On this day 75 years ago....the city of Nagasaki was wiped off the face of the earth....

Little Boy had devastated the city of Hiroshima two days earlier, killing some 20,000 Japanese soldiers and between 70,000-126,000 Japanese civilians. When word reached Tokyo about the bombing, the first reaction was disbelief. It wasn't until U.S. President Harry S. Truman's address to the American people some 16 hours later that the Japanese finally came to terms with the fact that Hiroshima had been annihilated by a single bomb. Every 15 minutes Allied Radio, broadcasting from Saipan, reminded the Japanese people about the fate of Hiroshima. On August 7, Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki reiterated his government's position and refused any notion of surrender.

Meanwhile, Japanese physicists journeyed to Hiroshima to survey the damage and reported back to Tokyo that the city had indeed been hit by a nuclear bomb. The War Cabinet concluded that no more than one or two additional bombs could be made ready, and so they (meaning the Japanese government) would endure the remaining attacks but the war would go on afterward. American code breakers were able to intercept and decipher the messages concerning the continuation of the war from the Japanese War Cabinet.

Upon hearing this news, American commanders met on the island of Guam to decide what to do next. Since there was no indication that the Japanese planned to surrender, the decision was made to drop another bomb. The original plan was to drop the second bomb (code named "Fat Man") on the primary target of Kokura on August 11. However, weather forecasts indicated poor flying conditions for that day and so the drop date was moved up two days to August 9. Like the Hiroshima mission three days earlier, three airplanes would be tasked with completing the operation. The B-29 bomber known as Bockscar - piloted by Major Charles Sweeney - would be on weapon's delivery; the bomber Great Artiste would once again be tasked with taking scientific measurements of the event; and the bomber Big Stink would be charged with taking still and moving photographic images of the event.

As stated earlier, the city of Kokura was the primary target of the mission, but clouds combined with black smoke emitting from the city of Yahata (which had been bombed the previous day) obscured over 70% of the city. The Enola Gay, flying ahead of the main strike force, radioed in the conditions over the city of Kokura and thus the decision was made to bomb the secondary target - Nagasaki. At around 10:53 Japanese time, the strike group entered Nagasaki air space. No alarm was sounded due to the Japanese thinking these planes were on a reconnaissance mission. Much of the city was obscured by cloud cover and bombardier Kermit Beahan was having a hard time finding something to target.

At 11:01, Beahan finally got a break in the clouds and a target was visually sighted. Seconds later, Fat Man was dropped over Nagasaki's industrial valley. Some 47 seconds after that, the bomb exploded with an estimated yield of 21 kilotons of TNT. Between 30,000-90,000 people were killed in the blast.


The "mushroom cloud" rises over Nagasaki - photographed by the B-29 bomber Big Stink (August 9, 1945)