The Day the World Went Nuclear by Bill O'Reilly
There is a fine Pearl Harbor display and film at the USNA Museum, but for the greatest effect, readers are encouraged to visit the USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to looking around a detailed museum and watching a vivid film detailing the attack and its aftereffects, visitors can travel by boat to the spot in the harbor where the Arizona still rests. Many of the men who died when she exploded and sank that Sunday morning are still entombed inside the ship. Many of those who survived the attack have requested that upon their deaths, their ashes be placed within the Arizona so that they might be laid to rest with their former shipmates.
On display nearby, positioned so that its guns symbolically protect the memorial and the men of the Arizona, is the USS Missouri. The Mighty Mo is a museum ship now, and visitors can come aboard to see the precise spot on which the Japanese surrender documents were signed.
The author would also like to thank the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and distinguished World War II writer and researcher Brian Sobel.
* * *
What follows are other resources utilized in this writing. This list is by no means exhaustive but will provide the readers with a road map to use in their own historical investigations.
Websites, Newspapers, and Archives: General Background Information
News Sources: New York Times, Life magazine, Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, Washington Post, Spokane Daily Chronicle, Australian, Wall Street Journal, Times of India, Associated Press, U.S. News & World Report, New Yorker, Japan Times, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Marine Corps Chevron, Fox News, PBS, BBC.
Websites: Architect of the Capitol (www.aoc.gov); Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives (www.clerk.house.gov); National Archives (www.archives.gov), especially dated February 26, 1945, entitled “Captured Japanese Instructions Regarding the Killing of POW”; Battle of Manila Online (www.battleofmanila.org); Congressional Medal of Honor Society (www.cmohs.org); Supreme Court of the United States (www.supremecourt.gov); FBI Records—The Vault (https://vault.fbi.gov); U.S. Department of State—Office of the Historian (history.state.gov); Central Intelligence Agency (www.cia.gov); USS Indianapolis (www.ussindianapolis.org); Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (www.thebulletin.org), especially Ellen Bradbury and Sandra Blakeslee, “The Harrowing Story of the Nagasaki Bombing Mission.”
Archives: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; United States National Archives; Princeton University Library, The Manhattan Project—U.S. Department of Energy; The George C. Marshall Foundation; U.S. Department of State—Office of the Historian; Library of Congress—Carl Spaatz Papers; Congressional Record, V. 145, Pt. 8, May 24, 1999, to June 8, 1999; Congressional Record, V. 146, Pt. 15, October 6, 2000, to October 12, 2000; National Library of Australia—Trove (archives of the Argus); U.S. Naval War College (especially the Nimitz Graybook); Harry S. Truman Library & Museum; Records of the United States Marine Corps; U.S. Naval Institute Naval History Archive; U.S. Army Center of Military History: Combat Chronicles of U.S. Army Divisions in World War II.
Peleliu
Adam Makos with Marcus Brotherton, Voices of the Pacific; E. B. Sledge, With the Old Breed; John C. McManus, Grunts; John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945; Major Frank O. Hough, USMC, The Assault on Peleliu.
MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences; Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 13: The Liberation of the Philippines—Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas, 1944–1945; Robert Ross Smith, Triumph in the Philippines (United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific); Gavin Long, MacArthur.
Truman
Jon Taylor, Harry Truman’s Independence: The Center of the World; Sean J. Savage, Truman and the Democratic Party; David M. Jordan, FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944; Jules Witcover, No Way to Pick a President; Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman; Steven Lomazow and Eric Fettman, FDR’s Deadly Secret; Leslie R. Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project; Thomas Fleming, Truman; David McCullough, Truman; Margaret Truman, Bess W. Truman; Steve Neal, ed., Eleanor and Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman; J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan.
Hirohito and Japan
Arne Markland, Black Ships to Mushroom Clouds: A Story of Japan’s Stormy Century 1853–1945; Francis Pike, Hirohito’s War: The Pacific War, 1941–1945; Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan; Michael Kort, The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb; D. M. Giangreco, Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945–1947; Douglas J. MacEachin, The Final Months of the War with Japan; Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, ed., The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals; Hutton Webster, Rest Days: The Christian Sunday, the Jewish Sabbath, and Their Historical and Anthropological Prototypes; Edward J. Drea, In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army; Noriko Kawamura, Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War; Gavan Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific; E. Bartlett Kerr, Surrender and Survival: The Experience of American POWs in the Pacific, 1941–1945; David M. Glantz, Soviet Operational and Tactical Combat in Manchuria, 1945: “August Storm”; Stephen Harding, Last to Die: A Defeated Empire, a Forgotten Mission, and the Last American Killed in World War II.
