Unleashing the Atomic Weapon

In preparation for the attack, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reorganized the strategic air organizations in the Pacific. Gen. Carl A. Spaatz, commander of the United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe, became leader of the United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, the command that would exercise jurisdiction not only over the Twentieth Air Force but also over the Eighth, which was moving to Okinawa. LeMay, commander of the Twentieth Air Force for a brief time after its headquarters moved from Washington to Guam, would be Spaatz’s chief of staff. Command of the Twentieth Air Force went to Lt. Gen. Nathan F. Twining, and the Eighth to Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle. 

General Arnold, as AAF commander, retained authority over Spaatz, LeMay, Twining, and Doolittle. At the end of July 1945, about the same time that Spaatz arrived on Guam, ships and aircraft delivered the components of two atomic bombs to Tibbets on Tinian. From a target list of four cities that had been spared some of the conventional raids so that analysts could measure the effects of atomic bombs, LeMay selected Hiroshima for the first atomic attack because it was headquarters of the Japanese Second Army and contained important war matériel factories. He also believed, erroneously, that the city had no Allied prisoner of war camps. 

On August 6, 1945, Tibbets flew the Enola Gay 1,500 miles from Tinian to bomb Hiroshima with the first atomic bomb ever used in combat. The mission followed its plan almost exactly. While approaching the Aioi Bridge aiming point in central Hiroshima, Tibbets dropped his deadly cargo. Forty-three seconds later, it exploded about 1,890 feet over the bridge, as planned. The blast created fires that burned out 4.7 square miles of the city’s center. The explosion and fires killed between 70,000 and 80,000 people and left a like number wounded. Hundreds of people later perished from the effects of the radiation, and 80 percent of the buildings of Hiroshima were destroyed. 

President Truman immediately announced to the world the first atomic bomb attack on Japan. He threatened more such attacks if the enemy continued to resist unconditional surrender. Meanwhile, U.S. B–29s dropped leaflets over Japan with the same message, and Japanese scientists visiting the ruined city confirmed that a radically new weapon had been used. 

On August 9, just three days after the Hiroshima attack, Maj. Charles W. Sweeney in the B–29 Bockscar dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The hillier terrain resulted in fewer casualties: about 40,000 dead and 60,000 injured. Still, there was massive destruction. If only one bomb could destroy a city, Japan did indeed face the utter devastation promised at Potsdam.