- 6/7/2025
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00:32Airpower ended the Pacific War in a way beyond the imagination of any of the visionary pre-war strategists.
00:38None of the Japanese or American planning had been conducted with any idea of the two weapons which would bring the war so completely and so suddenly to an end.
00:48The Boeing Super Fortress and the atomic bomb.
00:52Music
00:56Conventional air power had gone a long way toward defeating the Japanese.
01:00But they were determined to resist an invasion with every weapon at their disposal.
01:04Music
01:06The Japanese were a homogeneous nation, 100 million strong.
01:10They were willing to die for their country and their emperor.
01:14Music
01:20The Boeing B-29 was the most expensive single project of World War II.
01:24It cost more than three billion dollars for design, development, production and deployment.
01:30The Manhattan project, which resulted in the atomic bomb, cost two billion.
01:36The B-29 was clearly the most outstanding bomber of the war by any standard of performance.
01:40It was far ahead of the American B-17 and the British Lancaster.
01:46The Super Fortress was the joint project of a few visionary American Air Corps planners.
01:55They were aided by the courage of General Hap Arnold, who pushed the program through in spite of many hazards.
02:01That is safe from attack by air.
02:04The other important factor was the engineering strength and heavy bomber experience of the Boeing Aircraft Corporation.
02:13By 1940, it seemed possible that England would be invaded and occupied.
02:26That meant that Nazi Germany would have to be bombed from U.S. bases.
02:34The Air Corps called for a speed of 400 miles an hour, a range of 5,333 miles and a 2,000 pound bomb load.
02:42It was an audacious gamble on the part of the Air Corps and of the Boeing company.
02:47Boeing was perhaps taking the greater chance.
02:50The Air Corps could hedge its bets with other manufacturers for less ambitious airplanes.
02:55But Boeing had to rely not only on its own capability.
03:00It also had to trust its vendors.
03:02Many of them were being asked to create components fully as advanced as the aircraft itself.
03:07Shortcuts had to be taken.
03:09Each one added to an already ambitious program.
03:13Dollars were freely available, but they were not always a solution.
03:22The handsome streamlined airframe was a radical departure from all previous Boeing practice.
03:27It involved new metals and new fabrication techniques.
03:41Boeing's entire production capacity was occupied with building the B-17.
03:46For the B-29, it was necessary to build entire new plants.
03:50And there was a greater challenge, the creation of a new, highly skilled workforce.
04:00Vast schools were established on the factory sites.
04:03With 90 days of training or less, farmers, housewives, and young people just out of high school
04:09were taught how to do everything necessary to build the most complex aircraft in history.
04:14By 1943, Boeing had 58,000 employees building the B-29.
04:25Boeing knew from the start that the greatest question mark was the unproven engine.
04:29The 18-cylinder Wright R3350 used two general electric turbochargers
04:35to develop almost one horsepower for each pound of engine weight.
04:39The R3350 needed several years more development than was available.
04:44It would go into the field unready.
04:46It would be a constant nightmare to mechanics
04:49and a worry to pilots taking off with too heavy loads from too short runways.
04:59Even with the R3350's power, the speed and range requirements were difficult to attain.
05:04They could only be achieved by combining a highly streamlined design
05:09with a wing using a new Boeing high-lift airfoil and a sophisticated flap system.
05:15The USAAF thought Boeing's approach was too radical.
05:19They thought the wing loading was too high
05:21and that pilots wouldn't be able to handle the airplane.
05:27They cited the experience of the notorious Martin B-26 as an example.
05:32Boeing analyzed the B-26 and found that it had a low aspect ratio wing
05:37mounted on the fuselage in a way that induced drag.
05:40They explained that the B-26's problems stemmed from bad design.
05:44They said that the B-29's excellent design would avoid difficulties.
05:52To achieve the necessary performance, the B-29 had to operate at high altitudes.
05:57For this, pressurization of the fuselage was mandatory.
06:02Boeing had experimented with pressurization in the Model 307 Stratoliner passenger plane,
06:08but no production bomber had ever been pressurized.
