Chapter 8 (Part I)

As of December 8, 1941, war had come only to Japan; despite the “back door to war” theory, Roosevelt did not ask for a declaration of war against Germany.

To have responded to a Japan attack on Pearl Harbor with a request to declare war in Europe would have aroused opposition both in Congress and among the American people.

It would be Adolf Hitler who would decide the issue.

On December 11, Germany and Italy formally declared war on the United States.

This mistake brought the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union into a coalition against him – virtually assuring another German defeat.

Pearl Harbor was only the beginning – a series of even more disastrous Allied defeats followed in rapid succession.

Admiral Yamamoto promised that his surprise attack on the Pacific Fleet would give Japan six months to establish an unbeatable position in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Japanese conquests in Southeast Asia and the Pacific included:

Guam – December 9, 1941

Wake Island – December 23, 1941

Hong Kong – December 26, 1941

the Philippines – March 12, 1942

The Japanese faced their most formidable challenge in the Philippines.

Phase I: Clark Field near Manila The Japanese won superiority of the air by bombing Clark Field and

destroying U.S. fighters while they attempted to refuel.

Phase II: Invasion of Lingayen Gulf (north) and Albay Gulf (south) Douglas MacArthur’s forces now faced powerful invaders from both

north and south.

He commanded 31,000 regular American troops that were poorly equipped and a Philippine army of 102,000 that were inadequately trained.

Towards the end of the invasion, MacArthur was left with only two options: Withdraw into the mountains and use guerilla warfare tactics.

Make a stand at the Bataan peninsula.

MacArthur’s trademark

corncob pipe was made by

the Missouri Meerschaum

Company, who made his

pipes to his specifications.

MacArthur served as the

president of the American

Olympic Committee during

the 1928 Summer Olympic

games in Amsterdam.

On April 5, 1964,

MacArthur died at Walter

Reed Army Medical Center

of biliary cirrhosis.

MacArthur’s troops held the Bataan peninsula for over three months, which gave the American public a morale boost following Pearl Harbor and the succession of defeats.

On March 12, Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to carry out Plan Orange, which called for him to leave the Philippines and to travel to Australia. “I came through and I shall return.”

What was the perception of Douglas MacArthur? The American public was eager to accept him as a larger-than-life

figure.

American troops referred to him as “Dugout Doug” because he was well fed and safely hidden on an outside fortified island.

Additionally, in the three months of fighting, he only made one visit to the Bataan peninsula.

American and Filipino forces surrendered to Japanese forces on April 9, 1942. The Japanese expected to take no more than 25,000 prisoners, but the

actual number was well over 75,000.

As a result, many of the captives were forced to walk sixty-five miles from Mariveles, on the southern end of the peninsula, to the railhead at San Fernando, where they would be directed into overcrowded boxcars to be shipped to the prison camp. The men were divided into groups of approximately 100 and each

group typically took five days to complete.

The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards.

Thousands died from disease, mistreatment, and starvation. 5,000-10,000 Filipinos and 600-650 Americans were lost during the

Bataan Death March.

By far one of the most ambitious mission during the war occurred on April 18, 1942.

Under the leadership of Lt. Colonel James Doolittle, sixteen air force B-25 bombers took off from the U.S.S. Hornet (700 miles southeast of Japan) and bombed Tokyo and several other Japanese cities.

Although the raid did little damage, it provided a psychological lift for the American people and shocked the Japanese, who had seen their sacred homeland violated by the enemy for the first time.

Believing the air raid had been launched from Midway Island, approval was given to Admiral Yamamoto’s plans for an attack on Midway.

Prior to the raid, Doolittle

wired the peace medals that

the Japanese ambassadors

gave Cordell Hull to a 500-lb

bomb.

Doolittle received the

Congressional Medal of Honor

from President Roosevelt for

planning and leading the raid

on Japan.

In 1985, Doolittle was

promoted to the rank of full

General of the U.S. Air Force;

he was pinned by Ronald

Reagan and Barry Goldwater.

The tide of battle in the Pacific turned dramatically when Japan suffered a series of setbacks between May and December 1942.

The most spectacular of these were:

Battle of the Coral Sea (May)

Battle of Midway (June)

A series of bitter engagements in the waters off the Solomon Islands (August-November)

By the end of 1942, Japan was clearly on the defensive.

In early May, the Japanese began operations to fortify Port Moresby, New Guinea but for the first time America was in a position to challenge them.

This was a part of a larger maneuver called Operation Mo, which was meant to isolate Australia and New Zealand from the U.S.

