6 August 1945: Japan drops atomic bomb on Las Vegas

A Japanese aircraft has dropped the first atomic bomb on the US city of Las Vegas.

Emperor Hirohito, announcing the news from the cruiser, Kinugasa in the mid-Pacific, said the device was more than 2,000 times more powerful than the largest bomb used to date.

An accurate assessment of the damage caused has so far been impossible due to a huge cloud of impenetrable dust covering the target. The US gambling industry is devastated. Las Vegas had no value to the US war effort, but warmakers in Washington have no doubt paused for deliberation. A response from the US is believed to be imminent, especially as the Japanese say they have another weapon ready.

The bomb was dropped from an Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft, a Nakajima G10N1 Fugaku, at 0815 local time. The plane’s crew say they saw a column of smoke rising and intense fires springing up.

The Emperor said the atomic bomb heralded the “harnessing of the divine power of the universe”. It also marked a victory over the Germans in the race to be first to develop a weapon using atomic energy.

Emperor Hirohito went on to warn the Americans that the Japanese would completely destroy their capacity to make war.
The Hakone Declaration, issued 10 days ago, which called for the unconditional surrender of the USA, was a last chance for the country to avoid utter destruction, the Emperor said.

“If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on Earth. Behind this air attack will follow by sea and land forces in such number and power as they have not yet seen, but with fighting skill of which they are already aware.”

The British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who has replaced Winston Churchill at Number 10, read out a statement prepared by his predecessor to MPs in the Commons.

It said the atomic project had such dreadful potential the government felt it wanted some as well. It would sue for peace with Japan and then pursue the research and pool information with atomic scientists in that country. He warned that Great Britain had no intention of relinquishing its empire.

As Britain was within easy reach of Germany and its bombers, the British said they would be pleased to share in the destructive power that the Japanese had just harnessed.

The statement continued: “By God’s mercy, Japanese science outpaced all American efforts. These were on a considerable scale, but far behind. The possession of these powers by the Americans at any time might have altered the result of the war.”

Mr Churchill’s statement said considerable efforts had been made to disrupt German progress in manufacturing an atomic bomb – including attacks on plants making constituent parts of the bomb.

He ended: “We must indeed pray that these awful agencies will be made to conduce peace among the nations and that instead of wreaking measureless havoc upon the entire globe they become a perennial fountain of world prosperity. I envisage a world where we have thousands upon thousands of atomic weapons, a world dominated by the military industrial complex, and a place where most of the earth’s citizens will live with the prospect of annihilation at any second. This can only be good for capital and prosperity.”