Short History Of... - The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings

Episode Date: August 10, 2025

In May 1945, the Second World War ended in Europe, but Japan refused to surrender - despite seemingly facing inevitable defeat. So, confronted by the prospect of drawn-out and costly fighting, Washington sought to bring the conflict in the East to an end as quickly as possible. Many nations had long entertained the idea of developing a nuclear weapon, but it was the Americans who achieved it first.  But what were the circumstances that led to the attacks on two Japanese cities? How did the US leadership conclude that using the bomb was their best option? And how did it alter the course of the war, and beyond that, the fate of the world? This is a Short History Of The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings A Noiser Production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Andrew Rotter, Emeritus Professor of History at Colgate University, and author of Hiroshima: The World’s Bomb.    Written by Dan Smith | Produced by Kate Simants | Assistant Producer: Nicole Edmunds | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Oliver Sanders | Assembly edit by Dorry Macaulay, Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley | Fact check by Sean Coleman   Get every episode of Short History Of... a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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the perfect treat for yourself, or a great gift to have up your sleeve for friends and family. Visit noiser.com forward slash book to find out more. Noyser.com forward slash book. It is coming up to 8.15 on the morning of the 6th of August 1945 in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, about 400 miles southwest of Tokyo. A 15-year-old girl, Terame, has just returned from her tea brick and is queuing to take her spot at one of the desks on the second floor of the city's telephone center.

All about her, phones are ringing, with a small arm. of students around her own age, connecting calls to the switchboards in front of them. With Japan's wartime efforts draining the nation of manpower, the authorities are looking to the youth to fill the gaps. Tarame swaps places with a young man going on his break, and puts her headset on ready to go. But as she turns to speak to the friend standing next to her, she is suddenly blinded by an astonishing light.

There is a feeling of building pressure in the air too, though for a moment there is no sound. But then it comes. A great rumbling, as if the city's buildings are all collapsing at once. The ceiling above her starts coming down in chunks, and something hits her, knocking her to the ground. As she lies, pinned down by rubble, she hears crying young people, pleading for them. mothers. Dust rises all around and the smell of sulphur that puts her in mind of a volcanic eruption. Managing to free herself, she crawls to a window. Outside, the sky that was a calm blue just minutes ago is now dark, licked by red flames that have engulfed the city in nearly every direction.

Only one hilly area to the east seems unaffected. Tarame's teacher, Wakita, who has been supervising at the telephone exchange, stumbles over, urging her to jump from the building and make for the river, and perhaps cross to the safety of the hill. Tarame braces herself, and without hesitating, leaps. Down on the ground, alongside Wakita and some of the others, she moves as quickly as she can towards a bridge that promises hope of survival. Blood gushes from a gash on her right arm and several wounds on her face. and she cannot see out of one eye. She staggers on, passing shocked, bewildered, horribly injured people filling the streets, some prone on the ground, others shuffling slowly, or bent over at the roadside vomiting.

In her rush to escape, she does not even pause at the boy, perhaps ten, cradling his younger sister as he pleads, please don't die. When her little group arrives at the bridge, they find it packed solid with others, all looking to make their own escape. But the way is blocked by fire, and the only option is to swim across the river. She clambers down with her teacher to the water's edge, then wades in and starts to navigate a path, dodging flaming debris, and a growing accumulation of bodies. Finally, reaching the opposite bank, she prepares to trudge the opposite bank. She prepares to trudge up the hill to safety while Wakita plunges once more into the water,

set on going back into the danger zone to help more of her students. Tarame is, it turns out, one of the lucky ones, escaping with her life from the first use of an atomic bomb in warfare. Over 100,000 of her fellow citizens in Hiroshima will succumb to the attack today and over the coming weeks. Victims of a new kind of war. Born in unimaginable violence. With the Second World War over in Europe since May, Japan seemed to be facing inevitable defeat,

but its leadership refused to concede. Confronted by the prospect of drawn out and costly fighting, the appetite in Washington was to bring the conflict to an end as quickly as possible. While many nations had long entertained the idea of developing a nuclear weapon, it was the Americas who achieved it first. But what were the circumstances that led to the attacks on two Japanese cities? How did the U.S. leadership come to the conclusion that using the bomb, capable of unprecedented destruction, was their best option?

And how did it alter the course of the war and beyond that? the fate of the world. I'm John Hopkins. From the Noyser Network, this is a short history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. As the 1940s, the Empire of Japan is at a turning point in its history. As the 1940s dawn, the Empire of Japan is at a turning point in its history. It has long held ambitions to be the predominant power in Asia, and has also been brushing up against the Western nations with their own imperial and commercial interests in the region,

notably France, the UK and the USA. But any hope of peaceful coexistence vaporized when Japan joins with Germany and Italy in 1940 to form the Axis powers. The following year, Japan carried out a devastating aerial assault on Pearl Harbor, a major U.S. naval base in the Pacific, drawing the U.S. into active participation in the Second World War. In June 1942, the U.S. naval forces see off a Japanese offensive at the Battle of Midway in the Pacific, marking a serious deterioration in Japanese fortunes.

By 1945, they're in dire straits. Andrew Rotter is Emeritus Professor of History at Colgate University and author of Hiroshima, The World's Bomb. Well, the Japanese militarily are reeling on all fronts. It's going badly for them. The Chinese armies are pushing them just about everywhere, well-supported, as the Chinese were by the United States. The Japanese home islands were increasingly being suffocated by U.S. naval blockade. The Americans had mined many of the waters around Japan making it very difficult for the Japanese to transit off back to the home islands with supplies for the troops in the field or more troops. And the Japanese were simply losing every battle as the Americans pushed

toward the home islands with their so-called island hopping campaign through the South Pacific. The U.S. forces now push ahead with their strategic aim of from which to launch bombing campaigns against the four main islands that comprise Japan. The idea is to hit these islands hard ahead of a full-scale invasion. In February 1945, U.S. forces have arrived on Iwo Jima, an island in the volcanic islands chain about 750 miles south of Japan. A platoon of American GIs trudge across its featureless landscape, dominated by the volcanic hill at its southern tip.

It's meant to be a quick job, a rapid capture after the Japanese had been softened up by weeks of naval and aerial bombardment. But it has not turned out like that. Some 70,000 U.S. Marines spend five long weeks tramping across ashen cratered terrain, on constant guard, rooting out enemy combatants who inhabit a complex of caves and strongholds as they defend the local air base. Eventually, the Americans take control of the island. The planting of the stars and stripes on top of the volcano

is recorded by a photographer working for the Associated Press and becomes one of the great enduring images of this war. Victory has been achieved, but at a terrible cost. The Americans have lost nearly 7,000 men, with another 20,000 injured, all but a few hundred of the over 20,000, A thousand Japanese fighters are slain, and the rest taken prisoner. They fought a very, very difficult battle against the Japanese.

The Japanese were encouraged to fight to the last man, and they nearly did so. Iwo Jima is followed by an assault on another island closer to Japan, Okinawa. But the experience is again horrific. The Japanese, entrenched in bunkers, open fire on the Americans as they come inland off the beach. There are once more high casualty numbers on both sides before eventual American victory. But the toil of the advance leaves psychological as well as physical scars. The memory of how hard the Japanese had fought

and how bloody these campaigns had then stayed with the Americans and made them understand that a battle like this, an amphibious invasion of the Japanese home islands, would be an even bloodier affair. And I think the trauma, the overhang from the campaigns on Iwojima and Okinawa haunted the Americans and made them hope that some alternative to a full-scale invasion might be possible. On the 12th of April, 1945, the American public receives a bolt out of the blue, at least for most of them.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president since 1933, is sitting for a portrait at a favorite getaway in Warm Springs, Georgia, when he suffers a cerebral hemorrhage and dies. He has been struggling with an array of serious conditions for over a year, although the White House has largely kept the public in the dark until now. His demise hits hard among America's allies, too. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill describes his loss as a hammer blow. In Washington, Harry Truman, Roosevelt's vice-president of just 82 days,

is finishing presiding over a session of the Senate when he is summoned to the White House. There, Roosevelt's widow, Eleanor, breaks the news to him. Within hours, he is taking the presidential oath. But when he asks Eleanor if he can do anything for her, she suggests the question should be the other way around, since, in her words, he is the one in trouble now. Within days, Truman receives a briefing on a number of issues of such secrecy that he was previously unaware of them, even as vice-president. He is informed that a classified research program has been in operation since 1942, known as the Manhattan Project. led by the U.S., but incorporating British and Canadian scientists as well,