Air Corps
Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907–1960; Samuel Russ Harris Jr., B-29s Over Japan, 1944–1945: A Group Commander’s Diary; James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang, The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara; Edwin P. Hoyt, Inferno: The Fire Bombing of Japan, March 9–August 15, 1945; Graham M. Simons, B-29: Superfortress: Giant Bomber of World War 2 and Korea; Robert O. Harder, The Three Musketeers of the Army Air Forces: From Hitler’s Fortress Europa to Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants and Their War.
Trinity and Atomic Bombs
Everett M. Rogers and Nancy R. Bartlit, Silent Voices of World War II; Robert James Maddox, ed., Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism; Gar Alperovitz et al., The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb; Robert Cowley, ed., The Cold War: A Military History; Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb; Michael D. Gordin, Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War; Robert Jay Lifton, Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima; John Hersey, Hiroshima; Paul Ham, Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath; Al Christman, Target Hiroshima: Deak Parsons and the Creation of the Atomic Bomb; Charles Pellegrino, To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima; Gerard DeGroot, The Bomb: A Life; Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, ed., The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals; Dennis D. Wainstock, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki: August 1945; Ray Monk, Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center; Samuel Glasstone, ed., The Effects of Nuclear Weapons.
USS Indianapolis and U.S. Navy
Richard F. Newcomb, Abandon Ship!: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, the Navy’s Greatest Sea Disaster; Doug Stanton, In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors; Edwyn Gray, Captains of War: They Fought Beneath the Sea; Christopher Chant, The Encyclopedia of Code Names of World War II; Raymond B. Lech, The Tragic Fate of the U.S.S. Indianapolis: The U.S. Navy’s Worst Disaster at Sea; Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King—the Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea; Kit Bonner and Carolyn Bonner, USS Missouri at War.
Additional Sources
Brown University. Hiroshima: Ending the War Against Japan: Science, Morality, and the Atomic Bomb. 5th ed. July 2007. The Choices Program. www.choices.edu
Chaliand, Gérard. The Art of War in World History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994.
Eggenberger, David. An Encyclopedia of Battles. New York: Dover, 1985.
Hersey, John. “Hiroshima.” The New Yo
Kelly, Cynthia C. The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2009.
O’Reilly, Bill, and Martin Dugard. Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan. New York: Henry Holt, 2016.
Sheinkin, Steve. Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon. New York: Roaring Brook, 2012.
Truman, Harry S. Memoirs: 1945 Year of Decisions. Vol. 1. Reprint, New York: William S. Konecky, 1999.
INDEX
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Alamogordo Army Air Field
Allied forces, in Europe
Allied forces, in Pacific
Allison, Sam
Alvarez, Luis
American Embassy, Tokyo, Japan
Americans
on atomic bomb
Japanese
Anami, Korechika
antipersonnel bombs
Arnold, Hap
Ashworth, Frederick
atomic bombs
Americans on
B-29 bombers and
building of
Eisenhower on
Fat Man bomb
Groves and
Handy and
Little Boy bomb
MacArthur and
Manhattan Project and
opposition to
order to drop
Parsons, W., on
radiation from
Roosevelt, F., on
Spaatz and
Stimson on
targets of
testing of
Trinity
Truman, H., on
U.S. presidents on
Augusta, USS
B-29 bombers
atomic bombs and
Big Stink
Bockscar
crewmen on
Enola Gay
The Great Artiste
in Hiroshima
in Kure bombings
in Tokyo bombings
Baldwin, Hanson
balloon bombs
Bard, Ralph A.
Battle of the Bulge
Beahan, Kermit
Berlin, Germany
Big Stink
Birch, A. F.
Bockscar
crewmen on
Fat Man bomb and
Sweeney and
Tibbets and
Buckley, Edward K.
Bunker Hill, USS
Bush, George H. W.
Bush, George W.
Byrnes, James
Carter, James Earl
Cavert, Samuel McCrea
China. See Manchuria conflict
Churchill, Winston
in Potsdam summit
in Yalta conference
Clinton, Bill
“Day of Infamy Speech”
D-Day invasion
DeBernardi, Louie
Dehart, Albert
Doolittle, Jimmy
Doolittle raid
Early, Steve
Eatherly, Claude
Einstein, Albert
Roosevelt, F., and
after World War II
Eisenhower, Dwight D.
on atomic bombs
D-Day invasion and
Enola Gay
dropping of Little Boy by
Hiroshima and
Faillace, Gaetano
Farrell, Thomas F.