06:11The B-29 adopted a new three-bubble system.
06:15The pilot, co-pilot, engineer, radio operator and navigator were in the front pod.
06:21The gunners were positioned in the mid-fuselage pressurized area
06:25and connected to the cockpit by a tunnel spanning the twin bomb bays.
06:30The tail gunner was crammed into a third pressurized compartment in the rear,
06:34isolated and very much alone.
06:37Because of the pressurization system, standard gun turrets could not be used.
06:41The armament had to be remotely operated.
06:47A general electric fire control system had to be created.
06:51It used an early computer that compensated for speed, range, altitude, wind, temperature and trajectory.
06:59The results were remarkably good.
07:02Any gunner apart from the tail gunner could control more than one station.
07:06The computer permitted firing at targets beyond the range of conventional hand-operated guns.
07:16Demand for the Boeing B-29 increased.
07:19Rival firms, Bell Aircraft and Glenel Martin, were tasked to build it.
07:23Boeing felt it was being asked to train competition for the post-war marketplace.
07:27By the time the XB-29 made its first flight on September 21, 1942,
07:36the USAAF had placed a mammoth order for 1,664 of the aircraft.
07:46But the first two prototypes caught fire in the air.
07:49The second one crashed into a meatpacking plant.
07:52The entire crew was killed.
07:53In spite of all the difficulties, the first B-29 of the 58th Bombardment Wing landed at Karagpur, India on April 24, 1944, to begin Operation Matterhorn.
08:08Operation Matterhorn.
08:16Operation Matterhorn was designed to knock out the Japanese steel industry.
08:23The idea of B-29s bombing Japan from Chinese bases was attractive in political terms.
08:28President Roosevelt had promised Chiang Kai-shek to begin bombing operations against Japan by November 1944.
08:37But in practice, it was flawed for a wide variety of economic, logistic, and command reasons.
08:43Chiang Kai-shek's subordinates refused to get serious about building air bases until enough money had been paid to permit embezzlement on a massive scale.
08:51Army General Vinegar Joe Stilwell estimated that at least half of the 100 million dollars in gold required by the Chinese was siphoned off to corrupt officials.
09:06The air bases themselves were a monument to the patience and industry of the Chinese people.
09:11They literally built them by hand, without power equipment of any sort.
09:16They used the most primitive tools to move earth or chip stones.
09:26The operation was based on the assumption that the B-29s would support their own operations by flying gasoline over the hump,
09:34the high mountain passes in the Himalayas separating India and China.
09:37The B-29s would be supported by a fleet of B-24s serving as tankers.
09:52But the B-29 was a brand new weapon that had not received sufficient testing.
09:57It would be bad practice to subject it to continuous flights over the mountains.
10:01Then there was the primitive maintenance and the continuing shortage of parts and labor.
10:13But the task had to be done.
10:14There was no alternative.
10:23The complexity of the logistics was a function of the sheer size of the B-29 units.
10:27The super fortress had a crew of seven.
10:31Seven aircraft were assigned per squadron.
10:34There were 28 per group and a grand total of 112 for the wing.
10:39Each B-29 was assigned two crews.
10:42A fully manned wing had a total personnel of 11,112.
10:45When all its elements arrived overseas, 20th Bomber Command had more than 20,000 officers and men plunked down in brand new bases in India and China, eager to go to war.
10:57Lieutenant General George Stratemeyer was made responsible for the 20th Bomber Command's administration and logistics.
11:10General Claire Chennault was responsible for the fighter defense and complete ground support of the B-29 bases in China.
11:15The B-29's very first combat raid was mounted on June 5th, 1944.
11:26General Wolf led 98 aircraft against the railroad marshalling yards in Bangkok, Thailand.
11:31Five aircraft crashed en route. Forty-two had to make emergency landings.
11:48Later reconnaissance revealed that fewer than 20 bombs had landed in the target area.
11:58It was not a good start for a $3 billion program.
12:02The commanders were veterans of the European theater.
12:05They were not yet aware of how different the B-29 was from the B-17.
