The Day the World Went Nuclear Read online

  There is a fine Pearl Harbor display and film at the USNA Museum, but for the greatest effect, readers are encouraged to visit the USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to looking around a detailed museum and watching a vivid film detailing the attack and its aftereffects, visitors can travel by boat to the spot in the harbor where the Arizona still rests. Many of the men who died when she exploded and sank that Sunday morning are still entombed inside the ship. Many of those who survived the attack have requested that upon their deaths, their ashes be placed within the Arizona so that they might be laid to rest with their former shipmates.

  On display nearby, positioned so that its guns symbolically protect the memorial and the men of the Arizona, is the USS Missouri. The Mighty Mo is a museum ship now, and visitors can come aboard to see the precise spot on which the Japanese surrender documents were signed.

  The author would also like to thank the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and distinguished World War II writer and researcher Brian Sobel.

  * * *

  What follows are other resources utilized in this writing. This list is by no means exhaustive but will provide the readers with a road map to use in their own historical investigations.

  Websites, Newspapers, and Archives: General Background Information

  News Sources: New York Times, Life magazine, Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, Washington Post, Spokane Daily Chronicle, Australian, Wall Street Journal, Times of India, Associated Press, U.S. News & World Report, New Yorker, Japan Times, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Marine Corps Chevron, Fox News, PBS, BBC.

  Websites: Architect of the Capitol (www.aoc.gov); Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives (www.clerk.house.gov); National Archives (www.archives.gov), especially dated February 26, 1945, entitled “Captured Japanese Instructions Regarding the Killing of POW”; Battle of Manila Online (www.battleofmanila.org); Congressional Medal of Honor Society (www.cmohs.org); Supreme Court of the United States (www.supremecourt.gov); FBI Records—The Vault (https://vault.fbi.gov); U.S. Department of State—Office of the Historian (history.state.gov); Central Intelligence Agency (www.cia.gov); USS Indianapolis (www.ussindianapolis.org); Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (www.thebulletin.org), especially Ellen Bradbury and Sandra Blakeslee, “The Harrowing Story of the Nagasaki Bombing Mission.”

  Archives: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; United States National Archives; Princeton University Library, The Manhattan Project—U.S. Department of Energy; The George C. Marshall Foundation; U.S. Department of State—Office of the Historian; Library of Congress—Carl Spaatz Papers; Congressional Record, V. 145, Pt. 8, May 24, 1999, to June 8, 1999; Congressional Record, V. 146, Pt. 15, October 6, 2000, to October 12, 2000; National Library of Australia—Trove (archives of the Argus); U.S. Naval War College (especially the Nimitz Graybook); Harry S. Truman Library & Museum; Records of the United States Marine Corps; U.S. Naval Institute Naval History Archive; U.S. Army Center of Military History: Combat Chronicles of U.S. Army Divisions in World War II.

  Peleliu

  Adam Makos with Marcus Brotherton, Voices of the Pacific; E. B. Sledge, With the Old Breed; John C. McManus, Grunts; John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945; Major Frank O. Hough, USMC, The Assault on Peleliu.

  MacArthur

  Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences; Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 13: The Liberation of the Philippines—Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas, 1944–1945; Robert Ross Smith, Triumph in the Philippines (United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific); Gavin Long, MacArthur.

  Truman

  Jon Taylor, Harry Truman’s Independence: The Center of the World; Sean J. Savage, Truman and the Democratic Party; David M. Jordan, FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944; Jules Witcover, No Way to Pick a President; Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman; Steven Lomazow and Eric Fettman, FDR’s Deadly Secret; Leslie R. Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project; Thomas Fleming, Truman; David McCullough, Truman; Margaret Truman, Bess W. Truman; Steve Neal, ed., Eleanor and Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman; J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan.

  Hirohito and Japan

  Arne Markland, Black Ships to Mushroom Clouds: A Story of Japan’s Stormy Century 1853–1945; Francis Pike, Hirohito’s War: The Pacific War, 1941–1945; Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan; Michael Kort, The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb; D. M. Giangreco, Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945–1947; Douglas J. MacEachin, The Final Months of the War with Japan; Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, ed., The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals; Hutton Webster, Rest Days: The Christian Sunday, the Jewish Sabbath, and Their Historical and Anthropological Prototypes; Edward J. Drea, In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army; Noriko Kawamura, Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War; Gavan Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific; E. Bartlett Kerr, Surrender and Survival: The Experience of American POWs in the Pacific, 1941–1945; David M. Glantz, Soviet Operational and Tactical Combat in Manchuria, 1945: “August Storm”; Stephen Harding, Last to Die: A Defeated Empire, a Forgotten Mission, and the Last American Killed in World War II.

