On this day, the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima
by Steve Balestrieri
In the closing days of World War II, the United States was facing a difficult decision. In the face of increasingly fanatical Japanese resistance during the island-hopping Pacific campaign, American casualties were increased dramatically.
Fearing that an invasion of Japan would cost hundreds of thousands of U.S. casualties and millions of Japanese, the decision by President Truman to drop the atomic bomb on Japan was not made lightly. The atomic bomb was dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. According to some estimates, more than 226,000 people, mostly civilians, died in the two blasts. Following the bombings, Japan surrendered. It was the only time that nuclear weapons have been used in war.
By August of 1945, there was little doubt that an invasion of mainland Japan was going to happen. The Japanese had been pushed all the way across the Pacific, had their war industries smashed, and were starving. But they weren’t yet defeated. Although they still controlled parts of New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies, and Indochina, their forces there were cut off and had no hope of coming to the assistance of the Japanese islands.
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