The Hiroshima Men

The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It

By: Iain MacGregor

Narrated by: Stephen McGann

An epic, riveting history based on new interviews and research that elucidates the approval, construction, and fateful decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the Japanese port city of Hiroshima was struck by the world’s first atomic bomb. Built in the US by the top-secret Manhattan Project and delivered by a B-29 Superfortress, a revolutionary long-range bomber, the weapon destroyed large swaths of the city, instantly killing tens of thousands. The world would never be the same.

The Hiroshima Men’s vivid narrative recounts the decade-long journey toward this first atomic attack. It charts the race for the bomb during World War II, as the Allies fought the Axis powers, and is told through several key characters: General Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project alongside Robert Oppenheimer; pioneering Army Air Force pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets Jr.; the mayor of Hiroshima, Senkichi Awaya, who would die alongside eighty thousand fellow citizens; and Pulitzer Prize–winning writer John Hersey, who traveled to Japan for the New Yorker to expose the devastation the bomb inflicted on the city and to describe in unflinching detail the dangers posed by radiation poisoning.

This thrilling account takes the reader from the corridors of power in the White House and the Pentagon to the test sites of New Mexico; from the air war above Germany to the Potsdam Conference of Truman, Churchill, and Stalin; from the savage reconquest of the Pacific to the deadly firebombing air raids across Japan. The Hiroshima Men also includes Japanese perspectives—a vital aspect often missing from Western narratives—to complete Iain MacGregor’s nuanced, deeply human account of the bombing’s meaning and aftermath.

A lot of factual errors with a few nuggets.

The people who reviewed this book so favorably must not know their history. The book has repeated basic errors of fact. For example, Harry Hopkins, although a very close adviser to Roosevelt, was never his chief of staff as the book asserts. The United States did not have "vast" colonial possessions in the run up to World War Two. The Nonmonhan Incident involved a Japanese attempt to extend its influence primarily into Mongolia not Manchuria which it already possessed. The events of the spring of 1939 did not "silence" isolationists in Congress. In fact, the House approved the extension of the draft in August of 1941 by a single vote and a major isolationist rally was taking place with members of Congress present when the news of the Pearl Harbor attacked arrived on December 7. Japanese spies did not obtain secrets about the B-29 airplane. General Patton was not removed from command for slapping American soldiers. Part of Japanese territory was occupied when Japan surrendered. I could go on. Additionally, although I didn't note specific factual errors, the author's account of the final days before Japan surrendered and the surrender process leaves out many important details.
The author is not a historian except to the extent anyone who has written about history can claim to be. I'm giving it stars because there is some interesting primary source material that I had not seen before. I hope it's accurate because, even though the author gives grounds to fact check everything he asserts, I didn't have time to.