its aim is to develop a new kind of weapon, more destructive than any other on earth, a nuclear bomb. Although Truman likely has some inkling of the project, he is only now told that it is nearing a successful conclusion. Over the next couple of weeks, he has provided with more information about its work, centered on a research laboratory at Los Alamos in New Mexico under the direction of the brilliant theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Employing over 130,000 people, the enterprise has all but completed a device that can use either uranium or plutonium in a nuclear fission reaction, one in which atoms split to produce vast quantities of destructive energy. Known as the atom bomb or A-bomb, According to Truman's secretary of war, it is the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. Armed with the knowledge that he is within touching distance of being able to order mass destruction on an unprecedented scale, on the 25th of April, Truman addresses a conference of the nascent United Nations in San Francisco.

If we do not want to die together in war, we must learn to live together in peace. Meanwhile, the war in Europe hurtles towards a climax. Three days after his San Francisco address, Truman receives news that Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist leader, is dead. Murdered by Italian partisans, as he tried to flee to Switzerland, his body was unceremoniously hanged upside down from a girder above a service-stead. in Milan. Just two days later, Hitler takes his own life in his bunker under the Reich chancellery in Berlin. Another week on, and Germany surrenders unconditionally to the Allies.

It is the 8th of May in New York's Times Square, around noon, about three hours since President Truman has broadcast to the nation announcing Germany's surrender and the Allies' victory in Europe. The crowd here is dense, already hundreds of thousands strong. The mood is joyous as the peal of church bells from around the city rings out, accompanied by the persistent honk of car horns. Amid the throng is a young sailor in uniform, recently returned from patrol in the Mediterranean. Standing in the shadow of the miniature Statue of Liberty, recently, erected in the square as part of a drive for war bonds, he's here for a good time.

When a spontaneous chorus of a popular song strikes up, he grins at a woman standing close by, and the pair embark on an impromptu jive. The president had been sure to strike a cautionary note in his address earlier. America's victory, he emphasized, is only half-won, and only with Japan surrender will the fighting be done. And until then, each and every American needs to stay. at their post and not slacken their efforts. The message hit hard, but here in New York, which has made its fair share of sacrifice to the war effort, no one's going to shut down the celebrations today, not even the man in the White House.

The serious work can begin again tomorrow, but after four long years of fighting, it's time to let off some steam. The sailor and his dance partner stop and blink into the sky as a rain of confetti falls around them. All about there are people triumphantly waving their hats or stars and stripes and others wafting copies of newspapers with their Germany surrender's headlines. The sailor points out to his new companion, a young man who has scaled a lamp post from which he now precariously waves and throws his fist into the air to a renewed round of cheering. The sailor lights a cigarette and blows a skein of smoke skywards. Song and dance, tobacco and great company, all here in this magnificent city of his.

And while Truman is doubtless right, it's going to be tough going back into the fighting mindset. Now there's been a taste of peace again. After all the suffering America has endured, who has the heart for months, or perhaps even years more, of struggle? The new BMO-V-I-Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more.

More perks, more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash ViPorter to learn more. Even before the euphoria of V.E. Day dissipates, Truman must decide what to do next. Japan is on the ropes, but how best to land the knockout blow. When Roosevelt signed off on the Manhattan Project, the great fear was that an enemy would get the bomb first, especially the Germans, who boasted a sophisticated scientific establishment. But as allied troops now flood the country following Berlin's surrender,

it is apparent that they were never even close. Indeed, it seems that Hitler was unconvinced about a nuclear bomb program altogether, questioning whether it was either necessary or desirable. His anti-Semitism, moreover, made him wary of the number of Jews working in that field of physics. No one else has had the infrastructure,

finance and will to rival the Americans' progress, certainly not the Japanese. Now, the world's world's first atom bomb requires just a little final honing. Most of the serious theoretical questions have been dealt with. It's an engineering project at this point. You know, do you have enough uranium? Is it in the right place?

