Washington, D.C. • December 31, 1943 By this date in 1943 Boeing delivered its 92nd B‑29 Superfortress to the U.S. government after the giant bomber began rolling off the assembly line the previous September. Even before the country was at war and government funds had been allocated, Boeing had produced a prototype of the long-range…
Tokyo, Japan • August 29, 1944 From the summer of 1944 to the spring of 1945, Japanese forces continued their retreat from military outposts in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Japanese losses in personnel, warships, and airplanes were minimized by frontline commanders, who exaggerated Japanese military successes against the Allied enemy in reports to Imperial…
Tokyo, Japan • August 14, 1945 Two days after the United States had dropped a second atomic bomb on a major Japanese city, this on Nagasaki on August 9, Emperor Hirohito (posthumously referred to as Emperor Shōwa) personally intervened during an Imperial Conference (Gozen Kaigi) to let diehard hawks in his government and armed services know…
Tokyo, Japan • August 12, 1945 In 1945 the endgame in Europe was to capture Berlin, the epicenter of Nazi resistance, which the Red Army did in the last week of April. On May 7 and 8, 1945, Adolf Hitler’s political heir, Adm. Karl Doenitz, surrendered Nazi Germany unconditionally to the Allies. The endgame in the…
509th Composite Group HQ, Tinian, Mariana Islands • August 9, 1945 Despite the shockwaves that Hiroshima’s destruction on August 6, 1945, sent through Imperial circles, Japan’s government refused to agree to an unconditional surrender; their leaders insisted on preconditions, chief among them protecting the “prerogatives” of Emperor Hirohito as Japan’s “sovereign ruler.” (Had there been no Japanese…
509th Composite Group HQ, Tinian, Mariana Islands • August 6, 1945 For several months the U.S. had dropped more than 63 million leaflets across Japan, warning civilians of devastating aerial bombings and to evacuate the cities identified in the leaflets. Radio broadcasts from the American-held island of Saipan underscored the printed warnings. Many Japanese cities suffered terrible…
Peconic, Long Island, New York • August 2, 1939 On this date in 1939, 1 month before the outbreak of World War II in Europe, distinguished German-born professor, mathematician, and physicist Albert Einstein wrote President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the possibility of using a nuclear chain reaction to produce enormous amounts of energy that could be used…
Philippine Sea Between Guam Island and Leyte Gulf • July 30, 1945 On July 15, 1945, Capt. Charles B. McVay III, 46‑year-old skipper of the USS Indianapolis, a fast Portland-class cruiser in California for repairs, received orders to pick up some special cargo at Hunters Point (predecessor name for the now-closed San Francisco Naval Yard). Eleven days later, on…
Tokyo, Japan • July 18, 1944 On this date in 1944 Prime Minister, War Minister, Home Minister, and Chief of Army General Staff Hideki Tōjō was removed from office with the blessing of Emperor Hirohito (posthumously referred to as Emperor Shōwa). Up until this date the scrawny, owlish Tōjō had enjoyed the confidence of his…
Trinity Test Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico • July 16, 1945 On this date in 1945 the first detonation of an atomic bomb directly led to greater unimaginable destruction when “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” immolated Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. Up until July 16, 1945, military brass and military and civilian scientists…