiroshima Memorial Museum in Japan, which does an excellent job of telling the whole story from start to finish. The exhibits include replicas of many of the key documents that were involved in the decision-making process before the first bomb was dropped. If I remember correctly from this official documentation, at the time of the Hiroshima mission the allies had capacity for up to four ‘drops’ if required. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/4 "2006-03-30T13:55:35Z")
Semi-hijack. The use of Chemical Weapons was also under consideration, as part of _Operation: Olympic_, the proposed invasion of the Japanese main islands. If things hadn’t changed _fast_, I suspect that aerial deployment of gas from bombers would have been used too, right along with the Bomb. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/5 "2006-03-30T15:56:59Z")
> [@Hail Ants](#): > > The History Channel ran a very good special all about the A-bombs a couple weeks ago and I think they said that we would have had another 2 or 3 in 30 to 60 days and more than a dozen in about six months (it was though that we might need that many if Japan didn’t surrender and we still had to invade). Never trust the [del]Hitler[/del] History Channel for any factual information. At the time Fat Man and Little Boy were deployed, the US nuclear arsenal consisted of three devices, including the two above. Although there was somewhat more raw material, fabricating and assembling devices would have likely taken more than the estimated “30 to 60 days”. Uranium separation was too slow to rapidly produce material for a simple gun-type mechanism and plutonium production was still ramping up, and required meticulous machining and careful assembly to make the implosion method reliable. The US didn’t really need more nukes, though. Japan had already been castrated, it’s navy virtually destroyed and was low enough on fuel that it couldn’t launch any real attack. All that was really required–if you don’t mind an extended war and famine among the Japanese population–is to starve them out with an embargo. Depending on who you want to believe, the US dropped the bomb because: [ul] [li]we wanted to end the war quickly,[/li][li]we wanted to demonstrate the power of atomic weapons to future opponent the USSR, or[/li][li]we wanted to justify the expense of the Manhattan Project.[/li][/ul] Take your pick; it’s probably a combination of the three, plus a lack of understanding at the high levels of government what the full implications of atomic weaponry in the post-WWII environment would be. (Though Churchill, in retrospect, had a firm grasp of how things would play out.) It’s not clear from a cost/benefits point of view, whether dropping The Bomb saved more lives than it killed. Estimates of the cost, in human lives, of Operation Olympic are, well, just estimates, and a full-on invasion of the Japanese mainland was really unnecessary in any case. On the other hand, even dispensing with the losses in that activity, it’s certain tens or hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Japanese civilians would have otherwise died of famine in the case of an embargo. There was going to be no happy ending to the war in the Pacific in any case. > [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > The use of Chemical Weapons was also under consideration, as part of _Operation: Olympic_, the proposed invasion of the Japanese main islands. > > If things hadn’t changed _fast_, I suspect that aerial deployment of gas from bombers would have been used too, right along with the Bomb. It’s unlikely chemical weapons would have been all that effective, owing to dispersal and dilution. Chemical weapons are more of a political threat than a strategic weapon. Besides, General Curtis ‘Bombs Away’ LeMay was doing a successful job making good on his promise to burn Japan to the ground with his firebombing campaign. Japanese cities, being largly constructed of flamible wood-frame housing, were extremely valunerable to this sort of attack, and a single night raid could kill tens of thousands at little risk to American bomber groups. LeMay actually grated against pressure to keep a few cities intact while waiting for the completion of the atomic bomb so that its full effects could be demonstrated. See Rhodes’ [The Making of the Atomic Bomb](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684813785) for extensive detail on the development, internal ethical discussions, and deployment of the first atomic bombs. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/6 "2006-03-30T16:56:18Z")
To continue the hijack: According to Guy Alperovitz (in _The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb_ , an argument could be made that the use of the A-bombs on Japan actually _cost_ American lives: Truman (persuaded by James Byrnes) was so intent on fulfilling the latter two reasons that Stranger mentioned above, that he delayed assuring the emperor’s safety and/or letting Russia invade Japanese-occupied Manchuria (either, or especially both, may have persuaded the Japanese to give up as early as June 1945), and so any American (not to mention Japanese) killed in those last two months of the war could have been prevented. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/7 "2006-03-30T17:01:34Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > To continue the hijack: According to Guy Alperovitz (in _The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb_ , an argument could be made that the use of the A-bombs on Japan actually _cost_ American lives: Truman (persuaded by James Byrnes) was so intent on fulfilling the latter two reasons that Stranger mentioned above, that he delayed assuring the emperor’s safety and/or letting Russia invade Japanese-occupied Manchuria (either, or especially both, may have persuaded the Japanese to give up as early as June 1945), and so any American (not to mention Japanese) killed in those last two months of the war could have been prevented. It’s important to point out that this argument is not accepted by the majority of historians writing about the end of the war. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/8 "2006-03-30T17:52:16Z")
