Note: the information here concerns only some of the political decisions that led to the disaster.
I took the following photos in the Peace Memorial Museum of Hiroshima.
Most of them involve letters between high-ranking U.S. officials.
The resolution isnt that great, so if you want to read them clearly,
you'll have to save and zoom in on your own.
In a nutshell, the story is that the U.S. spent a lot of money researching and developing atomic weapons, and the government wanted to use an atomic bomb on a real target - to measure realistic devastation, and to avoid being criticized for wasting taxpayers money. The decision to use the bomb was made so far in advance, that it seems clear there was little strategic importance in the action. They casually discussed which city would provide a better testing ground, and finally proceeded just before the time that the Soviet Union was about to declare war on Japan. The USSR attacked Japan just after the bomb on Hiroshima, and that seems to have prompted the USA to drop a second bomb on Nagasaki, thus being able to finish the war before the Soviets had a chance to steal some of the glory.
So, here's what I saw:
Below: The Japanese army was not so innocent either.
Letter from Albert Einstein to F.D.Roosevelt, in 1939, which describes the
potential energy source of Uranium and its possible use in a bomb.
Note between high-ranking U.S. politicians, regarding the best place to
use the bomb. Here it is shown that they initially wanted to drop it over
the sea, so that if it did not explode properly it would not be recovered
by the enemy. Both Germany and Japan were considered.
Letter indicating that the U.S. wanted to test the bomb on a city that had
not been previously damaged (by conventional air raids).
Eventually, this is what led to the choice of Hiroshima, instead of
Tokyo, Kyoto and several other cities.
The Soviet Union agreed with the US that they would declare war on Japan
about three months after the surrender of the Nazis (May 7, 1945).
Note to US president from James F. Byrnes, bringing to attention the
enormous cost of developing the bomb, and the political cost of
letting it remain unused.
July 26, 1945: The US, Great Britain and China demand Japan's
unconditional surrender. No threat (or even mention of existence) of
atomic bomb is issued.
Some factors considered by the US, for choosing an appropriate target:
apart from having strategic value, the city must not have been destroyed
via conventional bombing, in order to successfully measure the devastation
of the atomic bomb. The target must also have a "large urban area of not
less than 2 miles in diameter"
The bomb should "be used without prior warning". (Again, obviously to be
able to measure how many people it can kill).
Hiroshima was bombed on the 6th of August.
The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on the 8th, and attacked Japanese
territories on the 9th, (three
months after the Nazi surrender), fearing that Japan would surrender to
the U.S. before they had a chance to take a piece of the action.
The U.S. responded by dropping a second bomb on Nagasaki that very day.
