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“I knew it was an important mission because we were told this mission had the potential to end the war,” Nelson wrote. That was one tipoff to the gravity of the situation. they boarded the plane in the glare of floodlights, with hundreds of officials present. They ate breakfast in the mess hall and said prayers in the chapel. As Nelson himself related in a posthumously published autobiography, “At the time I still did not fully understand the scope of the mission, or the strength of the weapon we were carrying.” 5 shortly before midnight for a briefing in which they learned they would be dropping a bomb. The crew had no idea what they were practicing for. Nelson flew on three routine missions on the B-29, each time accompanied by two other planes. Plane and crew were sent to Tinian, one of the Mariana Islands. On June 14, he was among those who went to Omaha, Nebraska to pick up the silver-plated B-29 from the factory. “He thought: ‘I can’t be a pilot, but I can be on a plane.’” A sergeant looked at his papers and told him: “Oh, you’re meant for overseas.” “Dick was just elated,” Nancy said. In April 1945, he reported to the 509th Squadron in Wendover, Utah. Unbeknownst to him, he was being investigated by the Manhattan Project’s security team. Everyone else in his class received assignments and shipped out. Instead, he went to the Air Corps’ radio school in South Dakota and after graduation was sent to the B-29 base in Clovis, New Mexico to await orders. Army after high school, hoping to become a pilot like his older brother. Nevertheless, she heard her husband’s stories so many times in the years to come that in his speaking engagements, if he’d forget a detail, he would look at her and she would prompt him.īorn in Moscow, Idaho in 1925, Richard relocated with his family to Los Angeles at age 3 and enlisted in the U.S. Nancy Nelson was only 13 when World War II ended. There is no reason to fear that unconditional surrender means obliteration of the Japanese people or bondage.We met Thursday, the 75th anniversary of the bombing. Present hardships and sickness will be stopped forever. Families who love their sons who are fighting uselessly in the front lines will see them return quickly to their old jobs. The power of the military group which has resulted in the present chaos will be destroyed. In short, it means the ending of the war. This unconditional surrender includes Japanese civilians too. Our forces demand unconditional surrender from your military abandoning of hostilities and laying down of weapons. The production of munitions which support Japanese operations, transportation, and manpower is obviously declining, and continuing the war not only increases the hardships of the people of Japan tremendously, but also is of no avail. "If your political and military leaders continue the war, our forces will overwhelm your's more and more, expanding our movements and increasing our attacks. These two photographs show the Atomic mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and aim point.īy Senior Photo Editor Radhika Chalasani Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced his country's unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945, describing the devastating power of "a new and most cruel bomb." Their destructive power was unprecedented, incinerating buildings and people, and leaving lifelong scars on survivors, both physical and psychological, and on the cities themselves.ĭays later, World War II was over. Tens of thousands died later in both cities from the effects of the nuclear bombs. dropped a second bomb, "Fat Boy," on Nagasaki killing an estimated 40,000 on August 9. The bomb wiped out 90 percent of the city and instantly killed an estimated 80,000 people. More than seventy years ago, the world changed forever when an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped the first atomic bomb, "Little Boy," over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, during World War II, on August 6, 1945.