August 14, 1945
The telltale mushroom cloud seen from a B-29 Super Fortress during the attack on Nagasaki, Japan.
After the hard-won victories at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, American troops were now just a couple hundred miles from the southern tip of the Japanese homeland islands. The Allies had also formed blockades in the Pacific shipping lanes, keeping supplies such as food and gasoline from reaching Japan.
America told Japan to surrender.
Japan refused.
So on March 9, 1945, America launched a night raid over Japan. Three hundred B-29 Super Fortress bombers dropped incendiaries on Tokyo. More than four million people lived in the city, but there were only eighteen air raid shelters. Each shelter could hold only about 5,000 people. As the 17,000 tons of bombs dropped, Tokyo’s mostly-wooden structures burst into flames. The bombs also held napalm, a gelatinous form of gasoline that spreads quickly, igniting still more fires.
To escape the inferno, people ran to a nearby river, choking the water.
The bombing killed more than 80,000 people.
America, again, asked Japan to surrender.
Japan, again, refused.
You might be wondering: Why would Japan keep fighting when it was clearly losing this war?
There were several reasons:
America was demanding unconditional surrender. That meant Japan would have to lay down all its weapons. As a country, it would no longer have control or power. Because the Japanese people considered Emperor Hirohito a god, they worried that the Americans would execute him and inflict divine condemnation and national shame on Japan.
In its most extreme form, nationalism is where people feel superior to other countries. Japanese pride led the country to start WWII, because Japanese leaders felt disrespected in world affairs. And the Japanese people believed they were a superior race destined to rule over other “lesser” people. All that nationalism and pride blinded Japan to the reality of their hopeless situation. When the Japanese people heard about a possible American invasion, they didn’t cower in fear. They armed themselves with household weapons, forging bamboo into spears. Other people were ready to strap dynamite charges to their bodies, hoping for an “honorable” suicide that would kill many Americans, too.
Japan’s leaders also believed that by fighting to the end, they would earn respect, and help the country negotiate more favorable terms of surrender.
Finally, the Soviet Union was another significant factor. Throughout WWII, the Soviets had remained neutral toward Japan. But Soviet forces were stationed along the Chinese border with Japan, and prior to the war, Japan had attacked the Soviet Union. Any unconditional surrender to America would leave Japan vulnerable to Soviet attack.
So, despite all the deadly bombings, all the shipping blockades that were starving the population, and all the military battles that were wiping out its own military, Japan refused to surrender.
American military leaders, facing the facts, started planning an invasion of Japan. But everyone realized this invasion would be a major blood bath--for both sides.
General Douglas McArthur was ordered to lead a two-step assault. It was code-named “Operation Downfall.” The first phase would be an amphibious landing on the southern island of Kyushu. If that attack didn’t convince Japan to surrender, then a second attack would be launched on the island of Honshu. America’s military leaders planned this invasion down to the smallest details, from how to supply food, gasoline, and ammunition to the troops, to how to fight civilians attempting to kill American soldiers.
But “Operation Downfall” never took place.
During the war, German physicist Albert Einstein had uncovered some scientific theories that led to the creation of a bomb that was unlike any other bomb: It was the atomic bomb.
Einstein had written to President Roosevelt because he was concerned that if Hitler’s Germany got this scientific information, it would make the bomb first. So Roosevelt created a top-secret group to pursue Einstein’s information. That group was called the Manhattan Project. These scientists researched and developed the atomic bomb. (Interestingly, many of the Manhattan Project scientists had defected from Germany because of Adolf Hitler).
But Roosevelt passed away in April 1945. His vice president, Harry S. Truman, assumed the presidency. And unlike Roosevelt, Truman didn’t think invading Japan was the best way to end this war. Already America’s military leaders were estimating the invasion would cost more than one million lives—among the Allied forces alone.
Truman ordered the Manhattan Project to test their new atomic bomb.
Caterpillar tractors haul a test nuclear bomb into the New Mexico desert
On July 16, 1945, in a New Mexico desert, the first atomic bomb exploded. It created a distinctive mushroom cloud whose center temperature was estimated to be three times hotter than the center of the sun.
“It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered,” President Truman wrote in his diary, "but it can be made the most useful.”
Eleven days after that first atomic test, America once more asked Japan to surrender. If not, America said that Japan would be hit by a new “super weapon.”
Japan refused to surrender.
In the early morning hours of August 6th, a B-29 named Enola Gay lifted off from Tinian Island in the Mariana Islands.
Piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets, the plane carried a single atomic bomb named Little Boy. Fourteen feet long and five feet in diameter, the bomb weighed 8,000 pounds. It contained uranium, a naturally-occurring radioactive mineral. It also had a parachute to slow its descent, so the Enola Gay’s pilot and crew could fly away before the bomb exploded.
Traveling at 328 miles per hour at 31,600 feet, Colonel Tibbets approached the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It was just after 8:00 a.m. and the citizens below were beginning their day.
At 8:11, the bombardier released the atomic bomb.
The Enola Gay banked, racing safety.
Two-thousand feet above Hiroshima, Little Boy exploded.
Within seconds, glass melted. Buildings collapsed. Clothing vaporized, leaving thread-shaped burn marks on skin. The destruction stretched for miles. Thousands of people died.
The death estimates range from 70,000 to more than 100,000 people. Why such a wide range? Because the atomic blast destroyed most of the city's records, and people continued to die for days, weeks, and months as the nuclear radiation poisoning took effect.
Once again, President Truman demanded that Japan surrender. In his public address to the American people, Truman said, “If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth . . .”
Three days later, Japan still had not responded to the demand.
But just as the Japanese suspected, immediately after the bombing, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Troops invaded Manchuria, which was the Chinese land occupied by the Japanese. Manchuria was Japan’s last source for supplies.
With no sign that Japan would surrender, another B-29 took off from Tinian island on August 9th. This plane, nicknamed Bock’s Car, was carrying an even larger atomic bomb, called Fat Man. This bomb contained plutonium, another radioactive mineral even more destructive than uranium. Major Charles Sweeny and his crew flew Bock’s Car to the city of Nagasaki.
At 11:02 AM, the bombardier released the weapon.
This second atomic bomb killed between 35,000 and 65,000 people. Again, estimates vary because fire destroyed city records.
Nagasaki, Japan, following the atomic bombing.
On August 15th, Emperor Hirohito addressed the Japanese people in a radio broadcast. For most people, it was the first time they had ever heard the emperor's voice.
“…the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb,” the emperor said, “the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.”
Japan surrendered, unconditionally.
World War II was over.
The Japanese people reacted to the surrender in different ways. Some military officers immediately committed suicide, convinced that self-inflicted death was more honorable. Officers commanding prison camps pulled out the captured POWs and hacked them to death with swords or shot them. Those murders were done in part for revenge and in part to avoid witnesses for war crime trials.
Outside the Imperial Palace, people wept.
To this day, Japan is the only country, so far, on which atomic weapons have been used. It’s estimated that about 200,000 people died in the combined atomic blasts.
Historians continue to debate Truman’s decision to drop these atomic bombs. Some believe the massive destruction was immoral. Others insist that an invasion would have killed far more people—on both sides, civilian and soldier alike—than all the casualties at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. In fact, the conventional bombs dropped on Tokyo earlier in the war caused far more death and injury than the atomic bombs. Also, Japan was given multiple opportunities to surrender, with President Truman warning the Japanese leaders about that “rain of ruin” from a new weapon.
Though devastating, most people agree the atomic bombs probably saved more lives than they took away.
To this day, many Allied countries continue to celebrate August 14th and 15th as “Victory over Japan.”
WHO FOUGHT?
Captain Oba
Japan officially surrendered on August 14th, but some Japanese soldiers continued to fight, particularly on the tiny Pacific islands. These soldiers considered surrender shameful, or they didn’t believe the news, or they simply never heard about the surrender because communications were cut off.
These soldiers continued to fight for years.
During the Battle of Saipan, Japanese Captain Sakae Oba led forty-six men in guerrilla fighting. Oba didn’t surrender until December 1, 1945.
Dozens more soldiers fought even longer—through the 1940s, 50s, and even 60s.
However, the very last holdout was probably Teruo Nakamura. He was still fighting the war when he was discovered hiding in Indonesia— in December 1974, more than thirty years after his country had surrendered to the United States.
FIND OUT MORE:
BOOKS
Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon (Newbery Honor Book) by Steve Sheinkin
The Atomic Bomb: A History Just For Kids!
The Enola Gay: The B-29 That Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima by Norman Polmar
Hiroshima by Laurence Yep
The Good Fight : How World War II Was Won by Stephen E. Ambrose
INTERNET
This fifteen-minute archival documentary shows many of the physical effects caused by the atomic bombings. Caution: this video contains graphic medical images.
United States War Department’s archival footage of the bombings.
MOVIES
Above and Beyond
Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb. (This is a made-for-television movie, somewhat fictionalized)