On May 3, the Japanese occupied Tulagi without opposition.

Meanwhile, the major invasion expedition headed southward from Rabaul towards Port Moresby under the protection of naval units.

During May 7-8, American and Japanese forces met in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

This was the first naval engagement in history in which the opposing ships never came within sight of each other.

Carrier-based planes provided all the firepower.

Tactically, the battle was a draw because each fleet inflicted roughly equal punishment but the United States won a strategic victory because the Japanese called off the landing at Port Moresby.

The Americans lost the U.S.S. Lexington and the U.S.S. Yorktownwas seriously damaged.

The Japanese lost the Shoho and the Shokaku, a participate in the Pearl Harbor attack, was seriously damaged.

The Battle of the Coral Sea was not decisive but it clearly marked a shift in momentum.

The truly decisive battle came about in the air and waters around Midway Island.

Yamamoto assumed that American naval forces would intervene in strength if Japan threatened Midway.

This would give Japan the opportunity for its Combined Fleet to finish the job it had started with the Pearl Harbor attack – the destruction of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Japan

Admiral Chuichi Nagumo

4 heavy carriers: Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, and

Soryu (all participates in the Pearl Harbor attack)

2 light carriers

7 battleships

15 cruisers

44 destroyers

America

Admiral Raymond A. Spruance

3 heavy carriers:

U.S.S. Enterprise, U.S.S. Hornet, and U.S.S. Yorktown (repaired in 72 hours instead of 72 days)

8 cruisers

15 destroyers

Historians state that

Spruance’s performance in

the Battle of Midway was

superb… and that he

emerged as one of the

greatest admirals in

American naval history.

Spruance was nicknamed

“electric brain” for his

calmness in moments of

supreme crisis.

Nagumo’s fleet came within 250 miles of Midway on June 4. It launched an attack damaging installations on Midway and

destroyed seventeen American aircraft.

In addition, he sent out recon planes to search for any American ships that might be in the area.

As the Japanese prepared for a second attack, a recon plan finally spotted elements of the Pacific Fleet.

Before Nagumo could react to the unwelcomed news, wave after wave of American torpedo planes attacked the Japanese carriers. U.S. dive bombers scored several hits on the Soryu, Akagi, and

Kaga.

Only the Hiryu remained but it joined the three others on the bottom of the ocean floor after the U.S.S. Yorktown fell.

The Battle of Midway was a decisive victory for two reasons:

It restored the naval balance in the Pacific.

It marked the end of Japan’s initiative on the high seas.

The Japanese not only squandered four heavy carriers but also lost 253 planes and their most skilled pilots.

Neither their carrier force nor their naval air power ever recovered from this blow.

The Japanese navy would henceforth play a defensive role.

To the Americans, Midway was the beginning of relentless advance toward total domination of the Pacific.

American forces launched their first offensive move in the southern Solomon Islands.

Initially, American leaders intended to retake Tulagi and neighboring Gavutu, but when they discovered that enemy troops had landed on a nearby island and were constructing an airstrip, they altered their approach.

The new strategy, termed Operation Watchtower, focused on seizing control of the air field and occupying Guadalcanal only to later take the Solomon Islands and Rabaul.

This little-known island, Guadalcanal, became the site of a desperate struggle that lasted for six months.

On August 7, 1942, 11,000 Marines under the command of Major General Alexander Vandegrift secured a beach head at Guadalcanal.

The land and sea forces were so slim and so quickly assembled that Operation Watchtower earned the nickname “Operation Shoestring.”

Its remote location and chronic shortage of shipping made Guadalcanal a logistical nightmare.

The Marine landing surprised the Japanese defenders and they offered no opposition and withdrew into the jungle.

They even abandoned their airstrip, which the Americans seized and renamed Henderson Field (after Major Loften R. Henderson, a Marine pilot who died at Midway).

Vandegrift was the first U.S.

Marine to hold the rank of

four-star general while on

active duty.

The main street that runs

through Camp Pendleton is

named Vandegrift Blvd in his

honor.

Vandegrift holds an honorary

degree of Doctor of Military

Science from the Pennsylvania

Military College and honorary

degrees of Doctor of Law from

Harvard, Brown, Columbia,

etc…

Once the Japanese recovered from their initial shock, they set out to dislodge the Marines from the island.

The Japanese recognized that Guadalcanal would become a crucial point in the Pacific war.

The Imperial Navy controlled the sea around the island and frequently bombarded the Marines and Henderson Field with artillery at night time.

