Why did Nagasaki and Hiroshima pay the price?

Answer 1

In 1941 in the month of December, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor without notice dragging the United States into World War 2. Four years after that, after a ferocious war, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima on August 6 and 9, 1945 ending the war.

The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were selected as targets after exhaustive study by military specialists. Criteria for the selection of the targets included the following:

1. The range of the aircraft which would carry the bomb.
2. The desirability of visual bombing in order to insure the most effective use of the bomb.
3. Probable weather conditions in the target areas.
4. Importance of having one primary and two secondary targets for each mission, so that if weather conditions prohibited bombing the target there would be at least two alternates.
5. Selection of targets to produce the greatest military effect on the Japanese people and thereby most effectively shorten the war.
6. The morale effect upon the enemy.
7. Since the atomic bomb was expected to produce its greatest amount of damage by primary blast effect, and next greatest by fires, the targets should contain a large percentage of closely-built frame buildings and other construction that would be most susceptible to damage by blast and fire.
8. The maximum blast effect of the bomb was calculated to extend over an area of approximately 1 mile in radius; therefore the selected targets should contain a densely built-up area of at least this size.
9. The selected targets should have a high military strategic value.
10. The first target should be relatively untouched by previous bombing, in order that the effect of a single atomic bomb could be determined.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been virtually untouched by previous bombing and fit other criteria. Hiroshima contained the headquarters of the 2nd Army. It had concrete buildings in the center of the city, but many wooden workshops and houses outside the center of the city.

Kokura was the primary target for the second bombing but was covered in smoke so the bomber crew changed their target to the secondary target, Nagasaki. Nagasaki was an important sea port with many and varied industries, many of which were related to the production of war materials. Most of the residences in Nagasaki were contructed of wood and many of the smaller industries and business establishments were also housed in wooden buildings or flimsily built masonry buildings.