Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Japan's Surrender

On 6 August 1945 the US B-29 Enola Gay dropped a uranium atomic bomb, 'Little Boy', on Hiroshima, destroying most of the city. On 8 August the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and the next day invaded Manchuria. Also on 9 August, a plutonium bomb, 'Fat Man', was dropped on Nagasaki. By the end of 1945 an estimated 140,000 people had died in Hiroshima and around 70,000 to 74,000 in Nagasaki, from the blast, fire and radiation sickness; many more suffered long-term illness.

The victims included Korean forced laborers and some Allied prisoners. Japan's leadership was deadlocked until Emperor Hirohito intervened to accept surrender, and on 15 August his recorded radio broadcast announced it to the nation. A group of officers tried and failed to stop the broadcast. The formal surrender was signed on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, ending World War II.