Nevertheless, the war threatened to drag on into 1946. The US Navy and the Army Air Forces had cut off Japan’s supply lines.
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B-29s from Guam, Saipan, and Tinian were striking the Japanese homeland regularly, systematically destroying the industrial cities on Honshu and Kyushu. In 1945, the war had finally come home to Japan. The eventual military outcome of the Pacific war had been effectively sealed since the US took the Marianas in 1944, but the Japanese refused to accept defeat. The war ended in Europe on V-E Day, May 9, but Japan fought on. In the Pacific, the toll from each successive battle rose higher. When Truman became President in April 1945, US casualties were averaging more than 900 a day. It consumed the nation’s energies and resources to an extent never experienced before or since. World War II would eventually cost the United States more than a million casualties. To understand the decision, it is necessary to examine the circumstances and the options as Truman saw them in the summer of 1945. For the next fifty years, however, Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb would be questioned again and again, and the retroactive judgment would often be harsh. The unconditional surrender of Japan followed on August 15. Another B-29, Bockscar, dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki August 9.
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On Truman’s orders, the B-29 Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima August 6.
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He regarded the atomic bomb as a weapon - an awe-some one, to be sure - but still a weapon to be used.
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The question before him was how to end the war and save lives. Truman said later that he had no great difficulty in reaching the decision. Once it was proved to work, Truman would consult with allies and advisors, but the decision on whether to use it would be his. Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, briefed President Truman in detail on the secret of the atomic bomb. Twelve days later, on April 25, 1945, Stimson and Maj. Stimson had spoken to him briefly and told him that the United States was working on a weapon of extraordinary power. On the day he assumed the presidency at the death of Franklin D. The last B-29 in squadron use retired from service in September 1960.As Vice President, Harry Truman had not known about the development of the atomic bomb. The B-29 saw military service again in Korea between 19, battling new adversaries: jet fighters and electronic weapons. Shortly thereafter, Japan surrendered.Īfter the war, B-29s were adapted for several functions, including in-flight refueling, antisubmarine patrol, weather reconnaissance and rescue duty. Three days later a second B-29, Bockscar, dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki. 6, 1945, the B-29 Enola Gay dropped the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. As many as 1,000 Superfortresses at a time bombed Tokyo, destroying large parts of the city.
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Production ended in 1946.ī-29s were primarily used in the Pacific theater during World War II. built 668 of the giant bombers in Georgia, and the Glenn L. The earliest B-29s were built before testing was finished, so the Army established modification centers where last-minute changes could be made without slowing expanding assembly lines.īoeing built a total of 2,766 B-29s at plants in Wichita, Kan., (previously the Stearman Aircraft Co., merged with Boeing in 1934) and in Renton, Wash. The Soviet-built copy of the B-29 was called the Tupolev Tu-4. Modifications led to the B-29D, upgraded to the B-50, and the RB-29 photoreconnaissance aircraft. The B-29 used the high-speed Boeing 117 airfoil, and its larger Fowler flaps added to the wing area as they increased lift. The B-29 was also the world’s heaviest production plane because of increases in range, bomb load and defensive requirements. The tail gunner had a separate pressurized area that could only be entered or left at altitudes that did not require pressurization. Two crew areas, fore and aft, were pressurized and connected by a long tube over the bomb bays, allowing crew members to crawl between them. One of the most technologically advanced airplanes of World War II, the B-29 had many new features, including guns that could be fired by remote control. Boeing submitted the proposal for the B-29 long-range heavy bomber to the Army in 1940, before the United States entered World War II.