12:10Nor were they aware of how difficult the Japanese targets, geography and weather were compared to Germany's.
12:16Hap Arnold demanded better results.
12:22He wanted an attack on the Japanese homeland.
12:26On June 15th, Wolf launched 92 B-29s from India.
12:31Of these, only 79 reached their Chinese staging bases.
12:3578 were dispatched on a night raid against the steel mills at Yawata on Kyushu, Japan.
12:40Each plane carried two tons of bombs.
12:46The results were once again disappointing.
13:01Only 47 aircraft made it to Yawata. Only one bomb hit Yawata.
13:08It damaged a power station more than half a mile from the steel mill coke ovens.
13:12The Americans took comfort in the damage they must have caused to Japanese morale.
13:17But Arnold was not after Japanese morale.
13:21He was after their industry.
13:25The story of the next six months was much the same.
13:28And at home in the U.S., there was a myriad of B-29 production problems.
13:33Wolf was sent back to sort them out.
13:34In September, the 20th Bomber Command was taken over by a firebrand from Europe.
13:41His name was Curtis LeMay.
13:47The dramatic acceleration of the Pacific War, including the capture of the Marianas in the summer of 1944,
13:54permitted a two-pronged strategy of attack.
13:56From bases in Chengtu, China, the 1,600-mile operating radius of the B-29 permitted it to hit targets from Manchuria through Japan,
14:06all the way down to the tip of French Indochina.
14:09Super fortresses operating from Saipan and the Marianas could cover all the important targets in the heartland of Japan.
14:16Curtis LeMay's 20th Bomber Command was the first of the two prongs.
14:21To provide the second, the 21st Bomber Command was established in November 1944.
14:28It was to operate out of new airfields in the Marianas Islands.
14:40One of the United States Army Air Force's great planners, Haasam Hansel, was made commanding officer of the 21st.
14:47Hansel landed his B-29, Jolt and Josie, the Pacific Pioneer, on Saipan on October 12th, 1944.
14:56He was eager to validate in battle the many plans he'd participated in creating.
15:01He took enormous satisfaction from the knowledge that the B-29s were operating from Saipan,
15:06because he'd persuaded the Joint Chiefs of Staff to bypass the island of Truk and seize the Marianas as a base.
15:12Hansel felt the weight of his responsibility. He knew that even Curtis LeMay, in spite of his success in Europe, was having trouble turning things around against the Japanese and China.
15:31LeMay's problems with the 20th Command included difficulty of supply and the unreliability of the B-29's R-3350 engines.
15:42Occasionally, good bombing results were obtained, but the damage to the Japanese did not justify the cost and effort of the B-29 program.
15:49In April 1945, the assets of the 20th Bomber Command would be transferred to Tinian and Guam.
16:00By then, it had failed in its essential task of sustained bombing of Japan.
16:05The courage and hard work of the 20th Bomber Command were simply insufficient to overcome impossible logistics, even with Curtis LeMay as their leader.
16:13So much had been expected of the B-29 that the American commanders were driven to prove that it was, in fact, an excellent weapon.
16:24At the very highest levels of command, where people were aware of the Manhattan Project, the urgency was even greater.
16:34Only the B-29 could carry the atomic bomb. If the super fortress failed, the Manhattan Project became a complete waste.
16:47The pressure was felt and transmitted.
16:50But in the months after his arrival on Saipan with the 21st, Haasem Hansel was able to do no better than had previously been done by the 20th from China.
16:59The Committee of Operational Analysis had reconsidered the priorities in Japan.
17:07They now suggested that the aviation industry was the most important target.
17:12This had been the Air Force's choice all along.
17:15The Joint Chiefs of Staff directed that the principal aircraft engine manufacturers around Tokyo become the primary targets.
17:21The long series of attacks on Tokyo would be helped by the incredible bravery and skill of the crew of an F-13.
17:35The F-13 was the unarmed reconnaissance version of the super fortress.
