Over the next two to four months, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed between 90,000 and 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000 and 80,000 people in Nagasaki roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. The bombs immediately devastated their targets. Another B-29 dropped a plutonium implosion bomb ( “Fat Man”) on Nagasaki three days later.
On August 6, one of the modified B-29s dropped a uranium gun-type bomb ( “Little Boy”) on Hiroshima. The Allies issued orders for atomic bombs to be used on four Japanese cities on July 25. Truman and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the Potsdam Conference, summer 1945.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.īy August 1945, the Allies’ Manhattan Project had produced two types of atomic bombs, and the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was equipped with the specialized Silver-plate version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that could deliver them from Tinian in the Mariana Islands. The Allies called for the unconditional surrender of the Imperial Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945, the alternative being “prompt and utter destruction.” Japan ignored the ultimatum and the war continued.
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The war in Europe had concluded when Germany signed its instrument of surrender on May 8, 1945, and the Allies turned their full attention to the Pacific theater. This undertaking was preceded by a conventional and firebombing campaign which devastated 67 Japanese cities. In the final year of World War II, the Allies prepared for a very costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only uses of nuclear weapons in armed conflict ever. The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, with the consent of the United Kingdom, as required by the Quebec Agreement.