The Bombing of Hiroshima

One of the things written on the first atomic bomb ever to be used in war was written, "Greetings to the Emperor from the men of the Indianapolis." That was the sort of feeling that was common in US forces in WW II.

Enola Gay navigator "Dutch" Van Kirk said shortly after the A-bomb exploded, "I thought, Thank God the war is over and I don't have to get shot at any more. I can go home."

The book notes, "It was a sentiment hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and sailors would soon express." And could you blame them?

Japan had been warned before the bombing to surrender or face destruction. The Japanese refused and instead issues sharpened sticks to civilians to fight invaders to the death if necessary. General Curtis LeMay had been firebombing the cities of Japan so much that LeMay lamented that he was denied cities targeted as possible sites for the atomic bomb. Despite the unprecedented firebombing damage - Japan didn't surrender. They didn't even surrender after the bombing of Hiroshima. They only surrendered after the destruction of Nagasaki.

Quotes from The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

"The Japanese assessment was essentially technological.  Like Bohr's assessment in 1939, it overestimated the difficulty of isotope separation and underestimated the U.S. industrial capacity. It also, as the Japanese government had before Pearl Harbor, underestimated American dedication. Collective dedication was a pattern of Japanese culture more than of American. But Americans could summon it when challenged, and couple it with resources of talent and capital unmatched anywhere else in the world." - Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Tough to read that paragraph and not think that maybe China may be making that same mistake today.

Ironic Karma

One of the problems the Japanese faced in their planned attack on Pearl Harbor was the fact that the bay was so shallow that traditional torpedoes would sink in the mud. To the rescue came Mitsubishi Munitions:

The manufacturer did better. Realizing the weapons were vital to a secret program of unprecedented importance, manager Yukiro Fukuda bent company rules, drove his lathe and assembly crews overtime and delivered the last of the 180 specially modified torpedoes by November 17. Mitsubishi Munitions contributed decisively to the success of the first massive surprise blow of the Pacific War by the patriotic effort of its torpedo factory on Kyushu, the southernmost Japanese island, three miles up the Urakami River from the bay in the old port city of Nagasaki.

The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 would in effect end the war in the Pacific and cause Japan's unconditional surrender. 

Origin of the Word "Dollar"

"Some sixty miles beyond Prague it turns southwest to form a low range between Czechoslovakia and Germany that is called, in German, the Erzgeburge: the Ore Mountains. The Erzgeburge began to be mined for iron in medieval days. In 1516 a rich silver lode was discovered in Joachimsthal  (St. Joachim's Dale), in the territory of the Count von Schlick, who immediately appropriated the mine. In 1519 coins were first struck from its silver at his command. Joachimsthaler, the name or the new coins, shortened to thaler, became "dollar" in English before 1600. Thereby the U.S. dollar descends from the silver of Joachimsthal.

Surprising history and language nugget from Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

"Man-made death became epidemic in the twentieth century because increasingly efficient killing technologies made the extreme exercise of national sovereignty pathological. And it was evidently the discovery of how to release nuclear energy and its application to nuclear weapons that reduced the virulence of the pathogen." - Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb  

Oppenheimer

 

Looking forward to this movie. It's directed by Christopher Nolan (so you know it will be good) and it's coming out in late July. That should give me enough time to read The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes - a dense history book (about 750 pages) that's been sitting on my stack for some time.