Charles Sweeney
Poor bombing visibility and an increasingly critical fuel shortage eventually forced "Bockscar" to divert from Kokura and attack the secondary target, Nagasaki. As they approached Nagasaki, the heart of the city's downtown was covered by dense cloud, and Sweeney and the plane's weaponeer, Commander Ashworth, initially decided to bomb Nagasaki using radar. However, a small opening in the clouds allowed "Bockscar's" bombardier to verify the target as Nagasaki. As the crew had been ordered to drop the bomb visually if possible, Sweeney decided to proceed with a visual bomb run. "Bockscar" then dropped "Fat Man", with a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT. It exploded 43 seconds later at above the ground, at least northwest of the planned aim point. The failure to drop "Fat Man" at the precise bomb aim point caused the atomic blast to be confined to the Urakami Valley. As a consequence, a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills, and only 60% of Nagasaki was destroyed. The bombing also severed the Mitsubishi arms production extensively and killed an estimated 35,000-40,000 people outright, including 23,200-28,200 Japanese industrial workers, 2,000 Korean slave laborers, and 150 Japanese soldiers.
Potsdam Declaration
At a press conference with the Japanese press in Tokyo, Suzuki stated that the Japanese policy towards the declaration would be one of , which the United States interpreted as meaning "rejection by ignoring", leading to a decision by the White House to carry out the threat of destruction. Subsequent to the White House decision, the United States Army Air Forces dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and then the second atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki three days later on August 9, 1945. These two bombings devastated the two cities, killing an estimated 129,000–246,000 people and destroying much of the cities' infrastructure as well as military bases and war industries in a matter of seconds in a radius that stretched for more than 1 mile (1.6 kilometers).