Is the bomb designed properly? Is the core where it needs to be? How are you going to fire that thing off? Truman sits down with his military planners, confident he will soon have this extraordinary weapon at his disposal. He puts together a high-level committee, including politicians, military figures, and Manhattan Project personnel to decide their next move. Meanwhile, the rest of the world, oblivious to the top-secret program,

anticipates a U.S.-led amphibious assault on Japan. But the experience of Iwo Jima and Okinawa lingers. In Washington, expert predictions of how an invasion might play out don't make for pleasant reading. An estimate of 45,000 deaths within the first three months of a... potential invasion of Japan's third largest island of Kyushu is one of the most commonly accepted projections. Some, though, predict losses will be in the hundreds of thousands, and many times higher on the Japanese side. I don't think the number mattered very much. Harry Truman didn't want a single American casualty if he could possibly help it. Forty-five thousand, of course, was an outrageous

figure, but ten was not a good figure. If there was something else that could be done to spare all American lives and defeat Japan, that's what Truman was going to do. There is another concern, too. Though Japan signed a pact of neutrality with the Soviet Union back in 1941, with the war in Europe drawing to a close, there is a growing suspicion Stalin might soon be tempted to open up a new front in Asia, a frontier that would surely bring Japan to breaking point. But even as the authorities in Tokyo fear the prospect, so too to their counterparts in Washington. This was deeply worrying to the Americans who thought, I think really understood that if the Soviets did get too much in on the kill in Japan, they would demand a share of the occupation authority there.

What happens if the Russians, therefore, are allowed to rule, say, half of Japan, or if the Americans have, have to share policymaking authority with the Soviets because the Soviets have contributed decisively to Japan's defeat. Better to end the war quickly on American terms before the Soviets can push down too far into Northeast Asia or even into Japan itself. A devastating atomic bomb then is a tempting proposition. But its use, of course, raises ethical questions.

Some of the Manhattan Project scientists consider that the Japanese, unlike the Germans, have not committed the standard of atrocity that would legitimize such an attack. Forming a delegation, they advised the government to instead demonstrate the bomb on an isolated island somewhere in the Pacific, to show the Japanese what awaits them if they do not surrender. But there are serious doubts about the proposal. What if the Japanese somehow hijack such a demonstration? Imagine if they shoot down the plane carrying the bomb. What if the test firing fails?

Even if it is a success, might not the Japanese take it as a sign of American weakness that they have not used it in anger. Could it even encourage them to fight on? The idea of a demonstration explosion is quickly dismissed. On the 6th of June, the Interim Committee recommends to the president that, if Japan fails to surrender, then an appropriate target should be selected and the bomb dropped without warning at the earliest opportunity. Furthermore, the existence of the A-bomb should be kept secret until it has been deployed.

In the meantime, the U.S. continues its long-running firebombing campaign against Japanese cities. Using incendiary devices to raise urban areas, some 60 cities have been targeted since 1944, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths. In just two nights of raids back in March, the death toll in Tokyo alone has been perhaps 90,000. The psychological impact of the military strategy is increased by the dropping of 60 million leaflets over Japan, warning the civilian population of the threat they face. The scale of the casualties, also perhaps, makes the decision to use a nuclear bomb that little bit easier. The American policy-making establishment did not at least at the time of the bombings

recognize that there was any significant difference between killing civilians with a nuclear weapon and killing civilians with conventional weapons or incendiary weapons. But the moral erosion was so great by that time, on all sides in the war, that the real threshold had been crossed long ago. The real threshold was, can you target civilians' men? massively from the air. And the answer, sadly, that every power had given to that question,

beginning in 1939 with the Germans, then the Japanese, then the British, the Russians, and the Americans, was yes. It was that more than the weapon itself that was, to my mind, the most serious moral failing. For the American war planners,

it has been almost a given since the inception of the Manhattan Project, that should a bomb be successfully built while there are still enemies in the field, it will of course be used. And now, as the bomb turns from abstract theory to imminent reality, that logic continues to hold sway.

Some people have noted that the United States spent ultimately $2 billion on the Manhattan Project. Would you pursue some alternative to the bomb when you have what might well be the winning weapon in hand. I think most American policymakers, some of whom are politicians, like the president,

would have had a hard time imagining the American reaction to the failure to use the bomb. Early on the 16th of July, 1945, at what's known as the Trinity test sites in the New Mexico desert, a large group of observers connected to the Manhattan Project, They are here to witness the detonation of a plutonium bomb, which sits on a specially constructed raised platform miles in the distance. Each observer has been provided with special goggles to protect their eyes from the intense flash the explosion will produce. With the overnight wind and rain having subsided, at 526 a flare is launched to signal imminent detonation.