  Air Corps

  Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907–1960; Samuel Russ Harris Jr., B-29s Over Japan, 1944–1945: A Group Commander’s Diary; James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang, The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara; Edwin P. Hoyt, Inferno: The Fire Bombing of Japan, March 9–August 15, 1945; Graham M. Simons, B-29: Superfortress: Giant Bomber of World War 2 and Korea; Robert O. Harder, The Three Musketeers of the Army Air Forces: From Hitler’s Fortress Europa to Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants and Their War.

  Trinity and Atomic Bombs

  Everett M. Rogers and Nancy R. Bartlit, Silent Voices of World War II; Robert James Maddox, ed., Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism; Gar Alperovitz et al., The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb; Robert Cowley, ed., The Cold War: A Military History; Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb; Michael D. Gordin, Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War; Robert Jay Lifton, Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima; John Hersey, Hiroshima; Paul Ham, Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath; Al Christman, Target Hiroshima: Deak Parsons and the Creation of the Atomic Bomb; Charles Pellegrino, To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima; Gerard DeGroot, The Bomb: A Life; Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, ed., The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals; Dennis D. Wainstock, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki: August 1945; Ray Monk, Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center; Samuel Glasstone, ed., The Effects of Nuclear Weapons.

  USS Indianapolis and U.S. Navy

  Richard F. Newcomb, Abandon Ship!: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, the Navy’s Greatest Sea Disaster; Doug Stanton, In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors; Edwyn Gray, Captains of War: They Fought Beneath the Sea; Christopher Chant, The Encyclopedia of Code Names of World War II; Raymond B. Lech, The Tragic Fate of the U.S.S. Indianapolis: The U.S. Navy’s Worst Disaster at Sea; Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King—the Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea; Kit Bonner and Carolyn Bonner, USS Missouri at War.

  Additional Sources

  Brown University. Hiroshima: Ending the War Against Japan: Science, Morality, and the Atomic Bomb. 5th ed. July 2007. The Choices Program. www.choices.edu

  Chaliand, Gérard. The Art of War in World History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994.

  Eggenberger, David. An Encyclopedia of Battles. New York: Dover, 1985.

  Hersey, John. “Hiroshima.” The New Yo
rker, August 31, 1946.

  Kelly, Cynthia C. The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2009.

  O’Reilly, Bill, and Martin Dugard. Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan. New York: Henry Holt, 2016.

  Sheinkin, Steve. Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon. New York: Roaring Brook, 2012.

  Truman, Harry S. Memoirs: 1945 Year of Decisions. Vol. 1. Reprint, New York: William S. Konecky, 1999.

  INDEX

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  Alamogordo Army Air Field

  Allied forces, in Europe

  Allied forces, in Pacific

  Allison, Sam

  Alvarez, Luis

  American Embassy, Tokyo, Japan

  Americans

  on atomic bomb

  Japanese

  Anami, Korechika

  antipersonnel bombs

  Arnold, Hap

  Ashworth, Frederick

  atomic bombs

  Americans on

  B-29 bombers and

  building of

  Eisenhower on

  Fat Man bomb

  Groves and

  Handy and

  Little Boy bomb

  MacArthur and

  Manhattan Project and

  opposition to

  order to drop

  Parsons, W., on

  radiation from

  Roosevelt, F., on

  Spaatz and

  Stimson on

  targets of

  testing of

  Trinity

  Truman, H., on

  U.S. presidents on

  Augusta, USS

  B-29 bombers

  atomic bombs and

  Big Stink

  Bockscar

  crewmen on

  Enola Gay

  The Great Artiste

  in Hiroshima

  in Kure bombings

  in Tokyo bombings

  Baldwin, Hanson

  balloon bombs

  Bard, Ralph A.

  Battle of the Bulge

  Beahan, Kermit

  Berlin, Germany

  Big Stink

  Birch, A. F.

  Bockscar

  crewmen on

  Fat Man bomb and

  Sweeney and

  Tibbets and

  Buckley, Edward K.

  Bunker Hill, USS

  Bush, George H. W.

  Bush, George W.

  Byrnes, James

  Carter, James Earl

  Cavert, Samuel McCrea

  China. See Manchuria conflict

  Churchill, Winston

  in Potsdam summit

  in Yalta conference

  Clinton, Bill

  “Day of Infamy Speech”

  D-Day invasion

  DeBernardi, Louie

  Dehart, Albert

  Doolittle, Jimmy

  Doolittle raid

  Early, Steve

  Eatherly, Claude

  Einstein, Albert

  Roosevelt, F., and

  after World War II

  Eisenhower, Dwight D.

  on atomic bombs

  D-Day invasion and

  Enola Gay

  dropping of Little Boy by

  Hiroshima and

  Faillace, Gaetano

  Farrell, Thomas F.