17:39Early in the morning of November 1st, 1944, Captain Ralph D. Steakley's F-13 became the first U.S. plane to fly over Tokyo since the Doolittle Raid.
17:55The weather was clear. Steakley took the first ever reconnaissance photos of Tokyo.
18:00These photos became the basis for all U.S. attacks on the city.
18:15Hansel's first strike on Tokyo was to be called San Antonio 1.
18:20After much training and many postponements, San Antonio 1 began at 6.15 a.m. on November 24th.
18:27The first plane to roll down Isley Field's runway was Dauntless Dottie flown by Brigadier General Rosie O'Donnell.
18:44His co-pilot, Major Robert K. Morgan, had been a pilot on the famous B-17 Memphis Belle.
18:52Dauntless Dottie was followed by 110 more B-29s carrying 278 tons of bombs.
18:59But the promising start to the mission unraveled.
19:0317 aircraft aborted.
19:05Six more found themselves unable to bomb for mechanical reasons.
19:17The rest were caught up in a 120 knot wind.
19:21It was the infamous jet stream, then only just being recognized.
19:25They were swept over the target at a blistering 445 miles an hour.
19:30It was too fast for accurate bombing.
19:32But on the positive side, Japanese fighter resistance was light.
19:39Flak was ineffective.
19:41Once again, reconnaissance photos showed the bombing results to be totally inadequate.
19:46Only 16 bombs had been observed to hit the target area.
19:49By now, the B-29 was performing fairly well.
20:01Extensive modifications had improved the reliability of its engines.
20:05But bombs were still not hitting the targets.
20:07The early Japanese analysis was that the costs of the B-29 were so great, and its results so negligible, that not even a wealthy nation like the United States could afford to persist in the attacks.
20:26But unknown to all of the Japanese, and most of the Americans, a change was in the wind.
20:36On December 18th, 1944, 84 B-29s of Curtis LeMay's 20th Bomber Command dropped 500 incendiary bombs in a daylight raid on Hangkau, China.
20:47The attack destroyed the city as a major Japanese base.
20:56As a result of the success of LeMay's incendiary raid, Hansel's 21st Bomber Command was ordered to make a test raid on the city of Nagoya in Japan.
21:04It would be made by at least 100 B-29s, all dropping incendiary bombs.
21:20Hansel objected, saying that he wanted to continue precision bombing of the Japanese aircraft industry.
21:25In doing so, he put his career on the skids.
21:29You can buck the brass in the military, but only if you succeed.
21:36A test raid was run on Nagoya on January 3rd, 1945.
21:4197 B-29s carried mostly incendiary bombs.
21:45It was not a good mission.
21:47Only 57 aircraft bombed the designated target.
21:50Damage on the ground was slight.
21:52The Japanese drew the conclusion that their fire prevention system was highly efficient.
22:02It was an erroneous and eventually disastrous assumption.
22:08Hansel reverted to his previous precision bombing tactics.
22:12He was unable to generate better results, apart from one successful attack on the Kawasaki aircraft plant near Kobe.
22:17That one success didn't help Hansel.
22:24If you worked for Hap Arnold, you delivered or you were relieved.
22:34Hansel was relieved by Major General Curtis E. LeMay.
22:40Hansel's forte was planning.
22:42The time for planning was past.
22:43Now was the time for direct action, which was Curtis LeMay's strength.
22:48As a new commander, LeMay received more latitude than Hansel.
22:53He made two attacks using Hansel's methods.
22:56Then he put 69 aircraft over Kobe to drop incendiary bombs.
23:03There was heavy fighter opposition.
23:05Two B-29s were lost and 35 were badly damaged.
23:08But the city of Kobe was hurt.
23:14More than a thousand buildings were destroyed.
23:23In the latter part of the war, America's overwhelming advantage in numbers and quality usually allowed American forces to brush Japanese opposition aside.
23:31As the precision bombing efforts continued, further tests were made with incendiary bombs.
23:37In a heavy attack on Tokyo on February 25th, almost 30,000 buildings were destroyed.
23:52But the precision strikes against Japan continued to be ineffective.
