Japanese atomic bomb target selection

This week marks the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb detonations, the term anniversary is a bit of a misdemeanor as most people celebrate an anniversary; this is a week of reflection of the enormous human toll extracted by a single weapon.   

Upon reflection, I am looking at the selected sites for targeting for maximum effect, one has to remember, sites were chosen not for revenge for Japanese military atrocities in Nanking, Singapore, the Philippines or their treatment of POWs, comfort women (which is a sanitised word for government organised wholesale rape); but for military impart to bring a cessation to hostilities to the greatest conflict and loss of life in the 20th century as quickly as possible.

During mid May 1945, Physicist Robert Oppenheimer led a committee to select a list of cities most potentially suitable as targets of atomic attacks. The Oppenheimer led committee arrived at four target the recommendations of Hiroshima, Yokohama, Kyoto and Kokura. Importantly, Tokyo was not selected due to the extensive damage already inflicted during fire-bombing already undertaken.

The city of Hiroshima was selected as the primary target by the Oppenheimer team due to its military and industrial importance to Japan's war effort. Hiroshima was the site of a major army base housing the headquarters of the 2nd Army and the 5th Division; as such, Hiroshima was an important port in southern Japan and strategic communications centre. 

The surrounding mountains of Hiroshima contributed to the city being a first choice target of already short listed targets. It was hypothesized by the Oppenheimer committee that the mountains would contain the destructive forces of the blast in the selected target area increasing the level of destruction.

Worth noting was US Secretary of War Henry Stimson campaigning against the city of Kyoto as a target; he argued that the city held cultural importance to not just Japan but the world. Also worth noting was that Stimson had an endearing attachment to the city after he and his wife had spent their honeymoon in Kyoto.

After the Hiroshima bombing, the B-29 with the already primed Fat Boy flew from the airfield of Tinian to the primary target of Kokura; however, poor weather conditions in the form of dense cloud cover saw the bombardier unable to successfully sight the target and the B-29 flew on to Nagasaki already low of fuel, a strategic target due to the industrial base and port facilities to deliver the destructive payload and end the second world war.