75 Years Ago Today

What amazed me is that it took the "leaders" of Japan so long to surrender.......remember.......it took TWO nuke devices, not just one.........and several more days before the leaders finally got out of bed and did the right thing.

This is telling............

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombing Timeline


Between the Bombings
August 7:

A message to Vice Chief of the Imperial Army General Staff Torashiro Kawabe reports: “The whole city of Hiroshima was destroyed instantly by a single bomb.” Kawabe writes in his diary that he was “shocked tremendously,” but that the Imperial Army must continue to resist.

Close advisor Koichi Kido meets with Emperor Hirohito to discuss the Hiroshima bombing.

A crash effort begins to print millions of leaflets to be dropped on major Japanese cities warning of future atomic attacks.

The decision to drop the second bomb is made on Guam. The date for dropping Fat Man is moved up to August 10, then to August 9, to avoid a projected 5 days of bad weather. This requires skipping many check out procedures during assembly.

August 8:

A seven-man Imperial Army investigation team (dispatched from Tokyo and delayed by aircraft problems) arrives at Hiroshima and circles the city by plane.

Hirohito receives a report on Hiroshima from Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, who calls for an end to the war based on the Potsdam Declaration.

At Togo's request, Soviet Ambassador Naotake Sato tries to persuade the Soviets to mediate surrender negotiations. Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov informs Sato that the Soviet Union is at war with Japan effective the next day.

The Japanese government does not formally meet to discuss surrender.

Leaflet dropping and warnings to Japan by Radio Saipan begin. Nagasaki does not receive warning leaflets until August 10. Fat Man unit F33 is dropped in practice bomb run. Assembly of Fat Man unit F31 with the plutonium core is completed in the early morning. In the rush to complete the bomb, the firing unit cable was installed backwards, requiring Barney J. O'Keefe to cut the connectors and reinstall them at the very last minute.