Surrender of the country at the cost of thousands of lives: Nagasaki

The destruction inflicted on Hiroshima was not enough to persuade the Japanese War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference’s demand for unconditional surrender.

Meanwhile, the United States was already planning drop a second atomic bombnicknamed “Fat Man”, August 11 in case of such persistence, but the expected bad weather for this day moved the date to August 9.

That is why, at 1:56 a.m., a specially adapted B-29 bomber, named “Bockscar” in honor of its usual commander, Frederick Bock, took off from Tinian Island under the command of Major Charles W. Sweeney.

Nagasaki was the center of shipbuilding., the same industry doomed to destruction. The bomb was dropped at 11:02 a.m. 1,650 feet above the city.

The explosion unleashed a force equivalent to 22,000 tons of TNT, the hills surrounding the city did a better job of containing the destructive force, but the death toll is estimated at 60,000 to 80,000 (precise numbers are impossible, the explosion destroyed bodies and scattered records).

General Leslie R. Groves in charge of organization Manhattan Project, solved the problem of producing and launching a nuclear explosion, calculated that another atomic bomb would be ready use against Japan on 17 or 18 August, but this was not necessary.

Although the War Council remained divided (“It is still too early to say that the war is lost,” the Minister of War opined), Emperor Hirohito, at the request of two members of the War Council seeking to end the war, met with the Council and announced that “The continuation of the war can only lead to the annihilation of the Japanese people…“That is why the Emperor of Japan gave permission for unconditional surrender.