Why did they not drop the Atomic bombs in rural areas as a warning/show of strength before using them on cities?
In: 2423
The US was already firebombing Tokyo, which killed *more* people than the atomic bombs, even if done the old fashioned way
There was not a good reason not to drop it on an actual strike.
Note that Kyoto , the ancient capital, had been initially considered as prime target for the shock value, but was removed at the insistence of the US secretary of War
Edit : And no, it wasn’t because he honeymooned there.
From Wiki:
>The reasons for Stimson’s opposition to destroying Kyoto are not clear. The common misconception that Stimson had a personal affinity for Kyoto after honeymooning there is not supported by the historical record (indeed, he did not visit the city until over 30 years after his marriage).
A demonstration was indeed considered, but decided against:
“At the May 31 meeting, Lawrence suggested that a demonstration of the atomic bomb might possibly convince the Japanese to surrender. This was rejected, however, out of fear that the bomb might be a dud, that the Japanese might put American prisoners of war in the area, or that they might manage to shoot down the plane. The shock value of the new weapon could also be lost. These reasons and others convinced the group that the bomb should be dropped without warning on a “dual target” — a war plant surrounded by workers’ homes. On June 6, Stimson informed President Truman (right) that the Interim Committee recommended keeping the atomic bomb a secret until Japan had been bombed. The attack should take place as soon as possible and without warning. ”
[https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945/debate.htm](https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945/debate.htm)
As others have noted, the strategic bombing campaign had already destroyed plenty of Japanese cities in less spectacular fashion. In fact, after the Hiroshima bombing, Japanese military leaders still pushed hard to continue the war (suspecting that the U.S. only had 1-2 more bombs), imposed martial law to prevent peace attempts after the Soviets declared war, and even tried to launch a coup against the emperor when he finally issued his surrender broadcast after the Nagasaki bombing. All of this suggests that a demonstration would not have been adequate.
The way your question is worded it is easy for people to infer your position on the issue based upon how many people have asked the same (or similar questions) with agendas attached to them.
There are multiple reasons that all work together.
From what I remember of history, the United States did not have any more bombs, just the two that were dropped.
The powers that be were not convinced the bomb work work. That is, yes, they managed to make a stationary bomb go boom, but can you put it in a plane, have it go through the rigor of travel to an American airbase, and being loaded into a plane, and then arm it in flight, drop it and have the triggering mechanism work, and then will all of the new technology actually make THAT bomb go boom? If we assume that we told the Japanese government to look on this mountain for a mighty explosion and it did not work, would the US have more or less credibility?
The thought by those in power is that Japan would fight very nearly to the last man woman and child. In Europe German forces would sometimes surrender in units the size of a regiment. In the island hopping campaign in the Pacific, it was rare to get groups of two Japanese soldiers to surrender together. Women would pick up children and jump to both their deaths off cliffs before they would let themselves be captured by the Americans. The idea that the invasion of the home islands would be especially bloody was not simply made up. Japanese resistance was so tough that it took 2 bombs, and even then there was an attempted coup to keep Japan in the war.
Having American die by the thousands when there was a bomb that could be used that might shorten the war by even a few months is too strong of an incentive to not use it.
People were angry about Pearl Harbour.
People were tired of war.
The targets were chosen (in part) from undamaged cities so they could measure the effects of the devices in an urban environment.
Look here for some interesting history / physics / engineering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy
>After being selected in April 1945, Hiroshima was spared conventional bombing to serve as a pristine target, where the effects of a nuclear bomb on an undamaged city could be observed. While damage could be studied later, the energy yield of the untested Little Boy design could be determined only at the moment of detonation, using instruments dropped by parachute from a plane flying in formation with the one that dropped the bomb. Radio-transmitted data from these instruments indicated a yield of about 15 kilotons.
A group of four scientists — J. Robert Oppenheimer, Arthur Compton, Ernest Lawrence, and Enrico Fermi — were asked to consider the question of a “demonstration” in June 1945. [Their report on the issue](http://dannen.com/decision/scipanel.html) is very short. The main line of their rationale was that the found themselves aligning with the position that a) it might save American lives to use it immediately, b) it would encourage the world to end war more readily than not using it in a horrific way. They conclude: “We can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”
It is interesting that at least one of the members of this committee, possibly Ernest Lawrence (possibly Enrico Fermi), had doubts about this, but was apparently somewhat badgered into agreeing with the others. It is also interesting that of course none of these people were experts in psychology, diplomacy, Japan, ethics, etc. — they were nuclear physicists, very smart ones, but hardly authorities on the particular subject matter at hand. Their report feels very much to be a pro-forma sort of thing, where the needed result was already known, and they didn’t feel the need (and nobody felt the need to insist) on arguing it in great detail, or invoke any evidence, or really justify its conclusions.
I point this out not as a criticism, but as a window into the mind of the people involved in these decisions. They were not seriously considering that they would not drop the bombs on a city without warning. They had many reasons for wanting to do this, including the relative scarcity of bombs (they could make more than the two they used, but they took time to produce), the desire to make as big as a psychological impact as possible on the Japanese, the desire to make as big a psychological impact as possible on the rest of the world (including but not limited to the Soviet Union), and the fact that the targeting of cities was already a common practice by the United States at that point in the war (though not all were pleased with that fact).
Even the scientists who argued against the use without warning, like the authors of the [Franck Report](http://dannen.com/decision/franck.html) (which is why Oppenheimer et al. were even asked to comment), didn’t argue for it on the basis of caring about Japanese civilians. They argued for it along diplomatic lines: that if United States used the bomb on a city without warning, it would lose moral authority and invoke the suspicion of the world, which would cut against its postwar goals. I just point that out because the reason people usually ask about a “demonstration” is because they were appalled at the loss of life and suffering, but that concern is interestingly absent in the discussions in the summer of 1945. If they thought about it, it is not a line of argumentation they thought would have any potency.
It is important to see the dropping of the bombs as a _choice_, and not the only possible actions, or the result of some long train of logic or strategy. That is clearly not what happened in 1945; there was a long train of decisions that led to the people in charge of these decisions feeling like this was the thing they wanted to do, and they paid very little attention to any contradictory ideas.
Everyone has already touched on the fsct that the US only had two bombs, and how determined the japanese people were to keep fighting past the point victory was even possible. One thing I don’t see touched on is that the Atom Bom was unprecedented. To us in the modern day, the nuclear bomb is a weapon that put mankind’s very survival on top of a knife’s edge ever since it was conceived of. At the time, it was just a really, really big bomb. We had already leveled cities the ordinary way, and that was already horrifying. What’s so special about doing it with one bomb? In truth, not much. But we didn’t spend the last half century worried about being vaporized by conventional weapons. Our own perspective has bias.
At the time, the U.S. only had enough fissile material for two bombs- neither of which they were completely sure would work. Their entire plan revolved around making the Japanese think that they had a huge supply of these weapons, so there was no room for a benign exhibition of an atomic bomb. As the Japanese didn’t even contact the U.S. regarding surrendering during the 3 days between the bombs, it’s abundantly clear that a “demonstration” would have succeeded in only wasting a bomb.
I wonder why the Japanese didn’t just drop bombs close to the fleet in Pearl Harbor to scare hell out of the Americans.
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