A few minutes later, it happens. It happens. The surrounding mountains are suddenly illuminated, with a light brighter than any of those observing has ever seen. Red, yellow, purple, green, white. Then comes a great roaring sound. The tower on which the bomb has been sitting is vaporized, and the desert sand melts into a substance like green-tinged glass

for hundreds of meters around the detonation. At its center is a huge crater, a meter and a half deep and 80 meters wide. A mushroom cloud climbs into the heavens, eventually rising some seven and a half miles. The test has been a success. Watching on, Oppenheimer knows the world has changed. with Churchill and Stalin in the German city of Potsdam. The Chinese leader, Chiang Kai-shek, though not present, is parted to the discussions via diplomatic channels.

In an unguarded moment between formal talks, Truman lets slip to Stalin that the US is on the brink of getting a great new weapon. Stalin's network of spies has long known about the Manhattan Project, but the news takes him off guard, and leaves him with no doubt that Moscow must now accelerate its own nuclear program. Later that day, the U.S., British, and Chinese delegations jointly issue a declaration demanding Japan surrender.

The might Japan faces, it ominously warns, is immeasurably greater than even that which confronted Germany. The full application of our military power, it reads, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the U.S. devastation of the Japanese homeland. The demand is for nothing less than unconditional surrender. But Tokyo continues to hold out, refusing to countenance such an offer. It's because they were deeply worried that their emperor, Hirohito, would be deposed, deprived

the power, and probably, worst of all, humiliated by these unconditional surrender terms. The United States would dictate every part, every aspect of the Japanese surrender, and that would include the degradation or even the elimination of what the Japanese called the Kokutai, the imperial institution and the emperor himself. The stage is set for a fight to the death. Work starts in Washington to identify suitable targets on which to drop the bomb. Still, no one really knows what damage the weapon might wreak, especially as the bomb they're planning to use first differs slightly from the one detonated in the Trinity test, being of a different

design and uranium instead of plutonium. They want a clean target, one that has not already suffered significant damage from other types of bombing, and will therefore clearly show them the weapon's potential for destruction. It is also thought that an attack on a previously unscathed city will prove more shocking to the Japanese themselves. Tokyo then is ruled out early. It is agreed that any target must have military significance, but given that there is war work going on in a great many cities, that leaves a long list to whittle down. Finally, a short list is formulated. Eroshima, a city of 350,000 people, is home to war industries, serves as an embarkation port and hosts a large military base.

It makes the cut. So too do Kukara, Yokohama, Nigata, and the old imperial capital of Kyoto, a major center of industry, as well as home to beautiful temples and shrines. But Kyoto has an unexpected protector within the U.S. administration. The American Secretary of War was a man by the name of Henry Stimson. Stimson had been in Japan a couple of times, and he'd been to Kyoto, and he'd seen how beautiful it was, and he argued strenuously against putting Kyoto on the target list. He said this was simply unnecessary. It would destroy the essence of Japan, which of course is what some wanted anyway, but not Stimson.

And he made the case, powerfully and eloquently, to spare Kyoto from the atomic bombing. After much debate, Kyoto is removed from the list and attention turns more closely to the industrial center and port city of Hiroshima. Whatever the final decision on the target, getting the bomb in place is another logistical challenge. Preparations for delivering an atomic bomb, either to Germany or Japan, had been underway for almost as long as the work has been going on to develop the bomb itself. Since December 1944, 30-year-old Colonel Paul Tibitz has been commanding what is known as the 509th composite group based in Utah. Here, air crews are being readied to transport and dispatch the weapon. Tibbets has previously been key to the development of the Boeing B-29 Super Fortress, the plane ultimately selected for the task of dropping the bomb.

Though he himself has been briefed on the weapons, many of the 1800s, men working under him have no or limited knowledge of the true nature of the work they are carrying out. They are simply informed that they are working on a project with the ability to significantly shorten the war. Since May, almost all of the group has been transferred to the island of Tinian, in the Marianas Group, within striking distance of Japan. In the months before the atomic bomb was ready, the military built these kind of imitations of atomic bombs made out of concrete and high explosives, and they were painted orange, so they were called pumpkins. They were meant to simulate by weight the kind of payload that Tibbets would be

carrying. You had to practice because it was a delicate bomb. It was a very heavy bomb, and precision was necessary. Also, when you release this bomb, because of its weight, the plane was going to bounce. And you had to know how that would feel. Out of control the balance of the plane. Then the bomb would be triggered with a fuse, a delayed fuse, that would cause an explosion in the air. So the fuse was set for 43 seconds from release. Dropped out of the bomb bay, you had 43 seconds. You had to get out of there. With no sign of Japanese surrender, the bomb, known as Little Boy, is shipped to Tini in late July.