23:57Enemy fighter opposition stiffened.
24:00In the series of attacks in February, 29 B-29s were lost to fighters.
24:05Ten were lost to flak.
24:06Almost as many were lost on the long overwater trip between Saipan and Japan.
24:25Another 21 crashed because of operational problems like engine fires, runaway propellers or fuel exhaustion.
24:32And so far, the results were insignificant.
24:37The B-29, the multi-billion dollar bomber, had failed in its intended role.
24:42But Curtis LeMay already had the remedy in mind.
25:03LeMay was aware that he was as vulnerable to Hap Arnold's impatience as any other man.
25:07He decided to try tactics he'd long considered and which had been carefully tested in the United States.
25:17It was the common opinion that Japanese cities were much more vulnerable to firebombing than those of Germany.
25:23And although Japanese industry was spread out into residential areas, it was still far more concentrated than its German counterpart.
25:32The B-29 had been designed from the start as a high altitude bomber.
25:36In the European theater, it would have had to remain so.
25:40But conditions were different in Japan.
25:42Anti-aircraft guns and searchlights were not radar controlled.
25:45It was reported that there were only two night fighter units in the homeland.
25:50Japanese airborne radar was primitive and not widely used.
26:00Without notifying General Arnold, LeMay decided to launch a series of maximum effort low-level incendiary night attacks against Japan.
26:07He was putting his career on the line.
26:15Night bombing offered many advantages.
26:18The winds were not so strong.
26:20The B-29's navigation system operated more efficiently.
26:24Flying at lower altitude eased the strain on the engines.
26:27It lowered fuel consumption.
26:28Leaving behind armament and ammunition permitted a much bigger bomb load, about 12,000 pounds per plane.
26:44The concept of unarmed low-level night bombing alarmed many of LeMay's staff.
26:50The word murder was quietly mentioned, but never to LeMay.
26:53The first raid was set for the night of March 9th.
26:57334 B-29s carried almost 2,000 tons of bombs.
27:02The aircraft in the lead squadrons were to act as pathfinders.
27:06Their napalm bombs were intended to start major appliance fires, which would require the mobilization of all the Japanese firefighting equipment.
27:13The rest of the B-29s each carried 24 cluster units of M69 incendiary bombs.
27:23The M69 was designed by a high-level group of American scientists and engineers, some of whom were also involved in the Manhattan Project.
27:32Each M69 was only 20 inches long and 3 inches in diameter.
27:36It weighed just over 6 pounds.
27:40On crashing through the roof of its target, it was designed to detonate and spew out flaming gel as far as 30 yards.
27:47The gel stuck to whatever it hit and burned with hellish intensity.
27:51The technology of the M69, and the great logistics and supply effort needed to deliver it to its target, was an expression of the disparity between the American and Japanese war machines in 1945.
28:08The Japanese simply had no counter and no equivalent.
28:16On the evening of March 9th, it took almost three hours for LeMay's entire force of B-29s to get airborne.
28:21The bombers would approach Tokyo individually at altitudes from 4,900 to 9,200 feet.
28:29Over Tokyo, the visibility was 10 miles or better.
28:41The napalm bombs of the Pathfinder aircraft started fires that were fanned by a brisk.
28:50Over Tokyo, the visibility was 10 miles or better.
28:53The initial attack hit a 12-mile square of the most densely populated part of the city.
29:08The fires spread rapidly and the results were devastating.
29:15The fire services were overwhelmed within 30 minutes of the first attack.
29:19A firestorm swept the city.
29:22More than a quarter of a million buildings were destroyed.
29:25More than a quarter of the city's houses were gone.
29:29More than a million people were homeless.
29:3183,000 were dead.
29:34160,000 were injured.
29:37The Japanese were horror-stricken.
29:40There was no way to comprehend the disaster of this magnitude.
29:43It completely overrode ideas of national superiority, and of the samurai spirit, and of the nation's place in the sun.
29:52On March 11th, the city of Nagoya became the target for incendiary attack.
30:05There was no firestorm, but two square miles of the city were destroyed.
