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00:00Exactly 60 years ago last week, on the last days of World War II.
00:15In Europe, tensions eased as Soviet troops finally withdrew from the American and British sectors of Berlin.
00:23In the Pacific, a massive new wave of carrier-borne fighter bombers leveled Japanese airfields.
00:30And a mysterious German U-boat, believed to be carrying Nazi war criminals, was found abandoned off the coast of Argentina.
00:40Exactly 60 years ago this week, under a veil of secrecy, the United States tests the world's first atomic device in the remote desert of New Mexico.
00:49Three, two, one, go.
00:52On the outskirts of Berlin, the Allied leaders convene. Truman and Stalin meet face-to-face for the first time.
01:00And in the Pacific, a massive Allied naval armada begins an all-out bombardment of the Japanese home islands.
01:07July 15th, Belgium.
01:09Sixty years ago today, the USS Augusta docks in Antwerp.
01:13Its VIP passenger manifest includes President Harry Truman.
01:28July 15th, Belgium. 60 years ago today, the USS Augusta docks in Antwerp. Its VIP passenger
01:38manifest includes President Harry Truman. Truman makes a brief stop in Brussels for
01:44a visit with U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In just 24 hours, he will arrive at his intended
01:52destination in Potsdam, Germany. It is here at this 18th-century estate, located in the
01:59suburbs about 17 miles outside Berlin, where Truman will convene with Winston Churchill
02:04and Joseph Stalin. The Potsdam Conference was a continuation of the negotiations among the
02:12great powers, the great allied powers, U.S., Britain, and the Soviet Union, that had begun
02:18at Yalta. Churchill and Stalin have met many times before, but Truman, who has been in
02:24office for just three months, will come face-to-face with the Soviet leader for the first time.
02:32The three men plan to discuss the most pressing issues currently facing the world, the restabilization
02:38of post-war Europe and the war against Japan. July 16th, Potsdam, Germany. Formal talks between
02:48the Allies and the Allies are set to begin, but Stalin has not yet arrived, citing official
02:52business for his delay. Truman spends the day touring the ruins of Berlin. As he inspects the city,
03:00he is stunned by the level of destruction. I think they were all shocked by the amount of devastation,
03:08that the city really, particularly the central parts of the city, were in ruins. Many people had fled,
03:17people were living in cellars, people were trying to simply survive as best they could.
03:22His motorcade passes through the war-torn streets as women and children scavenge for food. Countless
03:30buildings and homes have been leveled, but as he witnesses the damage caused by conventional weapons
03:36of war, Truman quietly awaits word on the first test of a top-secret bomb, capable of destruction
03:44exponentially greater than what now lies before him.
03:49After three years of research and development, the scientists involved in the highly classified
04:03program to build an atomic weapon, the Manhattan Project, are about an hour away from the first
04:09assessment of their efforts. They are to detonate an atomic device. The test is codenamed Trinity,
04:17notwithstanding the word's other meaning. A pair of B-29s circling above the New Mexico desert,
04:24230 miles south of Los Alamos, report that the 30-mile-per-hour winds and heavy rains in the area
04:31have finally abated. The test is a go. The original reaction was that we finally arrived. Here it is. Let's go.
04:41The news comes as welcome relief to the military director of the Manhattan Project, Major General Leslie Groves.
04:49The ultimate head of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves was a big, tough-talking, no-nonsense army engineer.
05:05His assistant called him, quote, the worst son of a bitch I ever knew in my life, but that's the kind of man he was
05:12and he made the work happen. Groves was born in 1896 in Albany, New York. His father was a Presbyterian
05:20minister who later became an army chaplain. After studying at the University of Washington and MIT, Groves went on to
05:28West Point, where he graduated near the top of his class in 1918. In 1940, Groves was given the task of
05:36overseeing the construction of the Pentagon. Just two years later, he was appointed head of what was
05:42then known as the Manhattan Engineer District. This was the forerunner of the Manhattan Project,
05:48America's top-secret atomic program for which Groves would become the driving force.
05:53Groves was a very shadowy figure as far as we were concerned, and that was part of his intention.
06:00When he addressed various groups, you know, recruits of various kinds, they usually just introduced him
06:07as the general in charge of this thing, and they didn't even tell his name, because he didn't want
06:12to have his name floating around any wider than necessary. At first, his aggressive management style
06:18upset many of the people under his supervision. Groves, seemingly unconcerned about his popularity,
06:25asked those under his charge to do whatever it took to get the job done.