Hiroshima is now established as the first target, and with the necessary agreement from Manhattan Project Partners, Britain and Canada, the date for the mission is set for a week's time, weather permitting. At 245 in the morning on the 6th of August, Paul Tibbets takes off in his B-29, which he is named Enola Gay, after his mother. On board is five tons of deadly weapon. As the aircraft reaches altitude, the 12-man crew is told the nature of their cargo. Several no doubt have been harboring suspicions, but only now are they confirmed. It takes six hours before they spot Japan's home island

on the horizon. As they approach Hiroshima, two of the crew clamber into the bomb bay to ready little boy for detonation. When the target comes into view, the crew put on protective goggles. A shout of, Bomb away, resounds in the cockpit. The hatch opens, and Little Boy is released into the air. American scientists who worked with the military to build this bomb and to plan its deployment

believed that by using an air burst, the amount of radiation that would affect those on the ground would not exceed in its radius the area that had been destroyed by blast and fire. In other words, anyone getting a fatal dose of radiation would already be dead. So radiation didn't matter. They were wrong. Whether they were willfully wrong or just plain wrong is hard to determine. By now, the Inola Gay is over 10 miles from the drop zone.

Even so, the aftershock jolts the aircraft, setting off warning indicators on the instrument panel. Tibbitts focuses to keep the plane stable, while another of the crew snaps a photo of the great purple mushroom cloud swallowing up the sky behind them. They can only wonder at the devastation they have helped to inflict. No one on the ground below has any inkling what is about to befall them. In fact, there have already been two air raid warnings this morning, followed by the all-clear. For 15-year-old Terame and her fellow citizens, it is just another day, with no more than the usual worries associated with being on the back foot in a long war. Indeed, the absence of U.S. bombing up to this point has led some to believe that Hiroshima is being saved by the Americans,

perhaps with a view to using it as a headquarters should they eventually invade. When Little Boy detonates above them, it is with a force equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT. Up in the sky, birds burst into flames as they fly. At ground level, the temperature hits 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit in less than a second. Anything remotely combustible within a mile or so of the immediate target zone, ignites. So bright is the light that accompanies the explosion, that it burns the shadows of people and objects onto walls. Many of those who survive the initial heat of the explosion are injured or killed when they are knocked from their feet by the subsequent shockwave and

hit by flying glass and debris. Buildings collapse as if there were dolls houses. Virtually nothing within a mile of the center of the blast still stands. The telephone exchange, just a few hundred yards away only survives in any form because of its concrete structure. Even up to three miles away, there is hardly a building unscathed, and as far away as 12 miles, windows are shattered by the force. As for those unlucky enough to be within half a mile of the explosion, 90% do not survive more than a few minutes. Meanwhile, fires consume over four square miles of the city, bringing a renewed waiver.

death then the radiation begins to kick in you read accounts of this and people said things like the blades of grass turned into weapons became like knife edges so powerful was the blast and lacerated people's skin the horrible burns that people came to hospital with and then of course the A special cruelty of having apparently survived unscathed from an atomic bomb blast. The cruelty of suddenly discovering days or weeks later that something was wrong with your body, that you were getting these patiquiae, these purplish blotches on your skin, that your hair was falling out, that you were horribly nauseated, that you began bleeding from various orifices. It meant that you had radiation poisoning, and thousands of people died as a result.

Terra Mae is one of those who exhibit symptoms, but over time she makes a recovery, though she loses the sight in her right eye. Much worse, she discovers her 13-year-old sister has not survived, succumbing to terrible burns. Upwards of 45,000 people die on the day of the bombing, almost all Japanese, but also a number of U.S. military personnel who have been held prisoner in the city. Many tens of thousands more perish in the coming months. The final death toll can only be estimated, but it likely stands between 100 and 150,000. It is 258 p.m., local time, as Enola Gay closes in on the U.S. Air Base on Tinian, a little more than 12 hours after takeoff.