Fat Man bomb
Bockscar and
diagram of
dropping of
overview of
Ferebee, Thomas
Ford, Gerald
Forrestal, James
France
fukkaku strategy
Genbaku Dome
Geneva Conventions
Germany. See also Potsdam summit
atomic bomb attempts of
Berlin
Hitler and
invasion of
surrender of
Graham, Frank H.
The Great Artiste
Groves, Leslie
in Los Alamos
Manhattan Project and
Guadalcanal
Hague Conventions
Halsey, William
Handy, Thomas
Hanford Engineer Works
Hatanaka, Kenji
Hensel, H. Struve
Hirohito
Hiroshima and
on Japanese military defense
during Japanese surrender
on Leyte, Visayan Islands
MacArthur and
after Manchuria invasion
Nagasaki and
surrender speech by
during Tokyo bombings
after World War II
Hiroshima
B-29 bombers in
bombing of
description of
destruction of, after bombing
Enola Gay and
Genbaku Dome in
Hirohito and
immediate and lasting effects of
Imperial Palace after bombing of
Lewis and
Little Boy bomb and
MacArthur and
map of destruction in
news on
post-attack mosaic of
pre-attack mosaic view of
Sweeney in
as target
Truman, H., after
warnings to
Hitler, Adolf
Hopkins, James I.
Hunter’s Point, San Francisco, California
Imperial Guard
Imperial Japanese Army
Imperial Japanese Navy
Imperial Palace
after Hiroshima bombing
during Japanese surrender
after Manchuria invasion
Indianapolis, USS
internment camps. See relocation centers
Iwo Jima, Japan
Japan. See also Hiroshima; Nagasaki
American Embassy, Tokyo, Japan
atomic bomb attempts of
Geneva Conventions and
Hague Conventions and
Imperial Japanese Army
Imperial Japanese Navy
Imperial Palace in
Iwo Jima
kamikaze pilots from
Kokura
Kure bombings
Kyushu
Leyte, Visayan Islands and
MacArthur, on invading
major bombings in
in Manchuria conflict
Manila, Philippines, and
national morale in
occupation of
Okinawa Island
Operation Olympic in
Pearl Harbor and
Potsdam summit and
Sasebo Naval Station in
Soviet Union and
Supreme Council for Direction of War in
Tokyo Bay
Tokyo bombings, March 10, 1945
Tokyo bombings, March 18,1945
Toyama
war crimes by
Yasukuni Shrine in
Japanese Americans
Japanese messages and codes
Japanese military defense
fukkaku strategy
Hirohito on
Imperial Japanese Navy and
Ketsu-Go strategy
military training and
preparing for invasion
Japanese prisoners of war
Japanese surrender
conditions of
Hirohito during
Imperial Palace during
letter of
news of
Potsdam summit and
refusal to surrender
revolts relating to
surrender ceremony, on Missouri
surrender spe
in Tokyo Bay
Truman, H., and
Jeppson, Morris
“Jewel Voice” broadcast
Jornada del Muerto Desert
atomic bomb testing in
kamikaze pilots
Ketsu-Go strategy
King, Ernest
Kistiakowsky, George
Koiso, Kuniaki
Kokura, Japan
Kuharek, John D.
Kure bombings
Kyushu, Japan
Lawrence, David
Leahy, William D.
LeMay, Curtis
attacks by
in Tokyo bombings
Lewis, Robert
Leyte, Visayan Islands
Hirohito on
Japan and
MacArthur in
Sutherland in
Yamashita and
Little Boy bomb
dropping of
Hiroshima and
mission for
overview of
preparation for dropping
Tibbets and
Los Alamos, New Mexico. See also Manhattan Project
Groves in
Oppenheimer in
theater group in
M-69 firebombs
MacArthur, Douglas
in Allied Forces
atomic bombs and
background on
Hirohito and
Hiroshima and
on invading Japan
Kyushu and
in Leyte, Visayan Islands
on Manchuria conflict
in Manila, Philippines
military strategy of
on Missouri
Nimitz and
in Operation Olympic
Truman, H., and
after World War II
Manchuria conflict
invasion, by Soviet Union
MacArthur on
Stalin and
Manhattan Project
atomic bomb testing by
Groves and
location of
Oppenheimer and