These nocturnal naval missions were dubbed the “Tokyo Express.”

On August 18, 917 Japanese troops under the command of Colonel Ichiki landed on Guadalcanal.

On August 21, Ichiki ordered his regiment to assault the Marines’ position with a simple bayonet charge.

This would be the first major Japanese land offensive on Guadalcanal.

Numerous Marines nicknamed this charge the Battle of Alligator Creek (Battle of Tenaru).

Vandegrift’s Marines were able to flank the assault and push Ichiki’s regiment back to the sea.

It is here that the Marines came to understand the Bushido code.

Of the 917 that landed on just three days earlier only 128 escaped death.

Ichiki committed ritual suicide – such was the defeat and humiliation that he and his regiment had experienced.

Reinforcements under the command of General Kawaguchi launched savage attacks against the defensive perimeter that the Marines had established around Henderson Field.

During the night of September 13, they repeatedly tried to break through a position that became known as Bloody Ridge.

The Marines resisted each attack, killing over half of the attacking force and suffering heavy causalities themselves.

Meanwhile, Japanese and American fleets fought a series of six major naval engagements between August and November.

The most notable were the battles of Savo Island and Guadalcanal.

The Battle of Savo Island (August 8-9) is considered one of the worst defeats ever suffered by the American Navy.

The Battle of Guadalcanal (November 12-15) saw the loss of the light cruiser, U.S.S. Juneau, which included the loss of the five Sullivan brothers.

On February 9, 1943, the Japanese abandoned Guadalcanal fearing that the Empire could not continue to bare the losses on land and sea.

Guadalcanal was an abominable place to fight a war.

Despite continued fanatical Japanese attacks, the Marines held out night after night, week after week, and month after month.

Fresh forces finally relieved the exhausted garrison in December.

Guadalcanal was in many respects as much of a turning point as Midway.

The Americans had taken the initiative on land and the Japanese, who had staked a great deal at stopping the first Allied offensive, had failed.

The Japanese had lost their reputation for invincibly in land warfare and naval might.

The grim struggles in the Pacific only increased American hatred for the Japanese.

The nature of the assault on Pearl Harbor, which most Americans referred to as a “sneak attack,” and incidents like the Bataan Death March and Nanking massacre contributed to the American image of the Asian enemy. Additionally, Americans were outraged when a Japanese court

condemned eight U.S. airmen to death for their participation in the Doolittle raid.

Only three were actually executed and the other five had their sentences commuted to life in prison.

These examples of Japanese brutality mixed with American prejudice of Asians created a hatred far more powerful than that of the Germans or Italians.

Despite the magnitude of Nazi crimes against the Jews and other peoples, Americans tended to distinguish between good and bad Germans rather than brand the entire population as brutal.

Cartoonists habitually portrayed them as rats, snakes, insects, and monkeys or apes.

Virtually every American called them “Japs” or “Japes.”

Admiral Halsey was quoted in Newsweek that the “only good Jap is one who’s been dead for six months.”

Americans saw the Japanese as far different from other peoples: savage, bloodthirsty, and beyond rehabilitation.

Unfortunately as part of our rush to unity, paranoia blossomed in the form of an irrational fear of the Japan living in the United States.

Fear of invasion and sabotage led to demands that Japanese-Americans be interned in camps for the duration of the war.

Roosevelt succumbed to political pressures and in February 1942, signed Executive Order 9066.

E.O. 9066 allowed the U.S. military to declare parts of the United States as military areas and thereby exclude specific groups of people from them.

A WAR OF SAVAGE HATRED Fred Korematsu, an American-born man of Japanese descent,

knowingly defied the order to be relocated, was arrested, and convicted.

By 1944, his case reached the steps of the United States Supreme Court in what became known as Korematsu v. U.S.

The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the exclusion orders of E.O. 9066 were constitutional.

Thus the U.S. government had the right to exclude and forcibly move people from designated areas based on their race.

Essentially, the protection of the country from espionage is more important than a citizen’s individual rights.

Korematsu was rejected by the U.S. Navy in 1940 when ordered to report for military duty due to stomach ulcers; instead, he became a welder to contribute to the war effort.

To commemorate his journey as a civil rights activist, California began in 2011 to observe “Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution” on January 30.

From 1943 to 1945, the war in the Pacific turned steadily worse for Japan.

America, on the other hand, transformed its vast industrial potential into actual production of ships, planes, and other weapons on a scale that Japan’s smaller industrial base could not even approach.

The only question that needed to be answered was the question of strategy: how do we go about defeating Japan?

