The Nagasaki Bombers Defied Orders - Adam Brown

[DwarkeshPatel]

This is an excerpt from my conversation with Adam Brown, a theoretical physicist at Stanford and founder of BlueShift, where he’s leading efforts to crack math and reasoning at Google DeepMind.

In the full interview, we discuss vacuum decay, the holographic principle, mining black holes, and what it would take to train an AI capable of making Einstein-level conceptual breakthroughs.

The full interview is out on my channel now!

[EmG]

At the center of Kokura today, in Katsuyama Park, there is a small monument to that moment amidst exercising retirees and children playing. It states that the second bomb was meant for them, and because of the cloud or smoke cover, they were spared, and that they pray for the souls of the lost in Nagasaki. One of the most powerful memorials I’ve been to.

[drew]

Half the things he said in this video aren't true so take it with a grain of salt.
1- Kokura steel workers were burning coal tar to cause black smoke to obstruct visual targeting, clouds were a secondary issue
2-They only did one pass over Nagasaki (3 over Kokura)
3- "personal flying mistakes which meant they didn't have enough fuel" not sure what that means. They were low on fuel because on of their bladder tank pumps weren't working and waiting 45 minutes at a rendezvous for the Big Stink (photography plane)
4- We all know they didn't miss Nagasaki. It was off target by almost 2 miles because by the time they had an opening in the cloud they had gone passed "the thing they were aiming for" (the docks by the way, not the Ordnance plant show in the video) so they aimed for the industrial valley.
5- They were going to court martial the pilot Charles Sweeney, not the whole crew. Sweeney wasn't the highest rank on that plane or the one to give the go ahead to drop, Frederick Ashworth was. Also Sweeney stayed in the Army for another year after ww2 training pilot for Bikini.
5.5- Chareles Sweeney made the call to leave for the mission knowing he didn't have 10% of his fuel (the pump from before). He also should not have stayed for 45 minutes at the rendezvous. They landed with one engine because fuel was so low and almost took out a group of bombers armed with firebombs on the tarmac. Let alone almost losing a bomb they had spent years and billions to make.

[pinero]

A serious amount of 20/20 hindsight here.. plus a generously helping of pure speculation.

[ktmdoug]

Love the rewriting of history by people who are so impressed with themselves.

[allwrighty]

It's so cool the way this guy talks like he knows what he's talking about. Confidence is everything when you're spouting bs.

[tristankrulewitch-browne]

I'm really impressed with the critical thinking in these comments. Thank you for giving me a little hope

[mutantraniE]

Saying they were never meant to bomb Nagasaki is extremely disingenuous. Yes, Nagasaki was the backup target, but that means it was a planned target. They knew cloud cover could mean diverting from Kokura.

[nathandorman]

Remember all they knew was this thing is the most dangerous thing in the history of ever. Ain't one of us ever been under that kind of stress.

[SewardWriter]

I grew up next door to one of the navigators on that mission. He never said a word about it. Good guy. Loved kids. The mission haunted him for the rest of his life.

[richardc]

He's bending the truth a lot to fit his narrative.

[cisium]

I believe this gentleman is playing fast and loose with some of the facts in order to make a statement he thinks will get attention.

[RalphTempleton-vrxs]

There were no 'personal flying mistakes', this was one of the most highly trained crews on the B-29, second only two possibly the Tibbets crew on the Enola Gay. The fuel shortage was caused by a malfunction of the auxiliary fuel tank that failed to feed. It was, in fact, only due to the crew's professionalism and training that the bombing of Nagasaki was successful. Do your research, it's all there

[JGlennFL]

That plane is at the Museum of the Air Force at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. Fantastic museum. And it's free.

[rabidsamfan]

My father was in Nagasaki three days later, looking for microbes to see what effect the bomb had on them. He invariably turned the story to not having a Geiger counter and having to bury the microscope the found weeks later because it was “hot”.

[michaelusswisconsin]

Nagasaki was always a target. Not the primary target, but a secondary target just in case they couldn’t see the primary target. Also for those who want to see the B-29 that dropped Fat Man, Boxscar is in Dayton, Ohio at the US Air Force Museum.

[-_-]

I mean... They didn't drop the bomb against orders. They just dropped the bomb while not following the instructions to the letter. It's not like they were told not to drop the bomb. They were out there to drop, and they dropped.

[gavinquinton]

Miraculous is an interesting word choice

[asbest]

he went so quick from "I assume based on my emotions and intuition that they refused the order" to "they refused the order"

[chrisparkes]

Just for reference, the explosion footage at the end of this clip is Castle Bravo, which is also an insane nuclear bomb story which happened after the war ended.