On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, during the final days of World War II. The aerial bombings killed 150,000 to 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the first and only uses of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. In the final year of World War II, the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This undertaking was preceded by a conventional bombing and firebombing campaign that devastated 64 Japanese cities, including an operation on Tokyo. The war in Europe concluded when Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, and the Allies turned their full attention to the Pacific War. By July 1945, the Allies’ Manhattan Project had produced two types of atomic bombs: “Little Boy”, an enriched uranium gun-type fission weapon, and “Fat Man”, a plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapon. The 509th Composite Group of the U.S. Army Air Forces was trained and equipped with the specialized Silverplate version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, and deployed to Tinian in the Mariana Islands. The Allies called for the unconditional surrender of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945, the alternative being “prompt and utter destruction”. The Japanese government ignored the ultimatum.
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