August 9, 1945: General Carl Spaatz Receives Orders for Bombing of Nagasaki

By Margaret Leidy Harner from her book One Day at a Time: A Social History of Boyertown, PA.

August 9, 1945: Following the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, there was no word from Japanese officials. General Spaatz continued to send out small bombing forces, dropping six million leaflets with messages of the hopelessness of continuing the fighting.

He received orders today for a second atomic bombing, which was launched over Nagasaki. It did not go as smoothy as the first mission because of the weather; it was somewhat off its mark, but the results were nonetheless devastating.

The next day, Spaatz cancelled dropping the third atomic bomb because the weather was poor enough to require it to be done by radar, which would be too inaccurate. Instead, he continued more conventional bombing raids, with the grandest possible “finale” on August 14, when he put up 828 B-29’s and 186 fighter escorts for attacks on the last day of the war.

At long last, the militants within the Japanese government have been overcome, and World War II has ended.

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