History still trembles with the shockwaves of the only two nuclear weapons ever used on a population. But one thing's become clear in the decades since they fell: There are too many things that just don't add up.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00History still trembles with the shockwaves of the only two nuclear weapons ever used
00:04on a population. But one thing's become clear in the decades since they fell. There are
00:08too many things that just don't add up.
00:11A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima.
00:18In general, government officials at the time believed the bombs were a necessity to avoid
00:21a far more costly invasion. President Truman is quoted as saying,
00:25It was a terrible decision, but I made it. I made it to save 250,000 boys from the United
00:30States, and I'd make it again under similar circumstances.
00:34But if the intention was to force Japan's surrender, the bombs might have been totally
00:37unnecessary. Evidence suggests that Japan was ready to surrender before Hiroshima.
00:41First, a personal piece of correspondence penned by Emperor Hirohito and sent to Joseph
00:46Stalin asks that the Soviet premier act as an intermediary in negotiations between Japan
00:51and the U.S.
00:53It's not clear when Stalin received this letter, but it was definitely before the Potsdam Conference,
00:57the meeting between Allied leaders regarding the end of World War II, which took place
01:01from July 17 to August 2. Hiroshima wasn't attacked until four days after that.
01:07On top of that, a study called the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey found that Japan would have
01:11likely surrendered before the Allies could invade. In other words, before many of the
01:15casualties that U.S. officials fear.
01:18The report was finished in September 1945 and published the next month, so after the
01:22Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
01:25It should be noted, though, that historians heavily debate these points. What's not debated
01:29is the role the USSR played in ending the conflict.
01:33Whether or not Japan was prepared to surrender beforehand, the typical narrative is that
01:37the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the catalyst for the end of the war. On the
01:41surface, that seems consistent. Hiroshima was attacked on August 6, Nagasaki on August
01:469, and Japan announced its surrender on August 15. The timeline seems pretty cut and dry.
01:52But one thing most people don't look at is the fact that on August 8, the Soviet Union
01:56declared war on Japan. That act might have a bit more weight to it than you thought.
02:01For context, the Soviet Union and Japan had entered into a neutrality pact in 1941. The
02:06agreement was beneficial to both countries because it allowed both of them to focus on
02:10fewer fronts during World War II. But as the war with Germany turned in favor of the Allies,
02:15Stalin warmed to the idea of joining in the war against Japan, even though the neutrality
02:19pact was technically still in effect.
02:21As such, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria the day after declaring war was nothing less
02:25than a betrayal. In just under a week, the Soviet Army was moving on three different
02:30fronts against Japan, even finding success in areas of significant resistance. In discussions
02:35with his cabinet, Hirohito explicitly mentioned the Soviet Union in relation to surrender.
02:40The military situation has changed suddenly. The Soviet Union entered the war against us.
02:45Therefore, there is no alternative but to accept the Potsdam terms. We're not trying
02:49to downplay the decision to drop atomic bombs in some sort of modern-day retelling of history,
02:54but by Japan's own words, the Soviets played a major role in their surrender.
02:59With the Soviet Union on the rise, the end of World War II might be better analyzed as
03:03the start of the Cold War, as American leaders began exerting pressure on the Soviets. Though
03:08nuclear research had previously been kept secret from the USSR, Truman changed that
03:12policy as it became clear that the Soviets were poised to affect the balance of power
03:16in East Asia. The U.S. preferred that the USSR be given as little power as possible
03:20in that situation, so Truman let it slip that American scientists had developed a uniquely
03:24deadly weapon. After all, as a deterrent, it's pointless if your enemies don't know
03:29you have it.
03:30The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost. If you keep it a secret, why didn't
03:36you tell the world, eh?"
03:38Historians now know that the concept of a nuclear weapon had Joseph Stalin fairly concerned.
03:42Combine that fact with indications from that 1945 study that Japan would have surrendered
03:47without the atomic bomb, and you can now see how modern eyes view the bombings more as
03:51a show of force to the Soviet Union.
03:53The bombs were likely more of a show of power than a military strategy, giving the U.S.
03:57a stronger bargaining chip when it came to post-war negotiations. Again, we're parsing
04:02this mainly on that 1945 study and the words of the Japanese leadership, and not factoring
04:07in all the other factors, such as the never-surrender mentality of the Japanese military and the
04:12horrific war crimes it carried out. So yes, you can blast us in the comments. Go ahead,
04:17we're just trying to show both sides.
04:20Prior to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. did technically take precautions
04:24to warn the civilian populations of their target cities. Airdrop pamphlets urged the
04:28Japanese people to pressure their government into surrender, making mention of an incredibly
04:32powerful weapon that they would face if the war continued. The pamphlets themselves contained
04:36intimidating images of American military might, as well as lists of cities that might be targeted
04:41for attacks.
04:42A reported 33 cities received at least one of the three versions of the pamphlet, each
04:46of which had a slightly different list of target cities. But two cities that weren't
04:51listed on any of them were, you guessed it, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Nagasaki makes sense
04:57since that wasn't on the initial list of targets, but Hiroshima is a strange omission.
05:02In the end, their citizens were entirely unaware that an attack was imminent, with reports
05:06from Hiroshima even explaining that the locals just thought it a beautiful, normal day.