Please recall that the **General Question** asked was in regards to the number of atomic bombs available, either immediately or within some reasonable time frame to be employed in the war. The discussions regarding the decision to employ such weapons (moral, practical, motivational, etc.) have been argued on many occasions on this board and are better suited to either a search for old threads or a separate question posed in **GD** (or, sadly, the **BBQ Pit** ). (Some earlier threads for perusal: [Why Bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=321983) [Hiroshima: war or terrorism?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=278840) [Why did the US drop the second atomic bomb?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=176876) [A-Bomb, what was it good for?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=127388) [Hiroshima, Nagasaki…was Tokyo next?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=124528) (Which includes references addressing the question asked in this thread.) [Was dropping the bomb on Japan unnecessary?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=57939) I have tried to limit the selection to only those threads where the posters were not foaming at the mouth, threatening to annihilate each other.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/9 "2006-03-30T17:54:18Z")
I’m continously amazed at how people talk about how Japan could have been made to surrender by a blockade as if it were a preferable solution. Do these people understand how a blockade works? We would have cut off Japan’s food supplies and sat back and waited until enough Japanese people starved to death for their society to collapse. The Japanese government had already made plans for draconian rationing; the armed forces and industrial workers were given priority. Plans had been made to execute all allied prisoners of war. The elderly would have been the next to go - tell them it was their duty to sacrifice their lives for the nation. Then they’d have had to kill the children - you couldn’t persuade them to commit suicide. Then there would have been selective culling of the adult civilian population. Cannibalism would inevitably start at some point - unofficially at first then probably in a planned program. Eventually the only ones who’d be left would be the half-starved soldiers who’d stood and watched their families die. They’d have no food but they’d still have their weapons. So the final step would be civil war as the army broke down into gangs of desperate men fighting over the last scraps. At that point it would have been safe for the allies to land their troops unopposed and occupy the wasteland that was left. But hey, we’d have been humanitarians because we didn’t drop a bomb on them. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/10 "2006-03-30T17:56:01Z")
Tom, I hadn’t seen your post when I wrote my own. I apologize for continuing the hijack. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/11 "2006-03-30T18:47:29Z")
To quote myself from [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=321983) from last year on the subject of the next available weapon: > [@](#): > > The components weren’t actually _en route_ at the time of Nagasaki - my memory of the schedule was a few days out - but they were being readied to be flown to Tinian and George C. Marschall was told by Groves on the 10th, the day after Nagasaki, that he expected the next bombing to be on the 17th or 18th. > Groves’s basis for this estimate was a telegram from Oppenheimer the day before (i.e. the 9th) stating when the components would leave Los Alamos for Kirtland and thence to Tinian. The high explosive lenses would leave on the morning of the 11th and the plutonium core would leave on the evening of the 12th. There was already a stockpile of the other components, like the casing, on Tinian. > The timing of the two previous attacks had been left to the military, but events were beginning to move rather fast by this stage. Truman removed that existing freedom on the 10th, allowing the military to continue with preparations for another bombing but requiring that the use of this next weapon depend on his explicit approval. Probably independently, Groves and Oppenheimer agreed to proceed cautiously when it came to shipping stuff. Robert Bacher, who had become Los Alamos’s specialist in handling completed plutonium cores, apparently had this core in the car ready to be driven to Kirtland when Groves cancelled the transfer. > > Groves’s estimate to Marshall is quoted in _Racing for the Bomb_ (Steerforth, 2002, p424) by Robert Norris and the exchanges with Oppenheimer are summarised in _Critical Assembly_ (Cambridge, 1993) by Hoddeson _et al_. After that, giving definite numbers becomes difficult. In general, the way to think of the system is that they were producing multiple components that would then be assembled, rather than a production line of particular bombs. (For instance, they waited until they had enough plutonium to cast 3 hemispheres and had done so before letting the Nagasaki weapon leave Los Alamos; I presume the spare one then became part of the fourth weapon above.) A further complication is that, for obvious reasons, the envisaged production schedules fell apart once the Japanese surrendered, so the question is partly hypothetical. As it was, the US only had bits of possible weapons for quite a while after August 1945. But what was being envisaged prior to that was indeed being able to produce a usable weapon something like every 3-6 weeks. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > Uranium separation was too slow to rapidly produce material for a simple gun-type mechanism and plutonium production was still ramping up, and required meticulous machining and careful assembly to make the implosion method reliable. At roughly this time it was decided that the second uranium weapon would use an implosion design; offhand, I think that was to be available in mid-September. I’ll also add that fabrication of the plutonium into the components was difficult, but not a particularly significant bottleneck in the overall delivery schedule - from the final deliveries from Hanford to shipping the completed core hemispheres from Los Alamos for the Nagasaki Fat Man was only about three days and that included a failed casting attempt. (Though, by this stage, the pressure was very much to prevent delays of even a day.) Completion dates were being almost entirely determined by the uranium and plutonium supply. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/12 "2006-03-30T19:19:57Z")