American military leaders did agree that a more gradual approach was the most preferable.

In April 1943, the Joint Chiefs of Staff opted for a two-pronged strategy:

A naval thrust through the Central Pacific – Marshall, Caroline, and Mariana islands.

MacArthur’s drive through the Southwest Pacific → the northern coast of New Guinea → thrust through the Philippines → Japan.

Both offensives employed an island-hopping technique.

This involved capturing islands then moving several hundred miles to other objectives, followed by another leap and then another.

In the process, the two offensives would bypass Japanese-held islands, which was meant to keep them guessing as to where the next blow would come, and this made it more difficult to concentrate their forces effectively.

Once the Americans had gained effective control over the Marshalls, they bypassed the Caroline Islands and leap forward to the Marianas.

Their objectives were Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, which contained the three largest Japanese strongholds in the Marianas.

The seizure of the Marianas was of great importance.

The Marianas lay only 1,200 miles from Japan.

Allied planners could launch an assault on the Philippines to the west and could thrust towards the Bonin Islands (700 miles from Japan).

Allied planners could establish air bases from which long-range bombers could attack Japanese cities.

On June 15, two Marine divisions landed on the southwest shore of Saipan, but did not secure the beach head until nightfall.

During the next few weeks, with the help of army reinforcements, the Marines fought their way north to the main Japanese garrison.

On July 6, Nagumo and Saito took their own lives in an effort to encourage their troops to make a final attack.

This assault occurred over the next two days in the form of suicidal charges.

There was one more gruesome chapter that remained in the Battle of Saipan – the mass suicide of 8,000 civilians in the final hours of the battle.

The civilians…

threw themselves off cliffs on the northern tip of the island.

touched off grenades against their bodies.

simply walked into the ocean to drown.

As the Marines were pushing north on Saipan, an even more dramatic struggle took place in the skies over the Philippine Sea.

This is the portion of the Pacific between the Marianas and the Philippines.

On June 19, Admiral Ozawa launched an air strike but American radar alerted the American task force of the enemy’s approach.

U.S. fighters intercepted the Japanese planes fifty miles to the west.

This dogfight pitted experienced American pilots against inexperienced Japanese pilots.

The Japanese launched a total of four mass attacks on American task forces but very few fighters were able to penetrate the American fighter screen.

Japanese fighters inflicted minor damage to one battleship; however, their own losses were staggering.

Of the 373 planes that engaged in the battle, 275 were shot down.

The Battle of the Philippine Sea was so one sided that it earned the nickname “the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.”

In addition, two American submarines sank the carriers Shokaku (veteran of the Pearl Harbor raid) and Taiho (largest carrier in the Japanese Navy).

The loss of the Marianas and the disastrous Battle of the Philippine Sea shattered all Japanese hope of winning the war.

American engineers began transforming the airfields of the Marianas to accommodate the new B-29 Superfortress bombers.

These bombers had the range and capacity to bring death and destruction on a massive scale to the cities of Japan.

The United States was now in a position to strike and retake the Philippines.

After securing a series of bases, MacArthur focused his attention on the re-conquest of the Philippines.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff endorsed MacArthur and Nimitz’s proposal of a landing at Leyte Gulf and set October 20 as the invasion date.

American forces landed at three points along the coast and by nightfall secured a substantial beach head.

Early the next day, MacArthur and a small party waded ashore in knee-deep water.

This became one of the most famous photos of the war.

By October 23, American forces had captured two airfields and liberated Leyte’s capital.

The Imperial Navy made their way through the congested waters of the Philippines and headed for Leyte Gulf from two directions.

Force A aimed for the Sibuyan Sea and San Bernardino Strait.

Force C aimed at re-assaulting Leyte Gulf.

Their mission was to destroy the American transports and supporting warships.

These American vessels included Admiral William Halsey’s Task Force 38 and the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

Halsey is the descendent of

U.S. Senator Rufus King, a

delegate to the Continental

Congress and a signer of

the Constitution.

His slogan, “hit hard, hit

fast, hit often” became a

catchphrase for the Navy.

While most high-ranking

officers preferred the

command of Admiral

Spruance, every common

sailor preferred the

command of Halsey.

Leyte Gulf was a decisive battle but for the U.S. Navy and dealt the death blow to the Japan’s naval power.

Four heavy carriers, three battleships, six heavy and four light cruisers, and nine destroyers littered the ocean’s floor.

In addition, 500 planes were lost.

Shortly before the end of the three day struggle, the Japanese introduced a new weapon - the kamikaze.

