Why did the US drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki instead of Tokyo?

Answer 1

If they had been detonated on the ground then a very large part of their explosive energy would have been directed to just making a large hole in the ground. By setting them off about 1000 feet in the air, all that energy was directed into destroying things.

Answer 2

the US dropped the bomb on the Y-bridge that connect 2 cities
One reason is that the Truman administration was thinking ahead to the inevitable surrender of Japan and the post war reconstruction. The simplest answer is that we didn't want to kill The Emperor.

The reasons The Bomb was used in the first place was [1] we had the weapon, and [2] we wanted to avoid having to invade the Japanese Home Islands because we already had a pretty good idea what it was going to cost in lives. The Japanese in 1945 refused to quit no matter how much we firebombed them. They were preparing a defense of the Home Islands that, by one estimate at least, would cost a million American Dead and Ten Million Japanese dead — because they had already demonstrated over and over that they would kill themselves rather than suffer the dishonor of surrender.

But there was a good deal of disagreement within the administration, and among the American public, as to what to do about The Emperor. Hirohito at that time was worshipped by the Japanese as a living god, believed to be the direct descendant of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu. There was considerable question at the time as to the culpability of The Emperor in the militarism and aggression of Japan that had led to the war in the first place. (Modern historians now take the view that Hirohito had a good deal more to do with the war than many thought in 1945. Some thought he was just a figurehead who'd been led around by the nose by the militarists. It's now thought that he had a lot more to do with the decision to go to war and the atrocities that followed than was known at the time.)

The main thing is that even in the firebombings of Tokyo, as much care as possible had been taken to avoid bombing the Emperor's palace because we were still thinking ahead. To kill the person the Japanese revered as a living god would tend to harden their position to the point that even multiple atomic bombings might not get them to surrender. There was always the option of arresting and trying Hirohito as a war criminal — IF we could ever get the Japanese to give up. Besides, we wanted to make a huge, shocking statement. We had already flattened a good portion of Tokyo with incendiaries. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not been bombed at all. We wanted to show what a single atomic bomb could do to a pristine target.

So we bombed Hiroshima instead. Then, when the Japanese militarists continued to counsel no surrender, we bombed Nagasaki to show that we had more superweapons, since apparently the militarists were hard to convince. Then the Emperor finally stepped in and said, "Enough."

After the war there were many calling for Hirohito's head, but General MacArthur, who became military governor of Japan after the surrender, became one of Hirohito's staunchest supporters, insisting that retaining him on the throne was the only way to insure peace and stability in postwar Japan. Many historians agree that MacArthur was ultimately right to do this, no matter how much responsibility Hirohito bore for the war, because it made the surrender much more palatable to the Japanese people and made them accept occupation much more readily. The transition from war to peace was probably much smoother in Japan than it was elsewhere because MacArthur declined to blame the Emperor for the war, regardless whether he was responsible or not.

But in 1945 we were building a third Atomic weapon for use on Japan if necessary. Fortunately it did not prove necessary, but it may be that had we been forced to drop it, we might finally have used the Emperor's palace in Tokyo as the aiming point. Enough was, after all, enough. But that is pure conjecture more than 60 years after the fact.

Answer 3

The scientist cautioned the government that such force would break the earth crust. Even exploding them 2000 feet in the air, it broke Japan and that is why Japan has more earthquakes than any part of the world.

Answer 4

The bombs detonated above ground to be more effective over a larger area. If the bomb were to detonate on impact much of the force would be lost in traveling through the ground. A mid air burst maximizes the terrible power of an atom bomb.