Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World

Although I am very familiar with this story reading many of the books and visiting all the important sites, I purchased this book primarily due to my admiration for Chris Wallace and his contributions. The authors have created a well written concise book that all can easily read. It reads like a spy-novel. This novel has real life people whose lives cascade with the events from FDR’s death to “ Fat Man” over Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. This effective and highly descriptive technique certifies and personifies the historical events of the period. The authors allow the reader to peer into these lives which is foreign to usual historical texts. After many years of questioning why the plutonium weapon was tested first at Trinity, I found my answer on page 125. Simple, they did not know it would work! Additionally, on the same page the authors corrected their mistake of where Alamogordo was 230 miles south of Los Alamos (not north as indicated on page 110). This defect in the text is illuminating in it possibly reveals the authors and or the editors have never been to the Manhattan Project Research Sites of Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, Hanford and Cannon AFB. I find that interesting. The book indirectly defends Truman’s decision to use the weapon. On page 82 it is stated the Japanese had 4 million soldiers coupled with several million armed civilians to resist a US invasion while the Americans had 2 million in the Pacific at this time. Siege warfare proscribes a 4 to one advantage when assaulting a hardened objective. This means the US would have needed at a minimum 30 million soldiers to neutralize the Japanese regarding a home island invasion. This is double the 14 million the US had under arms at that time! The book reveals the stubbornness of the Japanese to capitulate. The Giulio Douhet Theory of offensive bombing doctrine appears to fail during WW II in Europe and also in Japan even with these super weapons. As described in this text both sides were taken back by the power of the bombs. Little did the Japanese know the US only had two. However, Japanese scientists conveyed to the Emperor the US could produce more of the second weapon for it was created from reactor plutonium. The book’s index is very helpful along with the many timely and appropriate photos which supports this interesting story. This is one of the best written books I have read in years. If you do not know anything about this topic, you will understand the history.

Since the subject of the book is the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, one might expect that the principal focus of the book is describing the technical difficulties involved in the creation of that weapon. That topic is briefly discussed, but the subject of the book is the 116 days before the dropping of the bomb, and by that time, even though it had not yet been tested, most of the technical difficulties had been resolved. What had not been resolved was whether the United States would use it and if it did what cities would be targeted, was there a plane capable of carrying such a bomb, who would be the crew and what type of training would they require, should the Japanese be forewarned and if so to what extent. Wallace gives an extraordinary amount of detail in explaining the emotions and effort put into making these decisions. He describes the backgrounds and personalities of some of the scientists, in particular Oppenheimer, but he focuses more upon the men who comprised the crew of the Enola Gay - their extraordinary abilities, their carousing, their conflicts and the vast amount of preparation that was needed by them to fly a specially prepared B-29 to drop the bomb. Wallace does give some vignettes of how the bomb affected some ordinary citizens both American and Japanese. There were a couple of minor facts that also impressed me. I did not realize that the bombs were transported across the Pacific via navy cruiser to Tinian, one of the Mariana Islands. I had thought they were always transported via air. That cruiser, the USS Indianapolis, arrived at Tinian on July 26, 1945 and 4 days later while heading to the Leyte Gulf, it was sunk by the Japanese. Another minor fact that impressed me was that many of the scientists were Jewish. At the end of the book, Wallace discusses the morality of dropping the bomb. It is estimated that between 90,000 to 146,000 were killed in the bombing of Hiroshima and between 39,000 to 80,000 in the bombing of Nagasaki. Let’s just estimate that a total of 250,000 were killed from the two bombings. Previous to these bombings the Allied air raids on Japan killed between 240,000 to 900,000. Some of the American military estimated that between 250,000 to one million Americans would die in trying to take the island of Japan, because fighting would become more intense as the Japanese defended their homeland. Others have claimed that the war was already won and that the Japanese were on the verge of surrendering. Such an assertion can easily be dismissed. After the bombing of Nagasaki, almost all of the Japanese generals did not want to surrender. They wanted to fight on. Although the samurai warriors no longer exist, their code that death is better than surrender still pervades Japanese society and can be seen in the suicide bombers. The Emperor was able to override their determination to die rather than submit. If we had not dropped the bomb, probably at least a million Americans would have been killed and probably several million Japanese. If the saving of human life is a measure of the morality of an action, then our dropping the bomb, was an extremely moral act. It is true, that if every nation possessed such a bomb and used it in warfare, then the human race would either cease to exist or live in a state unrecognizable as human life. So every precaution was set in motion to prevent this from occurring, but the notion that if the United States had never developed the bomb, then no other nation would have felt the need to do so is an absurdity, and our failure to develop the bomb would have put us at the mercy of an aggressor who did possess it.

