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The American landing craft approach the beach on the island of Okinawa. In the operation, which at first seemed of easy development,
took part more than half a million men. Okinawa was of so great importance because it was the last outpost of the Japanese metropolitan
territory.
In the morning of the 6th August 1945, a terrible explosion produced this mushroom-shaped cloud over the city of Hiroshima. It was the first
nuclear attack on History, which instantly killed over 90000 people but also doomed to a slow agony many more persons that were affected by the
radioactivity. Enemon Kawaguki, a patient who had been in the vicinity of both this explosion and the later of Nagasaki, died in
1957, being officially the victim number 163641.
The apocaliptic image of the center of Hiroshima turned into a immense desert of calcined and radiactive remains, ruins and debris, with the
largest part of the houses razed to the ground.
The Imperial Japan, with its industry totally collapsed, has surrendered. Destroyed fighter aircraft, including the legendary
"Zero" and the succeeding "Raiden", photographed in the airbase of Atsugi in November 1945.
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The island of Iwo Jima as seen from an aircraft the 17th February 1945. On the left can be barely seen the first landing craft
that took part in the amphibious attack, while on diverse parts of the island emerge smoke columns caused by bombings. The
Japanese tenaciously defended every ground span of Iwo Jima and often their resistance only ceased with the utilization of
flamethrowers.
An American strategic bomber B-29 Superfortress while exiting its hangar. Built through the most advanced techniques, these
superb machines were the largest bombers ever built until then. But they became known as well for the terrorist carpet bombings
effectuated over Tokio and the atomic bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Albeit the outcome of the war was already irreversibly set (for Japan no longer had a war fleet) the soldiers of the Rising Sun
continued fighting with extraordinary and heroical fanatism to keep the enemy far away from the homeland. To conquest the island
the Marines required 82 days of hard fight.
The 9th August the hell fell again from the air, this time over Nagasaki. If the explosion caused less victims it was only thanks
to the protection that a hill granted to part of the city.
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