Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
The atomic bomb was developed by scientists working under the Manhattan Project. The project was granted funding on December 6, 1941, with American leaders aiming for a new invention that would serve as a wartime weapon. The decision to drop an atomic bomb on Japan had been made by 1943, and a shortlist of candidate target cities was in place in 1945. At the time, it was argued that an atomic bombing would bring about a more rapid end to the war. Hiroshima, the first target, was selected to show the power of America's new weapon. The second bombing, of Nagasaki, was intended to demonstrate that the USA had a large arsenal. At 11:02 A.M. local time on August 9, 1945, the atomic bomb, nicknamed Fat Man as its code name by Robert Serber in the United States (after Sydney Greenstreet's character in "The Maltese Falcon") was dropped on Nagasaki, forever changing the city's landscape. A mushroom cloud rose to an altitude of 45,000 feet above the city.
First Into Nagasaki
However, the "Chicago Daily News" on August 30, 1945 published under size extra large headline: ""1st INSIDE STORY OF HIROSHIMA Reporter Tells How City Vanished in Atom Blast"" a notable scoop by Leslie Nakashima written for United Press (and also printed in the "New York Times" "Newsman finds all of Hiroshima gone after atom blow.") Born in Hawaii and previously a reporter for the "Honolulu Star-Bulletin" and a foreign correspondent with wire agency UP in pre-war Tokyo this Nisei's dispatch includes: "...I arrived at Hiroshima at 5 A.M. Aug. 22, to find out about my mother, who lived in the outskirts of the city. Alighting from the train, I found that Hiroshima station—once one of the largest in western Japan—no longer existed. ...The sight before me as I headed for the outskirts of the city where my mother lived was unbelievable. It was unbelievable because only a fortnight before the bombing I had seen the city intact when I evacuated my wife and two daughters to central Japan. Except for one or two bombs dropped on separate occasions by B-29's, Hiroshima had not been subjected to heavy incendiary attacks. ...But I found my mother safe. She had been weeding grass in a relative's vegetable field about two miles southeast of the city when she saw the flash...A school in the suburbs near mother's home has been converted into a field hospital to care for people who suffered burns. The majority of these cases is believed hopeless. Many of the victims are unidentifiable. Even now two or three patients are dying daily at this one hospital."