The Moral Lesson of Nagasaki
by Ronald M. Green, Ph.D. and Aine Donovan, Ed.D.
Seventy-five years ago, on the morning of August 9, 1945 at exactly 11:02 local time, the second atomic bomb ever used in war was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The bomb killed an estimated 75,000 people. Six days later, Japan surrendered.
Ever since atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, debate has raged about the morality of the bombing. Was it really necessary to use this terrible weapon against cities with large civilian populations? Was the second bomb needed or was it directed primarily as a warning to the Russians? Did the Nagasaki bomb push Japanese leaders to a decision or was it a waste of lives?
We traveled to Nagasaki in search of answers. What does the actual use of the second bomb tell us about the thinking and motives of America’s wartime leaders? Our research led to some disturbing conclusions.
At first sight, it appears that the use of the bomb at Nagasaki was ethically more discriminating than was true at Hiroshima. Although the Nagasaki bomb was one and a half times as powerful as the one dropped at Hiroshima, it killed about half as many people. The main reason was that the bomb detonated above a factory district in the valley of the Urakami River. It flattened huge concrete and steel munitions factories and killed many plant workers and their family members who lived nearby, but the more densely populated residential downtown heart of the city, two miles to the southeast and sheltered behind a range of low hills, was spared. In contrast, the Hiroshima bomb exploded directly above a populated city center.
The destruction of the Urakami factory district seems consistent with the day’s event. The planned target for that day was the Kokura Arsenal, 100 miles to the northeast. At Koura’s center was a massive industrial plant 2000 by 4,000 feet in size, an ideal target for the new weapon. But haze and cloud cover prevented Captain Charles Sweeney and his crew from dropping the bomb visually as they were ordered, and after some delay they headed to their reserve target, Nagasaki. There the bomb smashed war plants including the factory that had manufactured the torpedoes used in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Viewing the destruction at Nagasaki, George Weller, one of the first American reporters on the scene, wrote, “The atomic bomb may be classified as a weapon capable of being used indiscriminately, but its use in Nagasaki was selective and proper and as merciful as such a gigantic force could be expected to be.”
But Weller’s praise is unjustified because the bomb was a miss. Once again, cloud cover almost prevented Captain Sweeney and his crew from dropping it. At the last moment, with fuel running low, the bombardier reported that he saw a small opening in the clouds. He was able to get a fix on a point near the munitions plants, his backup aiming point. As a result, the bomb fell two miles away from where the planners intended.
What was the target that August morning? Published U.S. accounts don’t answer this question. A two-mile circle from the actual detonation point contains several legitimate military objectives, including a large steel mill at the mouth of the Urakami River. This silence among U.S. sources has created the impression that a military-industrial site was the intended target that day.
During our visit to Nagasaki, we learned otherwise. Japanese sources indicate that the primary aiming point was to the southeast: Nagasaki’s historic downtown commercial and residential area, with its temples, public buildings, and homes. Documents buried in the U.S. National Archives confirm that Nagasaki’s densely populated city center was the aiming point for the second bomb. Given a choice between a military-industrial target and one that would demonstrate the bomb’s ability to devastate a residential city filled with houses and people, U.S. planners chose the city.
This thinking had already dominated the selection of Hiroshima for the first bomb. During spring 1945, the targeting committee had specified three criteria for the selection of targets. They had to be (1) important targets in a large urban area of more than three miles in diameter, (2) capable of being damaged effectively by a blast, and (3) unlikely to be attacked by next August. The cities that fit this bill were, in order of selection, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, Kokura Arsenal, and Nigata. Although each of these cities contained many small dispersed factories this was not the reason they were chosen. Rather, each offered a large, flat expanse on which the devastation caused by the bomb could be displayed. In this respect, Kyoto was ideal. It was only struck from the list when Secretary of War Henry Stimson protested that it was Japan’s cultural center.
Hiroshima fit the bill. It is true that it housed a major military headquarters for southern Japan, but soldiers only represented a small percentage of the population (and only 10% of the resulting casualties). The aiming point in Hiroshima was the civilian city center, over a mile from the military facilities. In a radio address on the evening of August 9, President Truman stated “the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base.” But Hiroshima was not a military base: it was a large city that housed a military base, and it was chosen, like Nagasaki’s aiming point, primarily for its urban layout.
The debate about the use of the atomic bombs to end the war will never end. On one side are speculative arguments that more humane ways could have been found to use the new weapon, perhaps including a demonstration blast over an unpopulated area. On the other side is the decisive outcome. Two bombs were dropped and the Japanese surrendered.
But Nagasaki provides a clear alternative to the way we intended and chose to use the bombs. The Nagasaki bomb fell on an appropriate military target, half as many civilians died as at Hiroshima, and the war ended. This shows that it waspossible to use the bomb more discriminately and spare lives. Yet, this outcome does not reflect moral values. Civilians and cities were the target at Nagasaki that day. Only an accident of war saved them. Had targets more like Nagasaki’s military-industrial complex and less like Hiroshima’s open city plan been chosen for each use of the bomb, history’s critical judgment might be less harsh.
In the small park in Nagasaki beneath the point at which the bomb detonated there is a sculpture depicting a mother cradling a baby in her arms. An inscription reads. “Embodied in the monument is the sculptor’s reminder that the child is like Japan on the day of the atomic bombing.”
Many would object to this representation of Japan in 1945 as an innocent child. Yet, because of the decision making that led to the ghastly destruction of civilians at Hiroshima, there are people in Japan and around the world who see the U.S. as a killer of women and children. In countries like Iran and North Korea today, our conduct in August 1945 spurs the quest for nuclear arms.
The questions raised by the Nagasaki bombing are still with us. Have we become intoxicated with our military power? Do we pay too much attention to what we can do with our weapons, and too little to the ethics and politics of their use?
Ronald M. Green is Emeritus Professor for the Study of Ethics and Human Values at Dartmouth College. The author of nine books in theoretical and applied ethics, Professor Green is a Guggenheim Fellow.
Aine Donovan is a Professor at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College and a Trustee at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.
