Seattle Times Trinity Web: Chronology of the War

COUNTING DOWN TO THE END OF WAR IN JAPAN

BY SALLY MACDONALD
Seattle Times staff reporter

Japanese diplomats were discussing the possibility of defeat in World War II even before the Germans surrendered in May 1945, bringing an end to the war in Europe.

But before the politicians could settle the matter, the Americans brought the war to their doorstep with months of conventional bombing of dozens of cities, followed by the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 1945, and Nagasaki three days later.

Here are some events in the summer of 1945 that accompanied, if not hastened, the end of the war with Japan.

June 21: The Battle of Okinawa, the last major island campaign in the Pacific, ended after nearly three months of savage fighting. About 175,000 people were killed, including 12,500 American servicemen, 120,000 Japanese forces and 42,000 Okinawa civilians.
June-August: Repeated air raids, involving up to 500 B-29s at a time, continued to batter Japan's midsize cities with conventional bombs. Earlier raids had devastated Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, including almost 100,000 who died when bombs touched off a firestorm in Tokyo during one raid.
July 16: The first test atomic bomb was exploded in the New Mexico desert.
July 17-26: American, British and Soviet leaders met in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam and issued a statement threatening utter destruction if Japan didn't surrender unconditionally.
President Truman told British Prime Minister Winston Churchill the New Mexico bomb test was successful, and later he casually mentioned to Soviet Premier Josef Stalin he had ``a new weapon of unusual destructive force.''
Aug. 6: The Enola Gay, a Boeing-built B-29, dropped an atomic bomb nicknamed Little Boy on Hiroshima. It exploded with the force of 20,000 tons of TNT and killed as many as 100,000 of Hiroshima's 400,000 people immediately; another 100,000 would die within five years of injuries or radiation poisoning.
Aug. 9: Another B-29, Bock's Car, dropped a second atomic bomb, Fat Man, over Nagasaki, eventually killing another 60,000 people.
Aug. 14: Japan announced surrender. (Aug. 15 in Japan.)