Chris Wallace has delivered a highly readable tale that appears well researched and envelopes the reader in the story of the development and delivery of the only two atomic bombs deployed against an enemy. The nice thing about popular histories that appeal to a general reader is that they move quickly like a well written novel. Wallace and co-writer Mitch Weiss apply the formula to the Manhattan Project / atomic bomb use by focusing on Oppenheimer (the chief scientist at Los Alamos), Tibbits (the commander of the bomb group that dropped the bomb) and President Truman. Plenty of other characters appear in the book including a ten year old Japanese girl who would experience the bomb first-hand near ground zero. I only found one factual mistake, but it was minor and involved an aside and not the main thrust of the story (the kamikaze sinking of the USS Callaghan, a destroyer about which the book says "All forty-seven men on board lost their lives." Destroyers had a crew of 300+). The only thing I would have liked to have seen was some introduction of Japanese leadership discussion at this stage of the war. It is a given that Japan was not likely to surrender absent an invasion (some will debate this but the record is convincing I believe that many more Americans and Japanese would perish in an invasion than died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that it wold have taken an invasion to get Japan to surrender), but there were some discussions internally about how Japan would play their last round of a war they knew they were losing. This given weighed heavily on Truman and American leadership, but the casual reader will have to accept the authors' premise of this given because no evidence is provided. I realize that may have made for a longer book, but I think the book would have been more complete a telling with that perspective. (If you want this perspective, Richard Frank has written a great book on the end of the Japanese empire that covers this, "Downfall.") It does throughout the book state details of movement, action, and thought that were not recorded and provided to improve the novelistic flow of the story (page 65: "Beser twisted his hat I his hands and wondered what the men inside the room were saying." Beser died in 1992, well before this book was conceived.). I'm not a big fan of making things up in popular histories and wish authors would not resort to this colorization of the story, common as it is. Not sure that is worth deducting an entire star in a book I really enjoyed, but there you have it. Note: A really good first person account of the bombing can be had in the book War's End, by Sweeney. Sweeney was the man who piloted the B-29 that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki).

This is one of the few books I have purchased and read in the month it was published. It is compelling reading with intimate sketches of key people involved from President Truman who first learned of the atomic bomb project only when he became president to a ten year old girl who lived through the devastating blast that destroyed Hiroshima. The countdown structure of the book made it read like a suspense thriller even though I was well aware of the outcome. The most important feature of the book for me was the insight into the moral issues involved in developing and deploying such a massively destructive weapon. I had always assumed that the scientists who developed the weapon, the president who decided to use it and the soldiers who delivered it had no reservations about its use. The book reveals that many scientists, military leaders, and government officials did have serious questions about the morality and advisability of producing such a terrible weapon. And many thoughtful participants in the making and use of the bomb expressed remorse after the bombs incinerated most of the populations of two Japanese cities. Although President Truman never expressed regrets about his decision to drop the bombs, many others did. Without arguing for one side or the other regarding the morality of using the atom bomb, Chris Wallace and Mitch Weiss let the reader reflect on the complex moral issues faced by those who first used this terrifying weapon on civilian populations. And they invite us to ponder the fact that the stockpile of nuclear bombs and warheads on our planet has now grown to almost 50,000.

I was 8 years old when the bomb was dropped. My memories are from hearing my Dad talk and listening to Walter Winchell on the 6 o'clock news each evening. The war had been long and hard on everyone. Rationing of gas, flour, sugar, and other grocery items. I remember my Dad drinking tea when we were unable to buy coffee and walking to work when he ran short of gas rationing stamps. Also standing in long lines when the word from the "grapevine" went out that some scarce items such as bacon or meat was available at a particular grocery store. Cigarettes were almost impossible to buy. Thank goodness my Dad smoked a pipe so cigarettes weren't a big issue. Reading about the decisions and plans that had to be made by our President and carried out by our military was extremely interesting to the old lady I have become through these many years. An interesting, well written, knowledgeable book.

This book provides many more details than I have ever heard/read before. This is one book that everyone should read.

Chris Wallace did his research! I was able to read this book in two wonderful evenings in my easy chair. It was a terrific read and while it did not glorify war, or one man, or the bomb, it gave a clear picture of the dynamics within mankind as to the affects of war before and after the bomb. It is a must read for people who know nothing about the bomb. My relative was one of the creators of the bomb and it was powerful to see how his research and devotion to peace led to the bomb and to the end of the war. Killing is not easy and it is hard to read of the lives lost in Japan, but we also know that war could have gone on for at least five more years. The book also reveals the anguish that was felt by everyone who worked on the bomb and the near "regret" for creating such a devastating weapon. I am glad those emotions were included as the bomb was never an easy idea to make, and drop.

James Hornfischer wrote a glowing review of Wallace’s Countdown 1945 in the weekend Wall Street Journal Review Section of August 7. Hornfischer is a frequent speaker at the International World War II Symposium in New Orleans every late Fall. I have spoken with him there and had the privilege of meeting Dutch Van Kirk (the Enola Gay navigator) as a speaker there the year before he died. Based upon Hornfischer's reputation and having read and thoroughly enjoyed three of his own books, Neptunes Inferno,, The Fleet at Flood Tide, and The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, I knew that if he was that high on Wallace’s book, that it would be a must read. I bought it on Amazon August 7th, it was delivered this morning, August 9, and I finished it this afternoon. Chris Wallace did not disappoint. I would add him to Jim Hornfischer an excellent “War in the Pacific” story teller and historian. Countdown 1945 is an immediate page-turner. The story as told is riveting, based upon the actual actors’ participation in the events. Like Hornfischer’s writing, Wallace tells such a compelling story that often I stopped and reread the last section to be sure I digested it, (as in “did I really read that?) My only complaint is that the hardback I purchased appeared to be printed on less than the best quality paper, perhaps recycled, and the print quality was only average. Page numbers and page titles were in blurred print as though too much ink (toner) was used. However, the positives of the story telling overwhelm any slight negative of the quality of the book material. The compelling story begins with Eleanor Roosevelt’s remarkable comment to Harry Truman the day he learned FDR was dead, and ends with a short epilogue telling us the post-1945 lives of the main characters and how they carried the weight of the atom bomb event with them thereafter. From the last page you may be compelled to turn back to the first, to read it again