Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki

On August 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, this time at Nagasaki, resulting in Japan’s unconditional surrender.

The devastation wrought at Hiroshima three days earlier was not sufficient to convince the Japanese War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference’s demand for unconditional surrender. The United States had already planned to drop their second atom bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man,” on August 11 in the event of such recalcitrance, but bad weather forecast for that day pushed the date up to August 9th.

Early that morning, at 1:56 a.m., a specially adapted B-29 bomber, named Bockscar after its usual commander, Frederick Bock, took off from Tinian Island in the western Pacific Ocean under the command of Maj. Charles W. Sweeney.

Nagasaki was a shipbuilding center, the very industry intended for destruction. The bomb was dropped at 11:02 a.m., 1,650 feet above the city. The explosion unleashed the equivalent force of 22,000 tons of TNT.

The hills surrounding the city limited the bomb's destructive force, but the number killed immediately is estimated at about 39,000; another 20,000 to 40,000 people are believed to have died by the end of 1945 due to injuries and radiation exposure. (Exact figures are impossible, the blast having obliterated bodies and disintegrated records).

General Leslie R. Groves, the man responsible for organizing the Manhattan Project, which solved the problem of producing and delivering the nuclear explosion, estimated that another atom bomb could be ready to use against Japan by August 17 or 18—but it was not necessary.

Even though the Japanese War Council remained divided (“It is far too early to say that the war is lost,” opined one member), Emperor Hirohito met with the Council and declared that “continuing the war can only result in the annihilation of the Japanese people.” The Emperor of Japan gave his permission for unconditional surrender, effectively ending World War II.