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Reactions to Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb are split. 14, a day known as Victory in Japan, or V-J, Day. Japan accepted the Potsdam terms and unconditionally surrendered to the United States on Aug. This time, Japan accepted defeat and sought peace. dropped a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki. 9, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, the U.S. Japan did not immediately accept surrender. issued a press release threatening further destruction if Japan did not immediately surrender and dropped leaflets warning civilians to evacuate urban areas. It includes information on the cities and why they were chosen as targets, a summary of damages. Other estimates put the number of deaths at more than 140,000, while thousands of other victims have suffered from radiation sickness, cancer and other long-term effects.įor a detailed description of missions that dropped atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, read the report presented by the Manhattan Engineer District of the United States Army. The official Japanese death toll, calculated a year after the explosion, is 118,661. Between 70,000 and 80,000 of the more than 340,000 people in the city are believed to have been killed by the initial blast, and many more died in the following weeks and years from injuries and radiation. It has been difficult to determine a definitive death toll. All green vegetation, from grasses to trees, perished in that period.” “Some were bloated and scorched-such an awesome sight, their legs and bodies stripped of clothes and burned with a huge blister. “All around, I found dead and wounded,” described one Japanese official. Nearly five square miles, over 60 percent of the developed city, was destroyed. … From the men who had rung up the curtain on a new era in history burst nothing more original than an awed ‘My God!,’” wrote Time. “ Then the brilliant morning sunlight was slashed by a more brilliant white flash. Just 43 seconds later it exploded 1,900 feet above the city. local time, the Enola Gay dropped Little Boy onto Hiroshima. 6, Tibbets and 11 crewmembers took off on the B-29-which the night before had been given the nickname “Enola Gay,” after Tibbets’ mother-from the island of Tinian toward Hiroshima, an industrial city and important military center.Īt 8:15 a.m. Tibbets, commander of the 509th Operations Group. The 8,900-pound bomb, called “Little Boy,” was to be carried in a B-29 Superfortress piloted by Col. Weather conditions would now determine when and where the first bomb would be dropped. Four cities were selected as targets for their industrial and military importance: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. Truman authorized the use of the atomic bomb as soon after Aug. Truman and fellow Allied leaders, Josef Stalin and Clement Attlee, issued the Potsdam Declaration, an ultimatum for Japan to surrender unconditionally or face “prompt and utter destruction.” Japan refused to accept these terms on July 28. Nine days later, on July 25, President Harry S. “now had the means to insure speedy conclusion and save thousands of American lives.” Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project, wrote to the secretary of war that the U.S. successfully detonated the world’s first atomic bomb. On July 16, 1945, in the Trinity Test in New Mexico, the U.S. forces were closing in on the Japanese mainland and launching bombing attacks on Japanese cities.
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The United States and Japan had been at war since 1941. Within eight days, Japan surrendered, ending World War II.
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war plane Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy,” a 8,900-pound atomic bomb, on Hiroshima, Japan.