Inside the aircraft, virtually the only noise is that of the engine drone. There is no conversation, not even when the men ate their sandwiches on their way back. Each of them caught in his own thoughts. In the hours since the bomb was dropped, they had been too busy absorbing what they had been witnessed to. A city about the same size as Dallas consumed within moments by fire and smoke. As the aircraft bumps to a stop along the runway and the engine, power down, Tibbitts prepares to exit through a hatch in the nose of the plane. As he emerges into the fresh air, he is hit by a wave of cheering and applause. A crowd of some 200 lines the taxiways,

consisting of military personnel of all ranks from the lowliest to the highest. Tibbitts has never seen more generals and admirals gathered in one place. He quietly accepts. the acclaim, even though he executed the mission as if it were any other. A military man to his bones, he simply had his orders and he has carried them out to the best of his abilities. The politics and the ethics are for others to wrestle with. Now a familiar face appears, Carl Tui Spats, chief of the Air Force out here in the Pacific. He pins across on the pilot's chest in recognition of his distinguished service.

The gesture prompts a renewed round of applause. Now Tibbitts feels a hand at his elbow, and he is led off, along with the rest of the mission crew, for a private debriefing. But then it is back to, if not festivities, then at least a break with a regular routine of airbase life. filling a plate from tables piled high with food he cracks open a cold beer and watches some of the men playing softball to unwind a spectacular catch provokes a chorus of whoops and high-fiving another group is immersed in a jitterbug contest but tibbitts has expended enough energy today and heads instead to a special screening of a new movie sinking into his chair as the opening scene begins he might be any guy in a picture house eyes fixed on the screen as the lead actress sweeps into the action.

But today is anything but normal. Today, he has played his part in changing the world. And for all the high spirits on Tinyan, no one yet really understands what the change will lead to. Impact site located. Entering spacecraft. Contact, an identified life form. In time.

We were safer in space. FX's Alien Earth, an original series streaming Tuesday on Disney Plus. Sign up today. 18 plus subscription required TNCs apply. President Truman is in the middle of the Atlantic when he is notified of the attack. 16 hours after the blast, he releases a statement acknowledging the nature of the assault. The force from which the sun draws his power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East. We are now prepared to destroy, more rapidly and completely, every productive enterprise the Japanese have in any city.

But still, the Japanese refused. to concede. Hirohito is in a tricky spot. As emperor and accorded divine status, he is supposed to be above such earthly matters as politics and the progress of the war. But with his own neck and his country's future on the line, he has not been able to keep out of things. His government is split. On one hand, is a faction determined to fight to the bitter end, convinced they will somehow emerge from this crisis. On the other hand, a faction seeking peace, aware of how weak Japan has become, desperate to find a way out and fearful of what might happen next. They favor suing for a conditional peace, but the conditions suggested are unlikely to be accepted by the Allies. They include

maintaining the Emperor's head of state, ruling out any form of occupation, and leaving Japan responsible for its own disarmament and any potential war crimes trials. Now, just two days after Hiroshima, the pressure ratchets up again when the Soviet Union declares war. And this really throws them for a loop, because as much as they don't wish to be occupied by anybody, including the Americans, the thought of occupation by the Soviets is utter anathema. They cannot fathom the possibility of Soviet occupation, even in combination with the United States. But with still no sign of movement from Tokyo,

the Americans prepare to drop another bomb. The initial plan is to go on the 11th, but the weather is set for a downturn by then. So the date has moved forward by two days. On the 9th of August, at 3.47 a.m., a B-29, this one called Boxcar, takes off from Tinian, laden with a plutonium bomb, of the same design as the Trinity bomb. Nicknamed Fat Man, the weapon is destined for the city of Coquharah, home of a mighty arsenal.

However, the flight is hit by a host of technical problems, and by the time it reaches its target, visibility is poor, partly due to the weather, and partly because of smoke rising from an earlier conventional bombing raid undertaken in error. With fuel running low, boxcar's pilot, Major Charles W. Sweeney, has a difficult call to make. Figuring he can't take the bomb home or drop it into the sea, he decides to make a pass over the mission's secondary target, Nagasaki, a city with a population of 200,000. On the approach, they fear that Nagasaki is also too obscured by cloud cover. But then suddenly, the city's stadium appears through the gloom. a landmark by which the crew can orientate themselves.

