ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the operational details of the 1945 atomic bombings for whatever guidance they might give on the crucial questions. Contrary to the impression of flawless control given in President Truman account, there is a subterranean labyrinth of operational detail which casts the bombings in a rather different light. The net outcome was that the actual bombing resulted in a major departure from Truman's stated objective of employing the bomb against a target of prime military importance. In the present nuclear context, the fear is that friction will be a liberating factor rather than a constraining one and will serve to push the degree of military force towards the absolute. Friction, from being one of several obstacles to the absolute in the Clausewitzian paradigm, becomes in the nuclear age its principal potential catalyst. There is nothing sinister about the friction that interfered with the execution of the atomic bombings.
