HIROSHIMA THE MAKING OF THE MODERNWORLD This group of narrative histories focuses on key moments and events in the twentieth century to explore their wider significance for the development of the modern world. published: The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940, Julian Jackson A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World, Rana Mitter Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War, Alan Kramer forthcoming: The Vietnam Wars: A Global History, Mark Bradley Algeria: The Undeclared War, Martin Evans series advisers: Professor Chris Bayly, University of Cambridge Professor Richard J. Evans, University of Cambridge Professor David Reynolds, University of Cambridge HIROSHIMA the world’s bomb ANDREW J. ROTTER 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Andrew J. Rotter 2008 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Rotter, Andrew Jon. Hiroshima: the world’s bomb / Andrew J. Rotter. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–19–280437–2 1. Atomic bomb—History. I. Title. QC773.R67 2008 355.8’251190904—dc22 2007045146 Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc ISBN 978–0–19–280437–2 13579108642 To my daughters, Sophie and Phoebe Rotter. Praise for Hiroshima ‘An engaging and exceptionally skillful combination of the scientific, tech- nological, military, diplomatic, political, and cultural history of the atomic bomb in an international context. By any standard, a terrific book.’ J. Samuel Walker, author of Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan ‘In a smart, useful, and beautifully written book, Rotter treats the atomic bombing of Japan in its multinational context. Synthesizing a huge liter- ature, he concisely shows in how many ways this truly was the world’s bomb.’ Laura Hein, Northwestern University, and author of Living with the Bomb ‘A profound look at one of mankind’s most significant (and tragic) events...diplomats and their politician bosses should read this work for an understanding of the dire outcomes that diplomacy—and a lack thereof— can reap.’ Thomas W. Zeiler, University of Colorado, and author of Unconditional Defeat: Japan, America, and the End of World War II Acknowledgements I never intended to write a book on the atomic bomb, but when David Reynolds emailed out of the blue, as it were, in the summer of 2001 and asked me to write one for a new Oxford series, I could not resist his invitation. I have appreciated his support and advice throughout the protracted writing process. Katherine Reeve was my first editor and got me started; Luciana O’Flaherty took over and prodded me to finish during my sabbatical leave in London in 2006. Luciana’s able and helpful assistant, Matthew Cotton, and my Oxford production editor Kate Hind, brought the book home. Hilary Walford copyedited the manuscript, even as the water rose around her house in Gloucester during the summer of 2007. Zoe Spilberg hunted down the photographs and negotiated permission for their use. Carolyn McAndrew handled the proofreading and eliminated the last of my sincere but, as it turned out, unnecessary attempts to spell in British. I got interested in the atomic bomb because of my Stanford University graduate adviser Barton J. Bernstein, whose deep research on the subject I only gloss here. At Colgate University, my home institution, I was lucky enough to teach a course on the bomb with my colleague from across the Quad, Charles Holbrow. Since Charlie was responsible for doing the physics part of the course, I was fortunate that Robin Marshall, a physicist at the University of Manchester, read the manuscript and saved me from a number of errors. Laura Hein offered suggestions throughout, and Sam Walker bravely read the entire manuscript and said nice things about the writing. Conversations with friends and colleagues, including Carl Guarneri, David Robinson, Karen Harpp, Walter LaFeber, Frank Costigliola, and Jeremi Suri, helped to keep me on task, more or less. I am grateful to them all. I also thank audiences at the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin, Fitchburg State College, Nanzan University, Kitakyushu University, and the Hiroshima Peace Institute, for questions, viii Acknowledgements comments, and corrections following my lectures at these places. Students and colleagues at Colgate helped enormously. Thanks especially to my four terrific research assistants: Sarah Hillick, Alexander Whitehurst, Adam Florek, and Casey Graziani. My parents, Roy and Muriel Rotter, and my in-laws, Chandran and Lorraine Kaimal, supported me unswervingly, which they seem to think is their job. My daughters, to whom the book is dedicated, have become young women in the course of my writing it. In the acknowledgements in my last book I characterized them as “naughty”; they are that no longer, but smart and beautiful and my proudest work ever. As always, my greatest debt is to my wife, Padma. Writing about the atomic bomb is not the most cheerful of pursuits. She kept me going, and much more. Contents List of Plates xi Introduction: The World’s Bomb 1 1. The World’s Atom 7 2. Great Britain: Refugees, Air Power, and the Possibility of the Bomb 31 3. Japan and Germany: Paths not Taken 59 4. The United States I: Imagining and Building the Bomb 88 5. The United States II: Using the Bomb 127 6. Japan: The Atomic Bombs and War’s End 177 7. The Soviet Union: The Bomb and the Cold War 228 8. The World’s Bomb 270 Epilogue: Nightmares and Hopes 304 Notes 310 Bibliographical Essay 340 Credits 356 Index 357 This page intentionally left blank Plates 1. Ernest Rutherford: A New Zealander who came to the United Kingdom in 1895, Rutherford was one of the pioneers of modern nuclear physics 2. Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn, in their laboratory at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute outside Berlin, 1938 3. Ernest Lawrence, Enrico Fermi, and Isidor Rabi: Three physicists who played important roles in the development of the first nuclear weapons 4. A US government propaganda poster, “Lookout Monks!”: Throughout the war, the British and American governments encouraged citizens to imagine the destruction of Germany and Japan by bombers 5. Johann Strasse, central Dresden, 1945: American and British air forces bombed the German city of Dresden on the night of 14–15 February, 1945 6. Yoshio Nishina’s cyclotron, built at Tokyo’s Riken Laboratory 7. Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer: Groves was made a general and put in charge of the top-secret Manhattan Project in September 1942 8. The Americans destroy a German “uranium burner” 9. The Japanese emperor, Hirohito, walks through Tokyo neighborhoods wrecked by American bombs 10. Unloading the plutonium core of the Trinity test gadget, July 1945 11. The “Big Three” at Potsdam, July 1945: The Soviet Union’s Josef Stalin, US President Harry S. Truman, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill came together at Potsdam 12. Ruined Hiroshima: The atomic bomb codenamed “Little Boy” struck near the heart of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 13. The bombed, 1: The living in Hiroshima sought shelter where they could find it 14. The bombed, 2: A family at a makeshift hospital ward 15. Standing at attention: A boy stands erect, having done his duty by bringing his dead brother to a cremation ground 16. No handshake for a hated enemy: The Americans ordered the Japanese to send a surrender delegation to Manila 17. Yuli Khariton and Igor Kurchatov: The two physicists most responsible for the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb program in the 1940s 18. The Indian reactor at Trombay: The CIRUS reactor, built with Canadian help and supplied with moderating heavy water by the United States, came online in 1960 This page intentionally left blank Introduction The World’s Bomb The atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945, seems in many ways an event characterized by clarity and even simplicity. From a clear blue sky on a radiantly hot summer morning came a single American B-29 bomber (warily flanked by two observation planes), carrying a single bomb. The plane was called the Enola Gay, after its pilot’s mother; the bomb bore the innocent nickname ‘Little Boy’. There were no Japanese fighter planes to challenge the Enola Gay, no airbursts of flak in its way.