06:29When you got to Los Alamos, you tended to fall into a place that tested the limits of your ability
06:39to perform. It was less what you knew in terms of schooling or background, but what could you do?
06:46I mean, during the war, you did whatever anybody asked you to do, whatever your background.
06:52But before long, his commitment and energy for the task at hand would serve him well.
06:58He gained the respect and admiration of many of the bright minds recruited for the highly classified
07:03project. In 1942, Groves appointed physicist Robert Oppenheimer as scientific director of the Manhattan
07:11Project. Groves was named Lieutenant General in 1948 and soon after retired from the army.
07:20He entered the corporate world as a vice president of Remington Rand and remained with the company until
07:251961. He died less than a decade later on July 13, 1970.
07:31July 16, New Mexico. 60 years ago today, the world's first plutonium-fueled atomic device,
07:43Gadget, will be detonated. Two days ago, Gadget had been hoisted to the top of a 100-foot steel tower.
07:51And in a precautionary move, a 12-foot stack of mattresses had been laid at the base of the tower in
07:57case it fell prematurely. Early in the morning, after a rainstorm that scared everybody because
08:04there was thunder and lightning, the bomb was up on a tower. It was like a scene out of a Shakespeare
08:08play. They didn't know if lightning might hit the bomb and make the thing go off. So everyone was
08:13worried. There were guards at the foot of the tower who knew whether the Germans or the Japanese might
08:18come running in and do something.
08:20With the tempest now passed, many of Gadget's creators assemble in fortified concrete barracks
08:29just 10 miles away. Other observers are positioned up to 20 miles away from the testing site.
08:38But all wait with bated breath for the highly anticipated blast. No one knows for sure just
08:45how powerful the explosion will be, or if the device will even work.
08:50We were sitting there that very cold morning, looking toward where the tower was. We knew where
08:56it was. We couldn't see it from 20 miles. But we knew where the tower was. And
09:04we had some sense of what the concerns were.
09:09Eager scientists place bets on the magnitude of the impending blast.
09:13I bet 20,000 tons of TNT equivalent on the test shot at Trinity. That was a fairly high bet.
09:23I'm a wild gambler. I bet $10. I mean...
09:29But Groves and Oppenheimer become increasingly concerned about the potential effects of nuclear
09:34fallout. Oppie didn't want fallout to happen on some of the villages near the site. So he wanted the wind
09:42to be either in the right direction or no wind. Groves contacts the governor of New Mexico and warns
09:48him that martial law may have to be declared in the state, although he is not at liberty to explain why.
09:565 AM. Spectators in the observational bunkers prepare for the detonation.
10:02Everyone was in trenches or lying flat on the ground. They'd been told to face away. They'd been given
10:10square pieces of welder's goggle glass to hold before their eyes if they were far enough away to
10:16actually look toward the explosion. I certainly didn't cover my eyes and I certainly didn't look
10:21away. I looked directly at the place where I thought the bomb was going to go and saw it go.
10:32July 16th, 5 AM, New Mexico. In just 30 minutes, Gadget, the world's first plutonium-fueled atomic
10:40device, will be detonated. Gadget has been hoisted to the top of a tower 100 feet above the desert floor.
10:48The moment General Leslie Groves, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and hundreds more of those recruited to work on
10:55the Manhattan Project have been waiting for has finally arrived. 5.29 AM. The countdown begins.
11:048, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, now.
11:125.30 AM. The sky fills with an unimaginably bright light.
11:24There was this unbelievable light all over the desert. Brighter, someone said later,
11:31than a thousand suns, especially because it had been night. It was as if there were two dawns that morning.
11:37It was awesome enough because, you know, you had to think about the fact that you were 20 miles away
11:46and that all of that at 20 miles? My God, what was it like? Close in.
11:5160 years ago this very day, a vast fireball climbs into the air and is seen from as far away as 125 miles.
11:59And then it got bigger and darker. It cooled as it cooled. The color of the exploding material
12:07changed from the bright white to yellow to red. And it swirled and it tore. And this fireball,
12:15and it was literally a ball of plasma, of hot gas.
12:19As the spectators watch the events unfold in stunned silence, the fireball disperses,
12:28and a mushroom-shaped cloud of black smoke soars 40,000 feet into the air.
