In the bloodiest of battles in Marine Corps history, 27 Marines and sailors were awarded the Medal of Honor for action on Iwo Jima. No other campaign surpassed that number.

The horrific casualty toll of World War II in Asia, especially China, helped determine the important decisions about how to bring it to an end.

Although a decision to continue the war would mean national suicide, members of the Japanese military came close to refusing Emperor Hirohito’s surrender order.

Japanese military leaders debated Japan's possible surrender up to the last moment. Emperor Hirohito's intervention was critical.

Misguided Japanese diplomacy in 1945 helped to ensure that the war would not have a peaceful end.

American strategic options for ending the war against Japan in 1945 offered a choice of horrible possibilities.

Australian forces, backed by American artillery, assaulted Japanese positions on Bobdubi Ridge in one of World War II’s bitterest campaigns.

The New Guinea campaign was one of the hardest-fought of World War II. American and Australian forces relied on native New Guineans to achieve victory.

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.

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.

On the morning of August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

A presentation of The National WWII Museum's curricular resources to help educators teach about the use of atomic bombs against Japan.