The Bomb

Airpower, the invention of a terrible new weapon and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Manchuria finally brought the Empire of Japan to its senses in August 1945. The official, unconditional surrender of Japan took place aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. The Second World War was finally at an end.

The atomic cloud over the Japanese city of Nagasaki following the detonation of a plutonium bomb called Fat Man, dropped at 11.01 am 9 August 1945.

July 1945

The Trinity Test of the first atomic bomb is successful. The Potsdam Conference, 16 July to 2 August 1945, decides on Nazi Germany’s punishment for its aggressive war and crimes against humanity. The conference also aims to establish peace treaties, European reconstruction and agree to the new world order.

6 August 1945

Having refused to give its unconditional surrender to the Allies, Japan is attacked using a single atomic bomb. The city of Hiroshima is utterly destroyed. It’s estimated 80,000 people die immediately. By year’s end, injury and radiation brings the total casualties to around 140,000 people.

9 August 1945

A second atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

2 September 1945

The official surrender of Japan is accepted by the Supreme Allied Commander, General Douglas MacArthur, US Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz and delegates from the Allied powers on board the American battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.  The Second World War (WW2) is officially over.

The Result

The Second World War was the most brutal and costly conflict in all of human history. It saw the widespread killing of civilians, genocide on an industrial scale, the use of atomic weapons and a final estimated death toll of around 70 million people.

The Cold War

Celebrations of the defeat of Nazi Germany and her Axis partners were short-lived. Soon the Soviet East and Democratic West would face each other in an ideological struggle known as the Cold War. It would divide Europe for the next 50 years.