12:34A thunderous blast follows, shaking the earth with a force previously unknown to man.
12:40The steel tower that once held Gadget has completely vaporized.
12:49Only a smoldering crater 1,000 feet wide and about 9 feet deep remains.
12:56The heat generated by the explosion is more intense than the temperature inside the sun.
13:02The desert sand melts and fuses into green glass that scientists would later call trinitite.
13:11It was as if someone had opened an oven door from 20 miles away.
13:16That's how much heat there was in this fireball that reached them finally.
13:20Gadget's blast is felt throughout southern New Mexico and parts of Texas and Arizona.
13:2760 years ago today, the world's first atomic device, the equivalent of nearly 20,000 tons of TNT,
13:34is successfully detonated.
13:36Everybody was amazed, awed at the power behind this.
13:40It was tremendous.
13:42Absolutely tremendous.
13:44The people at Los Alamos who were down there for the test were elated.
13:51They had been working literally night and day for two years.
13:56They weren't at all sure that this new invention of theirs was going to work.
14:01They were elated to see that it worked.
14:03It was, in a certain sense, a very large physics experiment.
14:08But as the reality of what's happened sinks in,
14:11those who've witnessed the event begin to consider the consequences of their creation,
14:16some for the first time.
14:18It wasn't like a National Football League, you know,
14:21a game when people slap each other on the back and jump in each other's arms.
14:24Nothing, nothing like that.
14:26But, you know, we turned to each other and said,
14:28well, it was a good shot.
14:30It was a good shot.
14:32And some of us, certainly me,
14:34began to think afterwards, okay, so we've done this.
14:40Now what?
14:41Most of us thought that the bomb should not be used against a civilian target
14:47without giving the Japanese a chance to surrender by seeing it tested.
14:52They were all asked to write their impressions within 24 hours of the test.
14:58And one in particular, a very thoughtful Nobel laureate physicist named Isidore Robbie,
15:02wrote, a new thing had been born, a new relationship between man and nature.
15:08And he said, I thought about our little wooden houses back home in Cambridge, Mass.
15:14And I was afraid.
15:17Today's successful test in the New Mexico desert marks the dawn of the atomic age.
15:22At the turn of the 20th century, Albert Einstein first predicted that mass could be converted into energy.
15:37John D. Cockcroft and Ernest Walton confirmed this theory experimentally in 1932.
15:46Two years later in London, Leo Szilard, a Hungarian-born refugee from Nazi Germany,
15:51discovered that splitting atoms or fission would set off a chain reaction,
15:56resulting in the release of massive amounts of energy.
16:00In December 1942, Enrico Fermi, an Italian physicist who had escaped Mussolini's
16:07fascist regime, conducted an experiment on a squash court beneath the University of Chicago's
16:12football stadium that ultimately led to the first controlled nuclear chain reaction.
16:19Fermi's understanding of the power of atomic energy was almost prophetic.
16:24In January 1940, Enrico Fermi at Columbia University took me to the window,
16:31one of the top floors, and said, if this bomb really succeeds, it will destroy such and such
16:38a section of New York City, at least. He pointed out with his fingers the outline,
16:44and I was greatly impressed and scared at the same time.
16:48Alarmed by the destructive potential of atomic energy,
16:51Albert Einstein sent a personal letter of warning to President Franklin Roosevelt on October 11, 1939.
16:58nuclear physicists in the U.S. convinced the government, however,
17:04that German scientists were already working on the development of atomic weapons.
17:10But it was not until 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, that the U.S. started its own atomic
17:17bomb program in New York City, the Manhattan Project. Over the next four years, the U.S. government
17:24would funnel roughly $2 billion into the Manhattan Project, the equivalent of about $21 billion 60 years later.
17:36Research and development was split between three main sites.
17:40Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where uranium-235 was produced.
17:45Hanford, Washington, where plutonium was generated by nuclear reactors.
17:49And Los Alamos, New Mexico, headquarters of the National Atomic Laboratory.
17:58Two types of atomic weapons were developed simultaneously.
18:02One was the U-235 gun type, dubbed Little Boy.
18:07The other was the plutonium atomic bomb known as Fat Man, an implosion bomb previously unknown to man.
18:15Nobody had ever made anything like that in the world before. Nobody knew whether or not it would work.