The hatch opens, and Fat Man begins its deadly descent, exploding at two minutes past 11 in the morning at a height of 1,650 feet. At 21 kilotons, it is 40% more powerful than the weapon used against Hiroshima. It detonates over an industrial area close to the factory complex responsible for manufacturing the missiles that rained down on Pearl Harbor four years ago. Everything within a half-mile radius of ground zero is destroyed. Over a quarter of the city's 52,000 homes are flattened, and almost 90% of all properties suffer some damage.

Somewhere in the region of 40,000 people die in the immediate aftermath, with the final death toll put at 70,000. Had the bomb dropped over the city's commercial or residential districts, these figures would have been closer to or even exceeded those of Hiroshima. The very same day, leaflets are dropped by the Americans across Japan, warning civilians that their enemy possesses the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. It urges them to ask their authorities about what has already befallen Hiroshima. Japan's War Council meets in the afternoon,

but by evening they still cannot agree on whether or not. not to throw in the towel. There is a fraught conversation until really the 12th of August, three days after Nagasaki, when they put forward to the United States, their willingness to surrender under certain circumstances with certain conditions, and it's pretty much a guarantee of the imperial institution. And what do the Americans do now? What do they say?

Are they going to give up on unconditional surrender? They're out of atomic bombs for now. They won't be getting any more till fall. The Soviets are pushing down against the Japanese. The Americans offer a kind of slippery compromise that the emperor, not in so many words, but they say the emperor could continue to exist as long as it's understood that he is under the control of the supreme commander for the Allies in Pacific, that is, the United States. Three days later, on the 15th of August, Hirohito formally addresses the nation. the first time a Japanese emperor has spoken to his collected people. In his speech, delivered in stilted, formal Japanese,

he references the new weapon used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Should fighting continue, he says, it will set human civilization on the path to total extinction. Two weeks later, Japan signs off its formal surrender, ending the war in the Pacific, and bringing the curtain down on the Second World War altogether. Though the war is over, the race for nuclear weapons has really only just started. Stalin's Soviet Union becomes the next nuclear state in 1949.

As of today, a total of nine nations are known to have nuclear weapons. I think the use of the bomb led to other nations wanting to develop it. And whether they would have done the same if they'd simply learned about the existence of the bomb, a bomb that had not been used, I don't know, I suspect they might have anyway. But certainly once the bomb was used, the United States of all nations had dropped atomic bombs. They decided that they had better build a bomb of their own. As for Japan, it is occupied by the Americans until into the 1950s, by which time the Asian nation is on the way to becoming a demilitary.

democratic economic superpower. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki are rebuilt in the years after the war, becoming thriving urban hubs, dotted with memorials to the terrible fates they once suffered. The impact of the two bombs is enduring. Millions carry physical and emotional scars and struggle under the weight of grief. Some 650,000 survivors have to deal not only with long-term health impacts,

including heightened risk of cancers, but also with social stigma, rooted in the unfounded fear that they carry disease which may be contagious or even transfer to their descendants. All the while, debate simmers about the morality of using the bombs in the first place. Did they help shorten the war and save more lives than they cost? And even if they did, what was the price to humanity? Whatever the answer, it is certainly true that the bomb has continued to demonstrate its power as a deterrent. The concept of mutually assured destruction that the use of a nuclear weapon brings with it the risk of being reciprocally attacked with one, has proved a potent negotiating tool.

Eighty years after the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the horrors of what befell them have not been forgotten. And though war is certainly far from a thing of the past, the bomb that brought to Oppenheimer's mind a line of poetry about the radiance of a thousand suns has never since been used. If you want one silver lining, no one has used one since Nagasaki. And one can only hope that memories of the utter destruction of these bombs, of what they did to human beings, will prevent people, prevent governments from ever deploying them again. Heaven knows we have many other ways to distribute horror in the world.

Next time on Short History of, we'll bring you a short history of Florence Nightingale. Nightingale and her lump became a symbol of hope for people in the Crimean War and these people were stuck in an awful situation and they just needed someone who cared and I think for me human nature hasn't changed in the last 200 odd years

there are still people today who step outside their comfort zone to really try and help others and to make a difference that's next time If you can't wait a week until the next episode, you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noyser Plus. Head to www.noiser.com forward slash subscriptions for more information.