How Nagasaki replaced Kyoto as the target for Nuclear Atomic Bombing

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As one speaks of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki this August, let's pay heed to an event, unspoken- a crucial misunderstanding of the very nature of the atomic bombing.

U.S. Army Signal Corps photograph, Gift of Donald E. Mittelstaedt, from the collection of the National WWII Museum,This dates back to the meetings of the "Target Committee"  in the spring of 1945, deliberating on the possible target cities, high in strategic value.- Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kyoto, amongst others.
A major rail connects between Osaka and Tokyo, several wars produce factories, an aircraft engine factory, and an urban population made Kyoto of importance.

With the second meeting at Oppenheimer’s office, Kyoto increased in importance. Kyoto stood to be the first, with target maps depicting the city with a circle of impact, thus the seriousness of the plan.
On May 15, 1945, a directive was issued to the US Army Air Forces requesting that Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Niigata be put on a list of “Reserved Areas” not to be bombed so that they could be preserved as atomic bombing targets.

Just weeks before the US dropped the most powerful weapon mankind has ever known, Nagasaki was not even on a list of target cities for the atomic bomb. In its place was Japan's ancient capital, Kyoto. The list was created by a committee of American military generals, army officers and scientists. Kyoto, which is home to more than 2,000 Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, including 17 World Heritage Sites, was at the top of it. "This target is an urban industrial area with a population of 1,000,000," the minutes from the meeting note. They also described the people of Kyoto as "more apt to appreciate the significance of such a weapon as the gadget". "Kyoto was seen as an ideal target by the military because it had not been bombed at all, so many of the industries were relocated and some major factories were there," says Alex Wellerstein, who is a historian of science at the Stevens Institute of Technology. "The scientists on the Target Committee also preferred Kyoto because it was home to many universities and they thought the people there would be able to understand that an atomic bomb was not just another weapon - that it was almost a turning point in human history," he adds. Hiroshima First atomic bomb dropped, 6 August 1945. Nagasaki Second atomic bomb dropped, 9 August 1945. The city was added to the target list to replace Kyoto only on 24 July. Kyoto Japan's ancient traditional capital, Kyoto topped the list until Secretary of War Henry Stimson persuaded President Truman to remove it on the basis of its cultural importance. Kokura Original target for the second A-bomb on 9 August. Due to poor visibility, the plane headed to Nagasaki. Emperor's palace, Tokyo Attacking Emperor Hirohito's palace was discussed, but the US concluded that Japanese reaction to the death of a man considered in Japan a living deity was unpredictable and it was not recommended. Tokyo had already been virtually destroyed by fire bombing in March, so was considered to be of little strategic value. Yokohama Large industrial area which was untouched by conventional bombing, but removed from the list by the end of July. Niigata Important port, identified as a potential centre for industrial dispersion by the US Target Committee. But in early June 1945, Secretary of War Henry Stimson ordered Kyoto to be removed from the target list. He argued that it was of cultural importance and that it was not a military target. "The military didn't want it removed so it kept putting Kyoto back on the list until late July but Stimson went directly to President Truman," says Prof Wellerstein. Image caption A detailed map of Kyoto that was looked at by the Target Committee After holding a discussion with the President, Mr Stimson wrote in his diary on 24 July 1945 that "he was particularly emphatic in agreeing with my suggestion that if elimination was not done, the bitterness which would be caused by such a wanton act might make it impossible during the long post-war period to reconcile the Japanese to us in that area rather than to the Russians". Tensions that led to the Cold War were already brewing and the last thing the Americans wanted to do was bolster the Communist cause in Asia. That was when Nagasaki was added to the target list instead of Kyoto. But Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets either. As we know today, hundreds of thousands of civilians, including women and children, were killed. And while Kyoto may have been the most famous cultural city, the other cities also had valuable assets. "That is why it seems that Stimson was motivated by something more personal, and these other excuses were just rationalisations," says Prof Wellerstein. Image caption Kyoto is Japan's ancient capital and a city filled with cultural and spiritual monuments It is known that Mr Stimson visited Kyoto several times in the 1920s when he was the governor of the Philippines. Some historians say it was his honeymoon destination and that he was an admirer of Japanese culture. But he was also behind the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans because, as Mr Stimson put it, "their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese". That may be partly why another man took the credit for saving Kyoto for many decades. It was widely believed that it was the American archaeologist and art historian Langdon Warner, and not the controversial Secretary of War, who advised the authorities not to bomb cities with cultural assets including Kyoto. There are even monuments to honour Mr Warner in Kyoto and Kamakura.On 30th May, Lieutenant General, Leslie Groves met the US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, to
discuss the matter. Kyoto is the cultural center of Japan, the former capital of the country,
Stimson told him bluntly: “I don’t want Kyoto bombed.”
Why did Stimson insist on sparing Kyoto?
Was it his personal connection to the city?
Was he trying to assuage guilt? Did he intend to preserve better postwar relations with the Japanese? There are competing interpretations.
Even Until July 25th, 15 days prior to the event, the target cities weren't finalized.
From excerpts of Stimson's Diary, we understand that at the Postdam Conference, Stimson reasoned out to President Truman, his stand of eliminating Kyoto as a target.

"If elimination was not done, the bitterness which would be caused by such a wanton act might make it impossible during the long post-war period to reconcile the Japanese to us in that area rather than to the Russians."

Stimson left the meeting thinking Truman completely understood the matter,
Thus, the final target order rolled out- Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki!
Having said that, where did the misconception lie?
In Truman's diary entry of the same meeting.

At 3:47 a.m. on August 9, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress took off from the American airbase on the island of Tinian, in the North Pacific Ocean. Operation Centerboard II, the mission to drop the second atomic bomb on a Japanese city, had begun. Already things were not going as smoothly as they had three days earlier, in the run over Hiroshima. That attack had been textbook—“operationally routine,” as a classified Army history later put it. The Enola Gay had reached its target and returned home without complication; an announcement sent out under President Harry Truman’s name had trumpeted its success. But Bockscar, the strike plane chosen for Centerboard II, had been delayed on the tarmac because of fuel-pump problems. Only the day before, four B-29s in succession had crashed on takeoff, causing extensive fuel fires. As one of the scientists on Tinian wrote, “We all aged ten years until the plane cleared the island.” But clear the island it did."I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors
are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless, and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new."

This passage reflects an incredible misconception.
Truman appears, here, to believe that the target cities were “ purely military” targets, and that “soldiers and sailors” would be killed, “not women and children.”

Every city on that list, besides having military connections, was also primarily inhabited by civilians- children and women. Stimson was probably trying to say that the cultural value of Kyoto outweighed its value as a strategic target. The lack of a large military base in Kyoto made it more of a “civilian” target in his mind than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Truman seems to have interpreted the discussion as a contrast between a “civilian” target and a “military” one.
Statistics make revelations of the school children killed, something that underscores that these “purely military” targets were a little less than “pure.”

Seventy-five years ago, Aug. 6, 1945, an A-bomb destroyed Hiroshima. Three day later, Aug. 9, 1945, a second A-bomb obliterated Nagasaki. The atomic bombing anniversary has become a time for public debate.Did Truman sign off an order to wipe out children,  believing they are exclusively destroying military
targets?

Laying premise on the earlier spoken diary entry, going away and misconceiving the discussions about Kyoto, led to a very incorrect understanding of what the atomic bomb targets really were.

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