Overview

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States were made at the order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman on August 6 and 9, 1945. After six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities, the nuclear weapon ""Little Boy"" was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945, followed on August 9 by the detonation of the ""Fat Man"" nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. These are to date the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare. The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945, roughly half on the days of the bombings. Since then, thousands more have died from injuries or illness attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bombs. In both cities, the overwhelming majority of the dead were civilians. Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki, on August 15, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, signing the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, officially ending the Pacific War and therefore World War II. Japan’s attempts at surrender and Washington’s decisionmaking are analyzed in depth, up to the fateful decision by Harry Truman to drop the bomb. The book gives a clear and concise narrative of all the elements of the controversial decision by President Truman to drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan in 1945 during World War II. This is a masterful and easy to read story.

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9781936274000

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Dr. Dennis Wainstock is a historian and teaches at Fairmont State University. He is the author of several books: The Turning Point: The 1968 United States Presidential Campaign (1988); Truman, MacArthur and the Korean War (1999); Malcolm X: The Life of an African-American revolutionary (2009) among others. He lives in Salem WV.

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