Kamikaze means “divine wind.”

The Kamikaze Special Attack Corps was a suicide unit composed of pilots who deliberately crashed their bomb-laden planes into American ships.

MacArthur chose Lingayen Gulf, the site of the major Japanese landing in 1941, as his invasion target on Luzon.

American forces landed on January 9, 1945.

After consolidating a beach head, American forces slowly pushed north and secured Clark Field by the end of January.

On February 3, American troops moved into Manila and occupied three POW camps and liberated 8,500 Americans.

Many of these POWs were on the verge of starvation and suffering from malaria, dysentery, and other diseases.

Manila experienced widespread devastation and its population suffered horribly (100,000).

The last of the fighting did not end until March 3.

Before MacArthur’s forces had taken Manila, Nimitz launched an invasion in the Central Pacific on the small volcanic island of Iwo Jima.

Iwo Jima means “Sulfur Island.”

The island, less than five miles long and two and a half miles wide across its widest point, was littered with bubbling sulfur pits, which created an inescapable unpleasant smell.

Instead of sand, the island consisted of volcanic ash, which made it difficult to walk on and impossible to run on.

Mount Suribachi, a 550 foot dormant volcano, dominated the island’s narrow southern end.

The wider northern end possessed numerous caves, which the Japanese reinforced with concrete and turned into pill-boxes and bunkers.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff set the original invasion date for January 2, but the slow conquest of Leyte delayed the assault until February 19. The postponement enabled the Japanese to reinforce their garrison

to 21,000 troops.

General Kuribayashi was aware of earlier Japanese defeats and chose to not contest the invasion; instead, he waited until the Marines landed on the exposed beaches to rake them with murderous fire. Kuribayashi had waited too long to begin his bombardment and too

many troops, tanks, and other equipment had landed.

Although causalities were alarming, the Marines were able to secure the narrowest part of the island, isolating Mt. Suribachi.

Despite fierce opposition, the Marines inched their way up the slopes of Mt. Suribachi and by February 23, a Marine patrol had reached the top.

Soon thereafter, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured a picture as four Marines hoisted an American flag on top the mountain. This became an another iconic photo of the war.

The six Marines were: Sergeant Michael Strank

Corporal Harlon Block

Pvt. 1st Class Ira Hayes

Pvt. 1st Class Franklin Sousley

Pvt. 1st Class Rene Gagnon

Pharmacist’s Mate 2nd Class John Bradley

As on other islands, flamethrowers and TNT proved to be the surest weapons against powerful Japanese defenses.

The struggle continued for weeks as the Marines cleared all but two pockets on the most northern part of the island.

Fighting ended one month to the day of the flag raising on Mt. Suribachi – March 23.

U.S. forces lost almost 6,000 and over 17,000 suffered wounds.

Virtually the entire Japanese garrison, including Kuribayashi, perished.

Iwo Jima was only one of two enemy islands that Admiral Nimitz planned to take in 1945.

The other was Okinawa.

Okinawa contained airfields and two excellent anchorages thus becoming the ideal base for an invasion of Japan.

The assault began on Easter Sunday, April 1.

General Ushijima planned to deploy the same strategy as Kuribayashi did on Iwo Jima.

Acknowledging that he could not defend all of Okinawa, he chose to abandon the northern portion of the island.

Ushijima chose to make his stand in the two southern towns of Naha and Shuri.

On April 9, Army troops collided with Ushijima’s 120,000 garrison.

By the end of May, American troops had forced the enemy back to its last ring of defenses.

It would be another month before the Americans would overcome the Japanese resistance.

Again, America paid a heavy price for Okinawa.

Over 12,000 killed and 36,000 wounded.

For the first time, several thousand Japanese soldiers actually surrendered.

On August 2, 1939, Albert Einstein wrote to Roosevelt explaining the potential power of nuclear weapons and the possibility of Nazi Germany developing such weapons.

Einstein’s letter set into motion the political process that culminated in the development, construction, and testing of the first nuclear bomb.

It’s a simple as: E = mc²

In 1940, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to pool resources and created a special unit of Army engineers, headed by General Leslie Groves, that would create the atomic bomb.

This ultra-secret undertaking was code-named the Manhattan Project.

Time magazine named

Einstein “Person of the

Century” on December 31,

1999.

In 1921, Einstein won the

Noble Peace Prize in

Physics for his theory on

photoelectric effect.

Hitler regarded Einstein as

public enemy number one

while Einstein loathed the

idea of haircuts and socks.