18:21So we had to test it.
18:23Following the successful test of gadget, the plutonium atomic device in Alamogordo, New Mexico,
18:29on July 16, 1945, scientists went back to work immediately, building the weapons that would soon alter the course of history.
18:38July 16, New Mexico, 60 years ago today, the world's first atomic device, the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT, has just been successfully detonated.
18:53After witnessing the unprecedented blast, General Groves is certain he has produced a war-ending weapon.
19:00He turns to his deputy and makes a prophetic statement.
19:04The war is over. One or two of those things and Japan will be finished.
19:09After three years of the highest tension, with difficult decisions dependent to a great extent on theory,
19:18our minds were set at rest on July 16, when the first atomic bomb exploded.
19:24It had to be witnessed, to be realized. And it is a universal hope of all present,
19:31that no American citizen will ever witness it on United States soil again.
19:38Oppenheimer, however, is mortified by what he's just seen.
19:42He realizes the profound implications of this new weapon.
19:46We knew the world would not be the same.
19:51Few people laughed.
19:55Few people cried.
19:57Most people were silent.
20:02I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita.
20:08Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
20:11I suppose we all thought that one way or another.
20:24Born in 1904 to wealthy German Jewish immigrants,
20:28young J. Robert Oppenheimer would become known as the father of the atomic bomb.
20:33He was extremely self-confident, with a great deal of reason to be self-confident.
20:39His stupid hat was always cockeyed, coming down, and half the time he was walking like he was in deep thought.
20:46If you had the responsibility that guy had on your shoulders, you'd walk in that deep thought also.
20:50Oppenheimer discovered his passion for physics at Harvard University.
20:54He went on to receive a doctorate in quantum physics from Germany's distinguished University of Göttingen in 1927.
21:04Soon after, Oppenheimer returned to the United States and acquired a position teaching physics at the University of California at Berkeley.
21:11But it was the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938 that captivated Oppenheimer and led him down the path that would eventually cement his place in history.
21:25Early in his career, Oppenheimer had been known to be sympathetic to communism and his politics drew the attention of the FBI.
21:32In late 1942, despite the misgivings of U.S. intelligence agencies, as well as a few of his fellow scientists, General Leslie Groves tapped Oppenheimer to head up his team of scientists in the development of the Manhattan Project.
21:50He was chosen to direct the laboratory to everyone's confusion and consternation.
21:55He didn't seem like an administrative type at all.
21:58But he was also someone who, somewhat insecure in himself, was a great actor.
22:05He had a different face for different people.
22:08And in a way, this job as lab director was his finest role.
22:13I've known a lot of physicists in my long and checkered career.
22:19And I'm not sure I've ever met one that could have pulled off what Oppenheimer did during the war.
22:26He had people doing things that didn't compete with each other, but complemented each other.
22:34Working round the clock with some of the brightest scientific minds,
22:38Oppenheimer eventually produced the weapon that turned the tides of the war in the Pacific
22:42and shifted the balance of power around the world.
22:45After the war, he was appointed director of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton.
22:52From 1947 until 1952, he headed up the Atomic Energy Commission.
22:58But with the Cold War heating up, Oppenheimer's past came back to haunt him.
23:04A secret report emerged accusing him of obstructing hydrogen bomb research
23:09and alleged a connection to communism in the 1930s.
23:12There was no hard evidence to substantiate the claim, but the damage was done.
23:19In late 1953, at the height of McCarthyism, he was designated as a security risk.
23:25And in June the following year, he was stripped of all security clearances.
23:29In 1963, however, his reputation was restored when U.S. President Lyndon Johnson presented him
23:35with the Atomic Energy Commission's highest honor, the $50,000 Enrico Fermi Award for his lasting
23:43contribution to theoretical physics and for his outstanding work on the peaceful use of atomic energy.
23:50Oppenheimer remained at Princeton until his premature death from throat cancer at the age of 63 in February 1967.
23:5860 years ago this week, following the successful test of gadget in Alamogordo,
24:06differing views in both the scientific community and the U.S. military regarding the use of atomic weapons begin to emerge.
24:14The process of scientific discovery, which once overshadowed everything else, now gives way to a moral awakening.
24:20Well, there were a lot of people in the military who weren't keen about the dropping of the atomic bomb,
24:25including Dwight D. Eisenhower, who of course was in Europe, but who, you know,
24:30really felt Japan was defeated and that this was an unnecessary use of the weapon. But there was no guarantee.