My understanding is that the military also planned on setting aside some of the atomic bombs for use during the invasion. They planned on dropping bombs on the beachhead a few hours before the landings to destroy the defending forces. The original list of targets had five cities: Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, Kokura, and Niigata. Kyoto was taken off the list for political reasons. Yokohama was also removed (I don’t know why) and Nagasaki added to the list. The orders the military gave authorizing the bombing listed Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki as targets. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/13 "2006-03-30T22:09:51Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > My understanding is that the military also planned on setting aside some of the atomic bombs for use during the invasion. They planned on dropping bombs on the beachhead a few hours before the landings to destroy the defending forces. To quote myself again, this time from a post in [this thread from last month](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=359944), how far such thinking had actually developed in early August is “easily exaggerated”. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/14 "2006-03-31T04:52:18Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Please recall that the **General Question** asked was in regards to the number of atomic bombs available, either immediately or within some reasonable time frame to be employed in the war. > > The discussions regarding the decision to employ such weapons (moral, practical, motivational, etc.) have been argued on many occasions on this board and are better suited to either a search for old threads or a separate question posed in **GD** (or, sadly, the **BBQ Pit** ). > > (Some earlier threads for perusal: > > [Why Bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=321983) > [Hiroshima: war or terrorism?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=278840) > [Why did the US drop the second atomic bomb?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=176876) > [A-Bomb, what was it good for?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=127388) > [Hiroshima, Nagasaki…was Tokyo next?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=124528) (Which includes references addressing the question asked in this thread.) > [Was dropping the bomb on Japan unnecessary?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=57939) > > I have tried to limit the selection to only those threads where the posters were not foaming at the mouth, threatening to annihilate each other.) I have no problem with the dualism being introduced. It is all relevant. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/15 "2006-03-31T07:36:21Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > I have no problem with the dualism being introduced. It is all relevant. Neither do we–in the appropriate Forum. (Although I am not exactly sure how you are using the word “dualism.”) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/16 "2006-03-31T16:41:36Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I have tried to limit the selection to only those threads where the posters were not foaming at the mouth, threatening to annihilate each other.) Well, that’s MAD for you. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/17 "2006-04-01T12:42:14Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > The original list of targets had five cities: Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, Kokura, and Niigata. Kyoto was taken off the list for political reasons. Yokohama was also removed (I don’t know why) and Nagasaki added to the list. The orders the military gave authorizing the bombing listed Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki as targets. If I may once more refer to the (replica) documentation on show at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, or at least my best recollections of it, of the four targets on the final short-list, Hiroshima was chosen for the first drop because it didn’t have any prisoner-of-war camps. This factor may also have influenced the selection of various targets at different times, and the removal of potential sites such as Kyoto and Yokohama. Another factor was that the allies wanted relatively ‘intact’ cities, to give an accurate measure of the effect of the A-bomb. As a slight hijack, but I hope an acceptable one, if you ever get the chance to visit Hiroshima, the Peace Memorial Park and the Peace Memorial Museum, do it. It is a profoundly moving and poignant place, and the Museum exhibits are impressively free from bias or blame, acknowledging that in times of war, all sides commit atrocities. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atomic-weapons-and-the-end-of-ww2/350526/18 "2006-04-02T07:56:03Z")
> [@](#): > > As a slight hijack, but I hope an acceptable one, if you ever get the chance to visit Hiroshima, the Peace Memorial Park and the Peace Memorial Museum, do it. It is a profoundly moving and poignant place, and the Museum exhibits are impressively free from bias or blame, acknowledging that in times of war, all sides commit atrocities. True. But they only build memorials for the atrocities that were committed against them.