![]() ![]() All that remained was the formal surrender, and the choice of venue. In his radio announcement of August 15 (August 14 in America), he cited the devastation rained by “a new and most cruel bomb.” At long last, the Second World War would finally end. Six days later, a shaken Emperor Hirohito finally declared the surrender of Imperial Japan. As everyone knows, Truman opted for the latter choice, detonating nuclear weapons on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, killing at least 100,000 Japanese people in the initial bombings. Truman from Missouri was faced with two possible and equally drastic measures: the amphibious invasion of Japan labeled Operation Downfall, which was predicted to cost millions of lives on both sides, or the delivery of the newly developed atomic bomb. With defeat all but inevitable, Imperial Japan still refused to capitulate. Even after the firebombing of 68 cities, including Tokyo, the stunning defeats at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the earlier neutralization of their allies, they fought on. For nearly four years, the Japanese had been a determined and relentless foe.
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