30:09Osaka was attacked on March 13th.
30:19The city was blanketed by cloud cover, and the B-29s were forced to use radar bombing.
30:24Unexpectedly, that gave more uniform results than visual bombing.
30:28Within three hours, more than eight square miles of the city were totally destroyed.
30:32Morale in the B-29 units kept climbing.
30:38LeMay had found the magic formula.
30:41He made maximum use of the B-29 in tactics that took advantage of the enemy's weaknesses.
30:46These tactics converted the B-29 from a blunder to a war-winner.
30:51LeMay was on a rampage.
30:53He drove his crews hard.
30:55They were already flying 60 hours a month.
30:57That was higher than the average of the 8th Air Force in Europe.
31:00But there was a shortage of replacements.
31:03And that shortage forced LeMay to increase monthly combat time to 80 hours.
31:08He had the scent of victory in his nostrils.
31:12Victory over Japan.
31:14And victory for the concept of air power.
31:19LeMay knew that he had arrived at a point that General Karl Spatz and Bomber Harris had only dreamed of.
31:25He had the ultimate weapon at his disposal.
31:27And he knew that there was more to come.
31:33He believed that with maximum effort, his command could destroy Japan's ability to wage war.
31:38The strength of the 21st Bomber Command grew every day.
31:46By April, LeMay had more than 500 aircraft at his disposal.
31:51On May 11th, he launched a further attack on three Japanese cities.
31:56His goal was to create such havoc that the terrible cost America had borne invading Okinawa would not be repeated in Japan.
32:03By June 15th, he had destroyed 112 square miles of Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama and Kawasaki.
32:12His B-29s now had the benefit of long-range escort fighters, P-51s from Iwo Jima.
32:27LeMay had destroyed the six principal industrial cities of Japan at a cost of 136 aircraft.
32:45The American loss rate, 1.9 percent, was acceptable, but the reality of it was still horrific.
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33:23Japan was not able to stop this destruction.
33:37It lacked anti-aircraft guns, radar, fighters to repel the invaders.
33:42It lacked fire engines, bomb shelters, and hospitals to help its citizens.
33:48Yet Japan was held captive by a martial spirit.
33:50That spirit had served the country ill on almost every battlefield in this war,
33:56but the government vowed to fight on.
34:00LeMay and the 21st Bomber Command had brought Japan to its knees, but it would not surrender.
34:09The B-29's success in area bombing was a great relief to all those who had staked so much on its development.
34:20At the time, few people were aware of the Manhattan Project and the essential role the B-29 would have in the successful delivery of an atomic weapon.
34:31By July 1941, a decision had been made to create an atomic bomb before the Germans did.
34:37The Manhattan Project eventually employed 120,000 people, including the country's top engineers and scientists.
34:48The mammoth $2 billion effort had its first success at Almogordo, New Mexico.
34:53On July 16th, 1945, an experimental bomb was detonated with results that were incredible, even to those who had created it.
35:03Word of the successful test was immediately sent to the new president, Harry S. Truman.
35:20Truman, who was a novice, was plunged into the Potsdam Conference with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.
35:26The atomic bomb buoyed Truman's confidence.
35:30It also gave him a stronger hand in dealing with the Soviet Union.
35:35Truman mentioned to Stalin that a powerful new weapon had been tested.
35:40Stalin responded that he hoped it would be used to good effect against the Japanese.
35:45Truman was pleased that Stalin did not press for more information.
35:48He was unaware that Stalin already knew what he needed to know from the Soviet spies at the center of the Manhattan Project.
36:01The Potsdam Declaration of July 26th indirectly warned the Japanese of the power of the new weapon.
36:08It stated that the only alternative to surrender was prompt and utter destruction.
36:13Japan was badly wounded by the B-29 raids.
36:21It was also cut off from food and industrial imports.
36:25Japanese leaders were fully aware that the war was lost, but as yet had not found a way to acknowledge it.
36:32A cultural phenomenon emerged, unfamiliar to the West.
