The Target Committee (Kindle Single) Read Online Free Page A

atomic bomb would merely “make the rubble dance,” to paraphrase Churchill.
    The meeting barely touched upon whether the cities – with the exception of Kokura – had any appeal as military targets, or what their military functions were. There wasn’t much to discuss: Hiroshima’s port and its main industrial and military districts were located outside the urban regions, to the south-east of the city – well away from the target zone of the city center. A few thousand conscripts unfit for battle were garrisoned in the military barracks in the center of town, but it was otherwise populated by civilians. 26 Japan’s ancient capital of Kyoto had no significant military installations either. However, its beautiful wooden shrines and temples recommended it, as Groves had said earlier, as both a “sentimental” and highly combustible target.
    The committee moved on to the risks. Oppenheimer briefly assessed the radiation risk: US aircraft should not fly within two and a half miles of the detonation point, he advised, to “avoid the cloud of radioactive materials.” The risks would be discussed in greater detail at the next meeting, on the following day. The radiation risk to Japanese civilians was notdiscussed at any of the meetings of the Target Committee.
    The committeemen next raised the question of whether incendiary bombers should attack the city after the nuclear strike. “This has the great advantage,” said one committee member, “that the enemies’ fire-fighting ability will probably be paralyzed by the gadget so that a very serious conflagration [will start].” The ensuing firestorm, however, might confuse photo-reconnaissance of the atomic damage and subject aircrews to radioactive contamination. For this reason, they rejected the proposal that firebombing raids should follow the atomic bomb.
    Summing up, the committeemen unanimously agreed that the bomb should be dropped, without warning, on a large city center, the psychological impact of which should be so spectacular as to ensure “international recognition” of the new weapon. Groves received a full report of the proceedings on May 12. 27
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    The Target Committee met the next day, May 11, to discuss the technical aspects of the mission. Before the meeting, Oppenheimer sent Farrell a longer description of the likely effects of radiation. The uranium bomb, he warned, as distinct from the plutonium bomb, being concurrently developed, would release toxic material equivalent to a billion single lethal doses; and radiation emissions would be lethal within a 1-mile radius.
    Within a second of the blast, gamma radiation capable of penetrating concrete and packed soil equivalent to about 10 12 curies would coat a large section of the targeted city, falling, within a day, to “about 10 million curies.” (One curie is the level of radiation emitted by a single gram of radium.) “If the bomb is delivered during rain,” Oppenheimer added, “most of the active material will be brought down . . . in the vicinity of the target area.” Otherwise, the radioactive material would spread over a wide area – unless the targeted city was surrounded by hills, like Hiroshima, which would contain the spread of the radioactive material, maximizing the damage and casualty rate.
    Exposure to gamma rays causes diffuse damage throughout the human body, including radiation sickness, cell death due to damaged DNA, and increased incidence of cancer. The full effects were not fully understood at the time, but the scientists certainly knew the lethal properties of radiation, for which there was ample evidence (including the “Radium Girls,” young workers in a watch factory in New Jersey who, in 1917, had ingested lethal amounts of radium from fluorescent paint, by licking their brushes to give them a fine point; dead fish in the rivers near Manhattan Project sites; and the Curies’ findings, to name a few).
    Oppenheimer therefore warned that the delivery aircraft