Enola gay ww2 definition
Japan was used to losing cities to American bombing what their military leaders feared more was the destruction of the country’s military by an all-out Red Army assault.
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The Navy Museum acknowledges what many historians have long known: It was only with the entry of the Soviet Union’s Red Army into the war two days after the bombing of Hiroshima that the Japanese moved to finally surrender. Indeed, it would have been surprising if they had: Despite the terrible concentrated power of atomic weapons, the firebombing of Tokyo earlier in 1945 and the destruction of numerous Japanese cities by conventional bombing killed far more people. Furthermore, contrary to the popular myths around the atomic bomb’s nearly magical power to end the war, the Navy Museum’s explication of the history clearly indicates that “the vast destruction wreaked by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the loss of 135,000 people made little impact on the Japanese military.” Consider the small and little-noticed plaque hanging in the National Museum of the US Navy that accompanies the replica of “Little Boy,” the weapon used against the people of Hiroshima: In its one paragraph, it makes clear that Truman’s political advisers overruled the military in determining how the end of the war with Japan would be approached. By and large, the top generals and admirals who managed World War II knew better.
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This story may assuage the conscience of the air museum visitor, but it is largely myth, fashioned to buttress our memories of the “good” war.