Many Americans greeted the news of the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima with jubilation. Beginning shortly after the war, however, a number of prominent US military leaders began to question the bomb's use.
The bombing of the Japanese city of Nagasaki with the Fat Man plutonium bomb device on August 9, 1945, caused terrible human devastation and helped end World War II.
German technology surpassed the Allies' with the production of radio-guided weapons that worked in a combat environment. As early as 1943, the Henschel (Hs) 293 and the Ruhrstahl X-1 (Fritz X) were the first guided bombs employed in combat. These weapons debuted around the time of the Allied assault on Salerno and were a new concern for fleet defense.
On the morning of August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
The Eighth Air Force’s hard luck unit was filled with colorful personalities who made the unit one of the most storied of World War II.
Join The National WWII Museum's Educational Travel Team and expert historian Jonathan Parshall to learn about this upcoming journey commemorating the end of the war in the Pacific, just over 80 years later.
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Join us in conversation with Rona Simmons, author of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944, which chronicles the US Armed Forces’ single deadliest day of World War II.
Would the legendary prehistoric reptile known as Godzilla have emerged without World War II?