24:39Ultimately, the decision to drop an atomic bomb on Japan will be made by one man,
24:44the President of the United States. July 16th, Potsdam, Germany. President Truman receives a coded message
24:53from General Groves. The message reads, operated on this morning, diagnosis not yet complete,
25:00but results seem satisfactory and already exceed expectations. Truman now knows the Trinity test was
25:08a success. The President shows little emotion, but his demeanor transforms from uncomfortable to
25:15confident. When he learned that the atomic bomb had successfully been detonated, it probably began to
25:21occur to him that the war could be ended quickly. It has been estimated that Allied casualties for a
25:27ground war in mainland Japan could reach one million. And despite the devastating effects of General
25:34Curtis LeMay's incendiary bombing, Truman knows the war in the Pacific could drag on indefinitely.
25:41A prospect that has weighed heavily on his mind for months.
25:47Today, upon receiving the news, Truman would remark that the U.S. has an ace in the hole and an ace
25:53showing. Words he used to characterize the newly constructed atomic bomb, as well as the economic and
25:59military might of the United States. In just three days, Truman would approve the production of 20 more
26:06plutonium-type bombs. But first, he would come face to face with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
26:12I don't think he yet knew enough about the atomic bomb, or knew enough to think about it as the
26:20fundamentally different kind of weapon that, in fact, it was, the kind of world-changing weapon.
26:26He wasn't yet convinced that the atomic bomb would make the Soviet Union unnecessary to him.
26:34July 17th, Potsdam, Germany. Stalin finally arrives at the conference one day late. Some believe that
26:42Stalin is late not because of official business, but that he may in fact have suffered a minor heart
26:47attack. Others think he had merely been trying to appear important. Over the next several days,
26:56the three men will hammer out details for the division of Germany, and the fate of refugees
27:00from Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Italy. They will also demand the unconditional surrender of Japan.
27:10July 18th, Potsdam, Germany. Sixty years ago today, Allied leaders meet in their second formal session.
27:17Truman has already informed Churchill of the successful Trinity test in a cryptic code.
27:22Babies born satisfactorily. The British Prime Minister would later declare,
27:27from that moment, our outlook on the future was transformed. In the eyes of both world leaders,
27:32the atomic bomb not only changes the balance of power between the US and Japan, but also the balance of
27:39power between Russia and the West. Churchill and Truman hoped to preempt Soviet imperialism in the Far East
27:45by bringing a swift end to the war in the Pacific. Unbeknownst to both men, however, Stalin knows full
27:52well of Truman's secret weapon. Information about the Manhattan Project had been leaked to the Soviets
27:59by German-born physicist Klaus Fuchs, one of the many scientists recruited to work at the Los Alamos laboratory.
28:07Truman will inform Stalin about the Trinity test and its success several days from now on July 24th.
28:14The reaction of the Soviet leader will leave Truman in stunned disbelief.
28:20July 20th, Potsdam, Germany. Today, the Allies continue their conference and agree that all
28:26Nazi war criminals now in custody will be put on trial in the West German city of Nuremberg,
28:33the site of many of Hitler's greatest and most spectacular rallies.
28:37Occupation forces in Germany continue to hunt Nazi officials and SS men in anticipation of the trials.
28:48Sixty years ago this same day, Truman attends a flag-rising ceremony in Berlin. The stars and stripes
28:55that flew above the Capitol building in Washington on December 7th, 1941, the day Pearl Harbor was attacked,
29:02is hoisted above U.S. headquarters in Berlin. In his speech, Truman reminds Allied occupation forces
29:09that the U.S. has no imperial ambitions in Europe or in the Pacific.
29:14Let's not forget that we are fighting for peace and for the welfare of mankind.
29:23We're not fighting for conquest. There's not one piece of territory or one thing of a monetary nature that
29:32we want out of this war. We want peace and prosperity for the world as a whole.
29:40This week, far removed from the power struggles unfolding in Berlin, the heavy cruiser the USS Indianapolis
29:48is about to set sail on a critical mission.
29:53July 15th, San Francisco. Unbeknownst to its captain and crew, the USS Indianapolis is being loaded with
30:01components to construct an atomic bomb. All we were told was that we were carrying a secret weapon.
