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Firebombing_Tokyo

FIREBOMBING RAIDS ON TOKYO during the night of March 9-10, 1945

The firebombing raids on Tokyo, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, were low altitude incendiary bombing raids ordered by General Curtis LeMay. The first wave of planes was followed by a procession of bombers sowing death until dawn, touching off devastating firestorms: almost 17 square miles of the city were reduced to ashes. Estimates of the number killed […]

Mushroom cloud of atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima

ATOMIC BOMB DROPPED ON HIROSHIMA FOLLOWED BY WARNING OF A RAIN OF RUIN

On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb (code-named “Little Boy”) on Hiroshima, Japan, that instantly killed an estimated 66,000 people in the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare.         President Truman issued the following statement: “It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that […]

POTSDAM DECLARATION, the first step to dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The Potsdam Declaration outlined the terms for Japan’s surrender in WWII commencing with the warning: “We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay.” The mention of “unconditional surrender” and a warning came at the end of the declaration: “We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now […]