  Fat Man bomb

  Bockscar and

  diagram of

  dropping of

  overview of

  Ferebee, Thomas

  Ford, Gerald

  Forrestal, James

  France

  fukkaku strategy

  Genbaku Dome

  Geneva Conventions

  Germany. See also Potsdam summit

  atomic bomb attempts of

  Berlin

  Hitler and

  invasion of

  surrender of

  Graham, Frank H.

  The Great Artiste

  Groves, Leslie

  in Los Alamos

  Manhattan Project and

  Guadalcanal

  Hague Conventions

  Halsey, William

  Handy, Thomas

  Hanford Engineer Works

  Hatanaka, Kenji

  Hensel, H. Struve

  Hirohito

  Hiroshima and

  on Japanese military defense

  during Japanese surrender

  on Leyte, Visayan Islands

  MacArthur and

  after Manchuria invasion

  Nagasaki and

  surrender speech by

  during Tokyo bombings

  after World War II

  Hiroshima

  B-29 bombers in

  bombing of

  description of

  destruction of, after bombing

  Enola Gay and

  Genbaku Dome in

  Hirohito and

  immediate and lasting effects of

  Imperial Palace after bombing of

  Lewis and

  Little Boy bomb and

  MacArthur and

  map of destruction in

  news on

  post-attack mosaic of

  pre-attack mosaic view of

  Sweeney in

  as target

  Truman, H., after

  warnings to

  Hitler, Adolf

  Hopkins, James I.

  Hunter’s Point, San Francisco, California

  Imperial Guard

  Imperial Japanese Army

  Imperial Japanese Navy

  Imperial Palace

  after Hiroshima bombing

  during Japanese surrender

  after Manchuria invasion

  Indianapolis, USS

  internment camps. See relocation centers

  Iwo Jima, Japan

  Japan. See also Hiroshima; Nagasaki

  American Embassy, Tokyo, Japan

  atomic bomb attempts of

  Geneva Conventions and

  Hague Conventions and

  Imperial Japanese Army

  Imperial Japanese Navy

  Imperial Palace in

  Iwo Jima

  kamikaze pilots from

  Kokura

  Kure bombings

  Kyushu

  Leyte, Visayan Islands and

  MacArthur, on invading

  major bombings in

  in Manchuria conflict

  Manila, Philippines, and

  national morale in

  occupation of

  Okinawa Island

  Operation Olympic in

  Pearl Harbor and

  Potsdam summit and

  Sasebo Naval Station in

  Soviet Union and

  Supreme Council for Direction of War in

  Tokyo Bay

  Tokyo bombings, March 10, 1945

  Tokyo bombings, March 18,1945

  Toyama

  war crimes by

  Yasukuni Shrine in

  Japanese Americans

  Japanese messages and codes

  Japanese military defense

  fukkaku strategy

  Hirohito on

  Imperial Japanese Navy and

  Ketsu-Go strategy

  military training and

  preparing for invasion

  Japanese prisoners of war

  Japanese surrender

  conditions of

  Hirohito during

  Imperial Palace during

  letter of

  news of

  Potsdam summit and

  refusal to surrender

  revolts relating to

  surrender ceremony, on Missouri

  surrender spe
ech

  in Tokyo Bay

  Truman, H., and

  Jeppson, Morris

  “Jewel Voice” broadcast

  Jornada del Muerto Desert

  atomic bomb testing in

  kamikaze pilots

  Ketsu-Go strategy

  King, Ernest

  Kistiakowsky, George

  Koiso, Kuniaki

  Kokura, Japan

  Kuharek, John D.

  Kure bombings

  Kyushu, Japan

  Lawrence, David

  Leahy, William D.

  LeMay, Curtis

  attacks by

  in Tokyo bombings

  Lewis, Robert

  Leyte, Visayan Islands

  Hirohito on

  Japan and

  MacArthur in

  Sutherland in

  Yamashita and

  Little Boy bomb

  dropping of

  Hiroshima and

  mission for

  overview of

  preparation for dropping

  Tibbets and

  Los Alamos, New Mexico. See also Manhattan Project

  Groves in

  Oppenheimer in

  theater group in

  M-69 firebombs

  MacArthur, Douglas

  in Allied Forces

  atomic bombs and

  background on

  Hirohito and

  Hiroshima and

  on invading Japan

  Kyushu and

  in Leyte, Visayan Islands

  on Manchuria conflict

  in Manila, Philippines

  military strategy of

  on Missouri

  Nimitz and

  in Operation Olympic

  Truman, H., and

  after World War II

  Manchuria conflict

  invasion, by Soviet Union

  MacArthur on

  Stalin and

  Manhattan Project

  atomic bomb testing by

  Groves and

  location of

  Oppenheimer and