[right-wing agnostic]

This is an interesting article. I had no idea until reading this article that they original date for the dropping of the second atomic bomb was actually August 11, 1945. But the date was moved up to August 9, 1945 because of projected inclement weather./rwa

[samtheman]

Interesting. Thanks.

[LS]

I question the sincerity of “peace feelers” to the USSR. Richard Frank’s “Downfall” is the best source on Japanese actions during this time-—they weren’t looking to surrender but to negotiate terms so they could stay in China. Potsdam was already done and the Russkies promised to join the war “as soon as possible.”

[Liberty Valance]

American bomber pilot Paul W. Tibbets Jr. (center) stands with the ground crew of the bomber 'Enola Gay' which Tibbets flew in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Tinian Island, Northern Marianas, August 1945.

[DoodleDawg]

War is hell. I read that somewhere.

[BigCinBigD]

I hear the story ends with quite a...bang.

[mabarker1]

Last surviving Enola Gay crewman dies in Stone Mountain

[CodeToad]

The thing civilians never see are the classified intelligence reports. The ones for Japan were recently declassified and they showed Japan had withheld its military against the US in the Pacific islands. They were holding their best for the inevitable homeland invasion. They were extremely well prepared. We were facing an Army far larger than our own, that was dug in (even with underground air bases) and ready to fight to the last man. We were facing at least 1 million dead US soldiers, minimum. The bomb was the only answer.

[gitmo]

Thank you for this interesting article.

[cynwoody]

I've always wondered when #3 would have been ready, had the Japanese failed to surrender. Some googling leads to this from Ray Monk's book Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center. Seems the third one would have been another implosion bomb ready on 17 August:

Truman returned to Washington from Potsdam on the evening of 7 August and was immediately caught up in a whirlwind of activity generated by Groves, who was determined to proceed as quickly as possible with a second bombing of Japan. He and Admiral William Purnell, Groves writes in his autobiography, 'had often discussed the importance of having the second bomb follow the first one quickly', so that the Japanese would not have time to recover their balance'. This second bomb would have to be of the Fat Man type, there being no chance of assembling another uranium bomb at this stage (in fact, the Little Boy remained one of its kind; the Fat Man design, despite its complicated assembly, being easier to manufacture, safer to transport and more powerful). After the success of the Trinity test, the only thing standing in the way of using a Fat Man bomb in Japan was the availability of plutonium. Groves had originally been advised that a plutonium bomb could be ready to use on August 20. At the end of July, this was revised to 11 August. Groves, however, was too impatient to wait that long and, somewhat against the advice he was given by the scientists, saw to it that the bomb was assembled, loaded and ready to use by the evening of August 8.
...
Everyone felt that the sooner we could get off another mission, the more likely it was that the Japanese would feel that we had large quantities of the devices and would surrender sooner.
...
Immediately after the Nagasaki bombing the Allies did not possess any more atomic bombs. It is true, as Groves puts it, 'our entire organization both at Los Alamos and at Tinian was maintained in a state of complete readiness to prepare additional bombs', but, as he himself reported to General Marshall, the earliest data at which the next bomb could be assembled for use was August 17, and almost everybody expected the war to be over by then.