05:11Looking back on them today, Hiroshima and Nagasaki feel like two self-contained events,
05:15relegated to their own dark shrine in history. But horrifying as it is to think about, their
05:21many more bombings. See, even though the Trinity test had gone off without a hitch, the bombs
05:26slated for deployment were untested designs.
05:29Could the bomb work? That would certainly have been the military view. We'd test them
05:35in action.
05:37Scientists close to the project made a prediction about the atomic bomb's effect in a 1945 letter.
05:42In their own words,
05:43It is doubtful whether the first available bombs, of comparatively low efficiency and
05:47small size, will be sufficient to break the will or ability of Japan to resist.
05:51Yeah, they got that one wrong.
05:53But believe it or not, even after seeing proof of their effectiveness, the U.S. military
05:57was still ready to keep making and dropping even more bombs indefinitely.
06:01Shortly after the bombing of Nagasaki, military officials continued to make active plans for
06:06further attacks, including an outline that would include seven more bombs deployed by
06:10the end of October that year. They were even planning infrastructure needed to produce
06:14bombs consistently, at the rate of at least three per month.
06:18In a sense, it shows how the U.S. military thought there would be no way that the Japanese
06:22would ever surrender.
06:24If there's one thing about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that almost everyone
06:27can agree on, it's that the radiation released by the bombs left thousands of people sick.
06:32And we now know what happened next.
06:34The war ended, but not the dying. Radiation sickness would kill thousands more.
06:40But some studies looking at survivors from the outskirts of the two cities suggest that
06:43the radiation wasn't always as damaging as commonly believed. In fact, it may have made
06:48some survivors healthier.
06:50The studies found that survivors who received low doses of ionizing radiation had a longer
06:55life expectancy and lower instances of cancer than the average population. Shocking findings,
07:00to say the least, considering everything we know about the dangers of radiation.
07:04The researchers chalked the phenomenon up to radiation hormesis, a theory that very
07:09low doses of ionizing radiation can actually be beneficial.
07:13Before you get up in arms in the comments again, we'll state for the record that organizations
07:16like the National Academy of Sciences and the United Nations don't recognize radiation
07:21hormesis as a valid theory, making these findings even more sketchy.
07:25And just to touch on one of the wildest stories to come out of the bombings, we have to mention
07:28Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who was in Hiroshima when Little Boy fell. He survived and went home
07:34— to Nagasaki. On August 9th, he was telling a co-worker about the bombing when Fat Man
07:39dropped.
07:40We saw a thousand times the dose of radiation that we experienced in one year.
07:47Against all odds, he lived a healthy life until he passed away in 2010 at the age of
07:5193. Clearly, after almost 80 years to study the effects of what happened at Hiroshima
07:55and Nagasaki, there's still a lot we don't understand.
07:59In the present day, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are almost always mentioned in
08:03the same breath. A series of bizarre events and remarkably bad luck led to that. In their
08:08initial plans, officials were explicitly looking for large cities of military value. They put
08:13together a short list of four cities that all met their criteria — Hiroshima, Niigata,
08:18Kyoto, and Kokura, now part of Kitakyushu. In other words, Nagasaki wasn't the primary
08:24target for the atomic bomb.
08:26But in June, Secretary of War Henry Stimson suddenly changed the list for reasons still
08:30debated today. According to him, Kyoto was too important a cultural center to be destroyed
08:35— there's a story that he spent his honeymoon there. We know Stimson visited the city twice
08:40in the 1920s, but it wasn't for his honeymoon. Nagasaki was bumped onto the list of four
08:45candidates, literally handwritten into the new draft, but still in the last spot. Things
08:50only got worse from there.
08:52Potty weather in the days leading up to the second bombing forced plans to change, and
08:56at the very last minute, the planes couldn't get a clear visual over Kokura, pushing the
09:00pilots to make the switch to Nagasaki on the spot.
09:03After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear warfare suddenly became a prominent and enduring threat.
09:08But in a mirror effect, the bombs also brought the potential for peace. Don't forget that
09:12the military thought that a deterrent had to be proven unequivocally in a theater of
09:16war — hence, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
09:19But before the bombs were ever dropped, scientists warned that doing so would have the opposite
09:23effect. See, folks were already concerned about what the future was going to look like
09:27with nuclear weapons now on the table. So in June 1945, a group of scientists who'd
09:32worked on the project penned what became known as the Franck Report, in which they
09:36argued that springing the bomb on the world would lead to deep distrust and further conflict.
09:41Later published in the 1946 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the report stated
09:47that dropping the bomb on an enemy target would shatter any trust the world had in the
09:50United States' desires for truly lasting peace, saying,
09:54"...it will be very difficult to persuade the world that a nation which was capable
09:57of secretly preparing and suddenly releasing a weapon, as indiscriminate as the rocket
10:02bomb and a thousand times more destructive, is to be trusted in its proclaimed desire
10:06of having such weapons abolished by international agreement."
10:09Instead, they suggested detonating a bomb on an uninhabited island somewhere and inviting
10:14the world to watch, a demonstration of both power and restraint. In their words,
10:19"...America would be able to say to the world, you see what a weapon we had but did not use.
10:23We are ready to renounce its use in the future."
10:26This is a theory that is often seen as a modern Monday morning quarterbacking of World
10:29War II. But obviously, the controversy associated with dropping the bombs has been around since
10:34before they were used.