36:35It was moksatsu, a time-honored technique by which a Japanese officer would take refuge in lofty silence
36:43if he did not agree with or did not understand an order.
36:46When the new Japanese Prime Minister, Suzuki, announced his response to the Potsdam Declaration,
36:54he used the term moksatsu.
36:56He meant to say, in essence, no comment.
37:00But his remarks were translated as meaning that Japan was contemptuously ignoring the declaration.
37:07It was a fatal error.
37:08In early 1944, plans for modifying 15 B-29s were formulated.
37:19The modifications were not extensive.
37:22The atomic bombs were being designed at the same time.
37:25The designs were adapted as much as possible to fit the B-29's bomb bay.
37:30The following summer, Arnold authorized a top-secret team of experts to create the first combat unit to use the new weapon.
37:41Colonel Paul W. Tibbetts, Jr. was elected as commander of the new 509th Composite Group.
37:47The remainder of the group was hand-picked to get the best possible people.
37:51For a long time, Tibbetts was the only person in the 509th to know the true nature of the mission.
37:57The special facilities required for handling and loading the atomic bomb were prepared on Tinian in the spring of 1945.
38:06By July, the 509th and its specially modified B-29s were in place.
38:15Further training began immediately with six specialized missions.
38:19Some of them involved harassment bombing of isolated garrisons on the islands of Truck and Marcus.
38:27After July 20th, the 509th crews executed 38 sorties, gaining experience in the precise tactics to be used when the atomic bomb was dropped.
38:36These sorties also made the site of small formations of B-29s seem customary and innocuous to the Japanese.
38:44A list of target cities was drawn up.
38:55It included Kyoto, Hiroshima, Niigata, and Kukura.
39:01They were the largest cities with the least damage remaining in Japan.
39:05Kyoto was removed because of its cultural significance and because of the negative reaction in Europe to the bombing of Dresden.
39:12Truman and Secretary Stimson felt the destruction of Kyoto might drive Japan into the Russian camp after the war.
39:23Hiroshima was now at the head of the line.
39:25Later, Nagasaki was added to the list.
39:28On Tinian, all the necessary elements of the strike were prepared.
39:33Field Order No. 13 was signed on August 2nd, 1945, by Lieutenant General Nathan Twining.
39:39It directed the 509th group to make a visual attack on Hiroshima.
39:46At one time, Hiroshima had been a busy naval port.
39:50But the port had been mined, and now the population was reduced to under a quarter of a million people.
39:57There were many military installations.
39:59The entire economy was geared to the Japanese war effort.
40:03There were no Allied prisoner of war camps in the area.
40:12Seven aircraft were assigned to the mission.
40:14Leading the principal force was Tibbetts in Enola Gay, named after his mother.
40:20Enola Gay was accompanied by two escort planes, crammed with cameras and observers to record the event.
40:25Three aircraft were assigned duty as weather planes.
40:29One was designated a spare.
40:32On August 4th, the crews were told of the exact nature of their mission
40:36and of the bomb's predicted 20,000 tons of TNT power.
40:40But even then, they were not told it was an atomic bomb.
40:43At 2.45 in the morning of August 6th, the Enola Gay took off.
41:01Five and a half hours later, Tibbetts received word that weather and visibility were good.
41:06At exactly 09.15, Enola Gay was flying at 328 miles an hour at 31,600 feet.
41:15Bombardier Major Thomas Farabee dropped the bomb.
41:30Tibbetts then executed what later became known as a breakaway maneuver,
41:34a steeply banked 150-degree turn to avoid the expected blast.
41:40By the time the bomb exploded, 50 seconds later, the Enola Gay was 19 miles away.
41:50At detonation, there occurred the fireball,
41:53followed by the swiftly rising mass of smoke that turned into the notorious mushroom cloud,
41:59the cloud that still casts its symbolic shadow.
42:02President Truman immediately announced the event to the world.
42:06The news amazed even many members of the 509th composite group.
42:10The Japanese reaction was confused.
42:26Officially, they diminished the results of the attack.
