Chapter 24: The United States in World War II section 1: The War in Europe and North Africa The Battle of the Atlantic

The Manhattan Project was making progress and the leaders announced in 1944 that a bomb would be ready by the summer of 1945.

Truman knew nothing about the Manhattan Project before FDR died. After being briefed, he had to decide if we should use the weapon.

He sought advice and decided that we should not warn the Japanese and we should choose a city that had not experienced massive bombing during the war.

The first atomic bomb was exploded on July 16, 1945 at Alamogordo Testing Range in New Mexico. The blast fused the sand into a green glass-like solid and created a crater ten feet deep and 2,400 feet across. Truman was told of the success of the test at the Potsdam Conference.

On July 26^th the Allies issued a warning that the Japanese should surrender or face “prompt and utter destruction”. The Japanese did not respond to the warning.

On August 6, 1945 a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay, named for the pilot, Paul Tibbetts’ mother, dropped the atomic bomb “Little Boy” on the city of Hiroshima. 35,000 died instantly and at least 35,000 were seriously injured with many of them dying from the effects of radiation poisoning. Still the Japanese did not respond.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t19kvUiHvAE

On August 8 the Soviets declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria as they had promised.

On August 9 a second and last atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

Public Domain

In these photos taken from U.S. military aircraft, atomic mushroom clouds are seen rising over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the atom bombs leveled everything to the ground. The picture on the left is of Hiroshima, bombed on Aug. 6, 1945, while the picture on the right shows the Nagasaki bombing on Aug. 9, 1945. The bombs killed nearly 160,000 people in Hiroshima and another 75,000 in Nagasaki.

Still the Japanese did not surrender. The emperor, Hirohito favored an end to the war but some members of the military wanted to carry on. They even plotted to overthrow the government to continue the war.

An American sailor passionately kisses a nurse as thousands jam into Times Square to celebrate the long-awaited victory over Japan in World War II.