30:09The captain didn't even know what it was. The best rumor that I heard on the way across the ocean
30:16was that we were carrying 20,000 rolls of scented toilet paper for MacArthur.
30:24After a brief stop in Pearl Harbor, the ship is to proceed to the island of Tinian to make a top secret
30:29delivery. We were told that every hour that we could save going across the Pacific to the island of Tinian,
30:39we could possibly shorten the war by that much. July 16th, 8 a.m. With nearly 1,200 sailors and marines
30:48on board, the Indianapolis sets sail on the first leg of her voyage. Also on this very day, the Imperial
30:55Japanese submarine I-58 stealthily pulls away from her moorings in Kure, Japan. In less than two weeks,
31:04the ships will cross paths in the waters of the Pacific, an ill-fated encounter that will go down
31:09in U.S. naval history as the war's worst disaster at sea. As the Indianapolis and I-58 steam towards their
31:20destinations, back in the U.S. this week, war-weary Americans looking for inspiration find an unsuspecting
31:27hero. July 16th, Audie Murphy, a poor Texas farm boy and highly decorated European veteran from the war
31:37in Europe, appears on the cover of Life magazine. He is instantly transformed into a national symbol of hope
31:46and bravery. During World War II, a nation hungry for heroes turned to Audie Murphy, whose courage and
32:02gallantry in combat earned him the respect and admiration of his fellow soldiers and countrymen.
32:08Deserted by his father at the age of 10, Murphy was orphaned six years later when his mother died.
32:14It was then that he adopted a new family, the army.
32:20At age 18, Murphy's first overseas assignment was with the 15th Regiment,
32:243rd Infantry Division, that was preparing to invade Sicily and fight its way to Rome.
32:32In the ensuing campaign, Murphy proved himself in combat and earned a bronze star.
32:36On January 26th, 1945, during the Battle of the Colmar Pocket in eastern France, Murphy's company came
32:46under attack by six panzer tanks and 250 infantrymen. Murphy ordered his men to fall back to the nearby
32:55woods to defend themselves. Murphy, however, stayed forward. While stalling the German advance, Murphy was
33:02wounded in the leg, but he continued to fight, killing 50 enemy soldiers. By V.E. Day, just shy of his 21st
33:10birthday, he was awarded the nation's highest award for gallantry in action, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
33:17Murphy would receive 33 medals, including three Purple Hearts.
33:21He returned to his hometown of Farmersville, Texas, a hero. But this July 1945 Life magazine cover would
33:31ultimately transform the hero into a Hollywood legend. At the urging of James Keckney, Murphy would
33:38later turn his newfound fame into an acting career and would star in more than 40 movies, including the
33:45adaptation of his autobiography to Hell and Back. Perhaps not surprisingly, he would receive the best
33:52reviews of his career for his role in the Red Badge of Courage. As an American hero is welcomed home with
34:01open arms, halfway around the world, the U.S. Navy launches a massive naval armada to assault the Japanese home
34:09islands. July 15th, the Pacific Ocean. 1,000 U.S. fighters take off from carrier decks of Task Force 38.
34:21The carriers hone in on Hokkaido, mainland Japan's northernmost island. Aboard the battleship Missouri,
34:28overall command over the Allied naval force is held by Admiral William Bull Halsey.
34:39They didn't call him Bull for nothing. Commander of the largest and most powerful naval group ever to
34:50be assembled in the Pacific, the press nicknamed Admiral William Halsey Bull because of his aggressive
34:56and daring attitude. The son of a naval captain, Halsey was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1882.
35:04Trained at Annapolis, he won the Navy Cross, commanding Atlantic destroyer patrols
35:08during the First World War. In 1935, at the age of 52, Halsey qualified as a Navy pilot. Three years
35:18later, he was appointed commander of carrier group two. Five years later, he became a vice admiral.
35:26Thirsty for revenge after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Halsey led his carrier task force in the
35:31Doolittle raid on Japan in April 1942. Halsey's mantra was, kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs.
35:41At the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, he fell for a Japanese ruse and led part of the U.S. 3rd fleet after a decoy.
35:50With the help of Admiral Thomas Kincaid's 7th Fleet, however, Halsey was able to take on a fleet of Japanese
35:59carriers and either sink or severely damage all of them. For Halsey, anything less than Japan's total defeat
36:08was unacceptable. July 16th, 60 years ago today, Halsey's Task Force 38 meets Task Force 37,
36:18the British Pacific Fleet. A contingency plan for the impending invasion of Japan is formed.
