Hiroshima and Nagasaki

CalBear

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Depends on what you mean by viable target. There was no pure military site, meaning a position with no civilians within the target zone, anywhere in Japan or even in the Mandates. Even Truk, which was a bypassed waste of a base, had significant civilian population, mainly Islanders, but also some Japanese, and a strike on Truk would have had zero impact on Japan.

It is important to keep in mind that the use of the Bomb was meant to do more than just kill people (if that had been the only goal, a straight up fire-bombing attack would have achieved the desired result). The goal was to stun the Japanese government sufficiently that the "peace faction" would be able to gain control of the decision making process and ned the war.

There were other targets within Japan, Nagasaki itself was an alternate target on August 9th (Kokura, the site of a major arsenal, was the primary), but they all were cities (much like any military target in any modern state would have a good sized city nearby) with some military significance. Hiroshima, partly because it had been left unbombed since it was on the Nuclear targeting list, was a significant IJA base, with more than 40,000 troops billeted there, along with the HQ of the 2nd General Army (which was the command responsible for defending Kyushu, the site of the first planned Allied landings in the Home Islands). Nagasaki included the shore facilities for Sasebo Naval Base, where the Naval C&C for Kyushu was located as well as several significant manufacturing facilities, including a major Mitsubishi plant.

Both cities were, under any definition, legitimate military targets under the laws of war in 1945 and would be legitimate targets even under the much more restrictive definitions found in the current Geneva Conventions. Whether the mass bombing of civilians was EVER a good moral decision is a more difficult question to answer, but the cities were both legal targets.
 
The four targets were in order of priority: Hiroshima, Kokura, Nagasaki, and Niigata. The latter city was removed when 20th Bomber Command felt that the range from Tinian was too much for a round trip, and the strike plane would have to refuel on the way home. Incidentally, the order for the strikes indicated that "Further instructions will be issued concerning targets other than those above", meaning that after three nuclear strikes, if the Japanese hadn't surrendered, further targets would be selected. Btw, Kokura was not only a major industrial center, but was home to a good part of Japan's CW production, with the intended aiming point being just to the west of a mustard-gas plant. And at Nagasaki, besides the Mitsubushi aircraft plant, another Mitsubushi factory made torpedoes for the IJN, including the torps dropped at Pearl Harbor.
 
General Groves, the head of the MANHATTAN Project, had Kyoto at the top of his list of proposed targets, but SecWar Stimson vetoed that choice, and Truman backed him up.

Incidentally, the scientists on Tinian supporting the 509th Composite Group were told that their tour of duty on the island would be six months, and that their replacements had already been named. The number that was most often discussed was fifty: Fifty bombs to bring Japan to surrender was the worst-case scenario being discussed. Production of nuclear material was just about to get ramped up to a point where seven bombs a month by October '45 was feasible. General Marshall was even considering tactical use of the bomb to support OLYMPIC (the invasion of Kyushu).
 
The core of the third bomb (a Fat Man type) was just being signed out of Los Alamos when the hold order came in on 13 Aug. Bomb #4's core was being prepared at the same time. It would've taken time to ramp things up, but Hanford and Oak Ridge would have been able to support several bombs a month by October or Nov of '45.
 
The core of the third bomb (a Fat Man type) was just being signed out of Los Alamos when the hold order came in on 13 Aug. Bomb #4's core was being prepared at the same time. It would've taken time to ramp things up, but Hanford and Oak Ridge would have been able to support several bombs a month by October or Nov of '45.
If any country in the world in 1945 could have gone from building single nuclear bombs to mass production of them, it would have been the USA. After all they were stamping out multiple versions of everything else right up to aircraft carriers.

The target of the third bomb is reputed to have been Tokyo or Mount Fuji. The timing would have been just before dawn in order to create a new rising sun. I am sure people can see the symbolism in that.
 
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