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Radios threaten Tokyo: You can expect annihilation

JAPAN is faced with obliteration by the new British-American atomic bomb — the mightiest destructive force the world has ever known — unless she surrenders unconditionally in a few days.

Already Japan has felt the terrible effects of one of the bombs. Now she is threatened with being blown out of the Pacific.

Soon after President Truman had released the sensational news of the atomic bomb yesterday afternoon, reliable sources said that a new ultimatum is to be sent to Japan.

This will say: ‘We will withhold use of the atomic bomb for 48 hours, in which time you can surrender. Otherwise you face the prospect of the entire obliteration of the Japanese nation.’

Last night powerful U.S. radio transmitters began beaming warnings to the Jap people and Government that they can expect annihilation if they continue their futile fight against the unbeatable weapon now pointed at their heart.

The war’s most momentous secret has thus been divulged to convince the Japs their number is up.

A message last night from President Truman, now on his way home in the U.S. cruiser Augusta, said: ‘The bomb is an overwhelming success.’

British and American scientists, working together, have won the race to harness the basic power of the universe in a war weapon with a force which will turn the course of history and can bring the blessings of permanent peace to mankind.

IMPENETRABLE SMOKE

First news of the wonder-bomb came in a simple statement by President Truman, issued from the White House. It said: ‘Sixteen hours ago an American aeroplane dropped one bomb in Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base.

‘That bomb had more power than 20,000 tonnes of TNT. It had more than 2,000 times the power of the British “Grand Slam” [ten-tonner], the largest bomb yet used in the history of warfare.’

Now the world is waiting to hear the full effects of that first historymaking bomb on a city roughly four miles by three, with 300,000 inhabitants. Allied ‘recco’ [reconnaissance] pilots are still watching for an impenetrable cloud of smoke and dust to clear from the Hiroshima area before they can report.

Many hours after the bomb was dropped the target was still covered by the cloud, which alone indicates the incalculable destructive power of the bomb.

It is computed that 500 Super-Fortresses carrying atomic bombs could drop the equivalent of 10,000,000 tons of ordinary bombs in one raid.

Up to a late hour last night Tokyo was silent on the effects of the Hiroshima bomb. The Japanese radio merely announced that the city was raided at 8.20am (Japan time).

Hiroshima is a fortified port at the head of Hiroshima Bay, on West Honshu, the i sland on which Tokyo stands.

It is 189 miles west of the seaport of Kobe. It is one of the chief supply depots of the Jap Army, and has shipbuilding yards, cotton mills, and war industries.

The race to produce the atomic bomb cost the Allies £500,000,000. Hitler’s scientists searched feverishly for the same destructive power. But it was British and American research that achieved the greatest scientific advance in history.

President Truman, in hi s statement from the White House, disclosed t hat t hree s ecret U. S. factories are t ur ni ng out atomic bombs to give Japan a ‘rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on this earth’.

TOTAL DESTRUCTION

He disclosed that Mr Churchill and the late President Roosevelt agreed on the wisdom of carrying out atomic bomb manufacture in t he U. S. out of r each of enemy bombs.

Stating that more than 125,000 people worked to construct atomic bomb factories in the U.S., the President disclosed that over 65,000 i ndividuals were now engaged at the operating plants.

‘Many have worked there for two- and-a-half years,’ his statement went on. ‘Few know what they have been producing.

‘ They see great quantities of materials going in and they see nothing coming out of these plants, for the physical size of the explosive charge is exceedingly small.

‘ We have spent 2,000,000,000 dollars (£ 500,000,000) on the greatest scientific gamble in history, and have won.’

Truman added: ‘ We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city.

‘We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications.

‘Let there be no mistake: We will completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.

‘If they don’t now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen, and with a fighting skill of which they have already become well aware.’