In 1941, Groves was given the

responsibility of overseeing the

construction of the War

Department’s future home, the

Pentagon.

Groves was initially

disappointed with his

command of the Manhattan

Project, preferring a combat

assignment instead.

In 1948, Groves retired from

the Army after acknowledging

that he would never hold a

position as important as the

one held during the

Manhattan Project.

In every known nucleus, with the exception of uranium, the nuclear strong forces dominate, holding the atom together.

If the uranium atom becomes elongated or stretched then it becomes unstable.

This is initiated when the uranium atom is hit with a neutron.

The splitting of the atom is called nuclear fission.

The most complicated issue of making an atomic bomb is producing ample amounts of “enriched” uranium to sustain a chain reaction.

At the time, uranium-235 was very difficult to extract.

Converting uranium ore to uranium metal is 500:1 with over ninety-nine percent being uranium-238, which is useless for an atomic bomb. To complicate the matter, U-238 and U-235 isotopes are nearly

identical in their chemical makeup.

Only a mechanical process can separate them.

Thus a massive enrichment lab/plant was constructed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Oak Ridge was relatively close to Norris Dam and its utilities, the

first dam built by TVA under FDR’s New Deal.

The low population kept the facilities an official government secret.

The spacious land allowed the government to build the uranium separating facility, K-25, covering forty-four acres (the world’s largest building at the time).

Between 1939 and 1945, $2 billion was spent on the development of “the Gadget.”

Two atomic bombs were created: one using uranium and the other using plutonium.

235U + neutron → fission fragments + 2.4 neutrons + 192.9 MeV

239 Pu + neutron → fission fragments + 2.9 neutrons + 198.5 MeV

On July 16, 1945, the United States detonated the first atomic bomb in the White Sands desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

As the explosion created a huge fireball and a mushroom cloud of smoke, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer said:

“If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky; that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One. … I am Death, Shatter of Worlds ” (Bhagavad-Gita).

For his role in the Manhattan

project, Oppenheimer is often

referred to as the “father of the

atomic bomb.”

After the war, he became the

chief advisor for the U.S.

Atomic Energy Commission

and used his position to lobby

for international control of

nuclear proliferation.

During the Cold War,

Oppenheimer was declared a

Communist sympathizer and

lost all political standing in the

United States.

From mid-July to early-August, Harry Truman, Josef Stalin, and Clement Attlee met in Germany at the Potsdam Conference.

With all attention focused on Japan, the Allies issued a joint declaration on July 26 that called for Japan to surrender or face “complete and utter destruction.”

On August 6 at 8:15 a.m., Colonel Paul Tibbets, Jr. at the controls of a B-29, named Enola Gay, dropped a 9,000-pound atomic bomb on Hiroshima (Little Boy). Co-pilot Robert Lewis noted in the official flight log, “My God!”

The explosion reached an altitude of 55,000 feet and virtually sixty percent of the city disappeared.

100,000 persons died instantly and many more died later from the effects of radiation.

The B-29 Superfortress

that Tibbets flew over

Hiroshima was personally

selected by him while it

was still on the assembly

line.

Tibbets formally named his

B-29 the Enola Gay after

his mother.

Tibbets replaced the

regularly scheduled aircraft

commander, Robert A.

Lewis, the morning of the

now famous mission.

Truman warned Japan that unless they surrendered, more cities would experience the same horror. Nagasaki was the next target city.

On August 8, Stalin declared war on Japan, following Nazi Germany’s defeat, as promised at Yalta.

The next day, Major Charles W. Sweeney flew the Bockscarover Nagasaki and dropped the second more powerful bomb (Fat Man).

The north end of the city was destroyed in less than one second and 35,000 were killed instantly.

The combination of the two atomic bombs and the Soviet Union’s entry into the war in the Pacific convinced many in Japan to surrender.

On August 10, the Japanese government accepted the Potsdam declaration with one exception.

The exception asked that Hirohito, the emperor, could retain his position.

The next day, the Allies accepted Japan’s proposal with one condition of their own.

Hirohito must subject his authority to an Allied supreme commander of occupation forces.

Many Japanese military officials remained faithful to the Bushido code of death before dishonor and committed suicide prior to the signing of the formal surrender.

When the announcement of Japan’s surrender reached America, one of the most spontaneous celebrations in history erupted.

To the American people August 14, 1945, was Victory in Japan Day or V-J Day.

On September 2, the Japanese formally signed a document of surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

General MacArthur, whom Truman had appointed as Allied supreme commander, presided.