![]() The Boeing B-29 Superfortress, revving giant propellers as it prepares for a firebombing run over Japan. On the tiny island of Tinian, flight crews were briefed about 'Little Boy.' At one point, the Augusta’s Advance Map Room cabled the White House inquiring about any news of “the Manhattan Project.” White House Map Room operatives responded that they could find no evidence of any such project. Given the secrecy of the mission, he received no updates. These attacking planes saw no opposition.Īs the Augusta pushed deeper into the Atlantic, Truman’s curiosity over the bomb grew excruciating. The flames engulfed miles of Japanese cities. On August 2, the day Truman started his transatlantic journey home aboard the Augusta, Major General Curtis LeMay’s 21st Bomber Command struck the enemy with what The New York Times called “the greatest single aerial strike in world history.” Nearly 900 B-29s pounded targets with 6,632 tons of conventional and incendiary bombs. Army’s B-29 firebombing raids of cities such as Mito, Fukuyama and Otsu. In the Far East, Japan continued to burn, the result of the U.S. He could only hope that it would serve its purpose: to end the war, to save lives. He had told himself in his diary, days earlier, that “military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children.” Surely he knew that this bomb, as technologically marvelous as it was, did not have the sentience to separate military individuals from civilians. ![]() ![]() One can imagine him staring at the ceiling, exhausted and tense from the anticipation of an explosion that would soon change the world. ![]() Truman skipped the film and stayed in his cabin. Byrnes’s cabin for a movie- Wonder Man, about a nightclub owner who gets murdered by gangsters and comes back as a ghost to haunt his killers. The first night at sea, Truman’s party gathered at 8:30 p.m. Atomic Bomb History As he sailed home from Potsdam, Truman anxiously awaited news of the bomb. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |