Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World

Okinawa is an island in the Pacific Ocean located southwest of the Japanese mainland. It was a major strategic location for combat in the Pacific theater. Originally controlled by the Japanese, it was captured by Allied forces after months of fighting, and used as a base of operations for the impending land invasion of Japan. It was the battle for Okinawa in particular that caused American generals to be trepidatious about the possibility of invading Japan, since the fight for the small island had been so violent and cost so many lives.

The Cold War refers to the period of tension between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, lasting from the late 1940s and into the late 1980s. During these decades, America and the Soviet Union were the world’s two greatest political superpowers, as well as those with the greatest potential for wide-scale nuclear destruction. The Cold War would be the cause of dozens of smaller conflicts and battles over the decades, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Truman’s bombing of Japan is often considered the beginning of the Cold War, serving as a warning to the global community that America now had nuclear power and would not be afraid to use it if necessary.

Many amazing and technically magnificent machines were developed as a result of the wars in the first half of the 20th century. The B-29 Superfortress bomber was an impressive specimen, crafted to be expressly used for the new military tactic of high-altitude bombing, allowing for a favorable ratio of damage caused compared to losses taken. Not only was it one of the largest aircraft ever built and used in combat, it was developed with state-of-the-art technology. The project to design the B-29 was actually far more costly than the Manhattan Project.