42:29They said only that it was a new bomb which should not be made light of.
42:35Certainly not.
42:364.7 square miles of Hiroshima's center had been obliterated.
42:41More than 40,000 buildings were destroyed.
42:44Almost 80,000 people were killed.
42:47One hundred and seventy-one thousand were made homeless.
42:50The U.S. Navy carrier forces maintained pressure against Japan
43:04while the sole remaining atomic weapon in the world was prepared for use.
43:08The second and last atomic mission of the war began at 0349 on August 9th.
43:31Major Sweeney and his crew flew boxcar.
43:33They traded their aircraft, the Great Artiste, to Captain Frederick C. Bach.
43:41Sweeney's mission was as troublesome as Tibbetts had been trouble-free.
43:45The primary target was Kokura, but it was weathered in.
43:49Sweeney made three bomb runs.
43:51The bombardier couldn't see the target visually.
43:53Some Japanese fighters were in the area.
44:03Sweeney diverted to the secondary target, Nagasaki, which was also cloud-covered.
44:12Boxcar used radar for its run-in.
44:14At the last minute, the bombardier, Captain Kermit Behan, saw the target.
44:19At 10.58, he hit the bomb release.
44:23Most people were either at work or at home when the bomb detonated
44:28within one mile of two huge Mitsubishi arms factories.
44:31Please.
45:01Nagasaki's ball-shaped terrain confined the effects of the bomb to a relatively small 1.45 square mile area.
45:12Approximately 35,000 people were killed.
45:21Incredibly, Emperor Hirohito's advisers on the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War still debated whether or not to surrender.
45:30As Adolf Hitler had done, the military faction still wanted to resist in the hope of obtaining better terms.
45:37On August 19th, the Japanese announced not their surrender, but their willingness to accept the Potsdam Declaration,
45:46as long as it did not prejudice the prerogatives of the Emperor as sovereign.
45:54In the days preceding the Japanese statement, routine B-29 missions had continued.
45:59On August 11th, they were suspended to give negotiations a chance to mature.
46:06The United States responded to the August 10th Japanese statement by advising that from the moment of surrender,
46:12the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese government were subject to the supreme commander of the Allied powers.
46:18It added that the ultimate form of the government of Japan shall be by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people.
46:25When no word came back from the Japanese government, LeMay's B-29s were authorized to resume attacks.
46:41General Arnold had long wanted his own Tokyo Millennium, a thousand aircraft over Tokyo, while General Spatz would have preferred to use a third atomic bomb if one had been available.
46:56LeMay was able to meet Arnold's wish.
46:59He put up a total of 828 bombers and 186 fighters, over a thousand aircraft in all over Tokyo on August 14th.
47:12Before the last aircraft had landed, Japan had surrendered.
47:19The American forces continued to make a display of air power over Japan.
47:27This reached a highlight on September 2nd.
47:30462 B-29s cruised over Tokyo Bay, while the surrender was signed aboard the USS Missouri.
47:37In the meantime, 900 B-29s had dropped almost 5,000 tons of supplies to more than 63,000 prisoners of war in camps in Japan, China and Korea.
47:56The initial drops were medicine, vitamins, food and clothing.
47:59These were followed by regular weekly drops until the prisoners were evacuated.
48:04As in Europe, it was probably the only humane way to end a vicious war.
48:34At that rate of treats, the ensure that the prisoners of all were aggressive and insurgent in the same time,
48:36it was always as follows as the prisoners of war.
48:37The air is a nation of rock.
48:38This is our nation ofρόêmica, air is one of the most famous things that people can follow.
48:39The air is on our ground-nated air-nated air on the shore.
48:40Its no one of the most famous animals, according to the air.
48:41The air is not off-the-air on the shore.
48:42Our air is to water-nated air, and in the air, we have a little bit of the air.
48:44Our air is on the air-nated air.
48:46The air is on the air.
48:48The air is on the air-nated air-nated air.
48:49The air is on the air after this air.
48:50The air is on the air.
48:51The air is on the air.
48:52Transcription by CastingWords
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