Three days later on August 9, Major Charles Sweeney piloted the B-29 Bockscar to deliver a second atomic bomb on Japan, a plutonium implosion device called Fat Man.
#Where is the enola gay wasteland 2 plus#
Enola Gay carried only one bomb, a gun-type uranium atomic bomb called Little Boy plus twelve cyanide pills in the cockpit for the crew, just in case. Robert Oppenheimer, realizing the redoubtable potential for the new weapon, stated, “I am become death, the Destroyer of Worlds.” Harvard Physics Professor Kenneth Bainbridge was less poetic yet more forthright, suggesting to Oppenheimer, “Now we’re all sons-of-bitches.”Ī short 23 days later, Colonel Paul Tibbets lifted the heavy-laden B-29 Enola Gay off of North Field on the island of Tinian. Desert sand melted a boiling mushroom cloud rumbled 7.5 miles into the atmosphere. The blast generated heat 10,000 times greater than the surface of the sun. On Jat 5:29am, the ‘gadget’ did ‘go off’ in the Jornada del Muerto Valley near Los Alamos, New Mexico.
The Atomic bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert on explosives.” The ‘explosives expert’ was wrong. But would it really work?Īdmiral William Leahy suggested to President Truman in 1945, “That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. Hopes to avoid the expected carnage were pinned on a new bomb. A massacre of Biblical proportions was in the making. Stockpiles of cyanogen chloride, poison gas, mustard gas, and phosgene were in Luzon under the control of General MacArthur. To lessen the casualties for Americans, General George Marshall even contemplated the use of chemical and biological weapons. Vice-Admiral Takijiro Onishi of Japan predicted indigenous casualties at a staggering 20 million. Predictions varied, but most military and civilian leaders figured Allied casualties ranging between 1.5 and 4 million, including 1 million fatalities. Every general, ground pounder and politician understood that an invasion of Japan would bring horrific casualties to both sides. Yet, stubborn Japan fought on.Ī casualty ratio of 5:1 favored the Americans early in the war, but the battle for Okinawa dropped that ratio to an uncomfortable 2:1. As Admiral Yamamoto feared, American assembly lines out-produced the tiny island nation of Japan and all those thousands of guns and ships and planes and men were en route for the finale of World War Two. The fishing fleet only produced 22% of their 1941 catch the low yield of the rice harvest dated back to the famine of 1909 malnutrition was rampant and Japan’s raw materials were dwindling. Her economy lay in ruins as did most of her major cities. Prelude: By the summer of 1945, Japan was beaten up but not beaten. The Empire of the Sun had fallen victim to ‘Prompt and utter destruction.’ Two weeks earlier at the Potsdam Conference the United States, along with Great Britain and China, commanded Japan to surrender unconditionally or face ‘prompt and utter destruction.’ As fiery mushroom clouds billowed thousands of feet above Japanese soil, people on the ground reported first seeing Pikas (brilliant flashes of light) followed by Dons (loud booming sounds). Stimson, admired the city of Kyoto since traveling there decades earlier for his honeymoon. Nagasaki was on the target list to replace a military and industrial city, Kyoto, because American Secretary of War, Henry L. The primary target of the second bomb, Kokura, was obscured by thick clouds and smoke making the secondary target, Nagasaki, the unfortunate quarry.
Three days later the second, and hopefully last atomic bomb utilized in war, was dropped on Japan. On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb used in war was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.