The Real Reasons Behind Hiroshima & Nagasaki Bombings...

By July 1945, at the dawn of the Atomic Age with Trinity, the war in Europe had already been won and the preparations were on to won the final frontier, Japan and the war in the Pacific. The Soviets had effectively & invariably grabbed the global limelight & bragging rights in having been the first ones to reach Berlin and bring an end to Hitler’s brutal & tyrannical Nazi war machinery followed by an unconditional German surrender and the ultimate victory in Europe. After the German defeat, the Soviets had decided to and were preparing to invade Japan, thereby, breaking off from their neutrality pact with Japan.

The Soviet decision to invade Japan was announced by Stalin to Harry Truman at the Potsdam conference; which began on July 17, 1945, just a day after the ‘Trinity’ test; wherein, he had confirmed that the Soviet forces had already launched preparations for the invasion and they were to land in Manchuria by mid-August 1945. On the Pacific front, getting to victory via the invasion would have been a highly expensive proposition projected to extract a huge human toll for allies. However, letting Soviets finish the job would have given Stalin a huge influence in the emerging world order which clearly had tell-tale signs of a direct, emerging clash for supremacy between the U.S. and the Soviets.

The allied invasion of Japan, designated as ‘Operational Downfall’, was planned for November 1945 owing to logistics involved in mounting it. The onset of a Soviet invasion in August itself would have given them a clear head start and opportunity to gain further influence given the huge size and scale of the Red Army along with credible capabilities shown in Europe earlier. The victory in Europe and the hasty American retreat from front lines, despite Churchill’s repeated warnings, had given Stalin the opportunity to seize huge territories in Central & Eastern Europe which ultimately gave Soviets huge influence at the regional as well as global level laying the foundation for Cold War. America, thus, did not want that saga to be repeated in Japan.

The atomic bombing, thus, was the best option for the U.S. which enabled them to hog limelight and the accompanying huge global influence with the actual, in-combat use of an almost super weapon for the first time ever in world history while incurring minimal human & material costs, avenging Pearl Harbor and also effectively eclipsing the Soviet role in bringing Hitler and the Nazis down in Europe earlier. Further, the island of Truk, now known as Chuuk, had been selected as the original target in 1943, long before the bomb was operational, for nuclear bombing owing to the fact that Truk was a Japanese naval base, equivalent of the American Pearl Harbor, and would have been a pure military target.

However, by 1945, the Truk Island and much of Japan, had already been destroyed by conventional air bombings. Some sources even say that it was being carefully preserved as the target of atomic bombing. Thus, Hiroshima was at the top of the list of cities on the allied radar for atomic bombing because of the cities size & layout which would have offset any inaccuracies in the dropping of the bomb, in addition, to the high concentration of military and munitions production facilities located within Hiroshima (as per the Japanese).

The selection of Truk island as the initial target and given that the Japanese were willing to surrender (with some diplomatic concessions), prior to atomic bombings, gives credence to the theory that Hiroshima bombing, in a way, also, was in a way American revenge for Pearl Harbor intended at setting a precedent for others, forcing them to think before they dared to attack America ever again while also ensuring geopolitical supremacy and an unmatched atomic overmatch militarily, which, indeed, made Stalin go berserk after Hiroshima & Nagasaki over acquiring a similar & commensurate Soviet nuclear capability with his index finger almost itching for years to be able to control a similar nuclear button of his own…

The above is an excerpt from the forthcoming book: Atoms of Doom: Seconds to Midnight - I releasing on August 06, 2024. The book is available for pre-order on Amazon at:- https://www.amazon.com/Atoms-Doom-Confrontations-Disasters-Apocalypses-ebook/dp/B0D8WVH38M