36:25British warships will join the U.S. in a combined air and naval assault. July 18th, several hundred
36:34carrier-borne aircraft take off from Halsey's 3rd Fleet. Once again, they score several important hits.
36:41The most rewarding, the Japanese battleship the Nagato, the largest ship remaining in the Japanese fleet.
36:49As the bombardment of Japan from the waters of the Pacific intensifies, the U.S. Air Force announces
36:55that to date, 127 square miles of Japan's major cities have been effectively destroyed in 261
37:03B-29 bombing raids. July 19th, mainland Japan. Nearly 500 B-29s drop roughly 3,500 tons of incendiaries
37:17over the cities of Choshi, Okasaki, Fukui, and Hitachi. For the Japanese civilians on the ground,
37:25there is no respite from the relentless wave of destruction. Two days later, a U.S. 5th Air Force
37:32intelligence officer declares in a report, the entire population of Japan is a proper military
37:38target. There are no civilians in Japan. Our firebombing was not discriminatory. There was
37:45no, there was no distinction between industry and civilian residents when we dropped tens of thousands
37:50of pounds of firebombs on cities and burned out whole cities as we had been doing. The bombing raids,
37:56they say, are meant to spare American lives, shorten the agony which is war, and bring about an enduring
38:03peace. The U.S. issues an ultimatum to Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki. Surrender unconditionally,
38:11or face total destruction and a dictated peace. Japan, however, does not heed this warning. In the midst of
38:20unyielding bombings and destruction, the Japanese Supreme War Council is deadlocked and unable to agree
38:26on the decision to surrender. This week, unbeknownst to the Japanese, the crewmen of the 509th Composite
38:33Group are focused on a mission that is aimed at breaking the Japanese resolve once and for all.
38:40July 20th, Tinian Island. The 509th, relocated from their base in Utah, continue their top secret
38:48training over mainland Japan. Flying specially modified B-29s, the men simulate high-level raids,
38:56carrying odd oblong-shaped missile shells of the same general shape and weight as the Fat Man atomic bomb.
39:03For lack of a better term, they're called pumpkins. 60 years ago today, 10 of the 18 specially modified
39:11planes of the 509th fly pumpkin missions over the Japanese cities of Kuriyama, Fukushima, Nagaoka,
39:18and Toyama. Before long, these unorthodox military exercises would draw suspicion and criticism from
39:25the other pilots who have been flying dangerous and non-stop incendiary bombing missions over Japan.
39:32There was a lot of not-so-good-natured ribbing of the 509th, which had its own special place on the
39:38island and its own special privileges on the island. This, after all, was the base for another 2,000,
39:43some number like that, crews that were living under considerably harder conditions than the 509th.
39:50The rest of the B-29s there, every night or every other night, they were on their way to the empire,
39:57dropping incendiary bombs and all that. And they'd come back, and here is the fancy gold-plated airplanes
40:03of the 509th still sitting there. At its peak, the 509th had a total strength of 225 officers and 1,542
40:11enlisted men, all working under this veil of secrecy. Despite the disparagement, the pilots follow
40:17orders and continue their cryptic drills over Japan. They have no idea what their true purpose is or when
40:23they will be called into action. All they've been told is that their mission has the potential to
40:28change the outcome of the war. Tibbets made it crystal clear, you people are on a special mission.
40:36Don't necessarily ask me what it is. It's very important. And he's even went so far, he says,
40:42I think what we're going to do is end the war. And from a security point of view,
40:48he was absolutely forbidden to tell them what their ultimate experience was going to be.
40:54Next week, on the last days of World War II, in Europe, President Truman will make the call,
41:03the atomic bomb will be used against Japan. The final release message that we got from
41:10Washington said, we released it to you to use, but not before the 2nd of August. In the U.S.,
41:18a plane will crash into the Empire State Building, unleashing waves of panic on the streets of New
41:23York City. And in the Pacific, the U.S. says Indianapolis will continue its long and treacherous
41:30voyage, setting the stage for the greatest disaster in the history of the United States Navy.
41:36There were 1,197 men aboard the ship. We ended up with only 317 survivors five days later.
41:56Thank you for listening.
42:10.
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