On April 24, 1944, 2nd Lt. John R. Pedevillano was flying in a B-17 over Nazi territory when the fighters escorting his formation were drawn away in combat, leaving the bombers defenseless against air and ground fire for an hour.

Sixteen U.S. planes went down, and Pedevillano — the youngest B-17 bombardier in the 306th Bomb Group — was hit. But he and his crew managed to keep flying, going down behind enemy lines only after dropping their payload on Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany.

Pedevillano remained a Nazi prisoner of war for a year before he was liberated by Gen. George S. Patton's forces, and the U.S. Army Air Forces bombardier went on to a quiet career with Westinghouse, eventually retiring in College Park.

His heroics might have gone unheralded like those of thousands of others of his generation had they not come to the attention of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee and himself a former prisoner of war in Vietnam. In a ceremony Tuesday, McCain presented Pedevillano, now 93, with a Presidential Unit Citation to honor, 71 years later, his unsung valor.

Pedevillano, now walking with a cane for the blind, wept as he listened to the citation. As is typical of heroes of his generation, he found the attention on him entirely misplaced.

"There were 16 million other people in the service," he told me through his tears after the Air Force string quintet closed the ceremony with the service's "Wild Blue Yonder" song. "They'd done just as much as I did and deserved everything I've gotten."

Pedevillano, receiving the gratitude of the nation, returned the thanks. "I just can't thank this country enough for what they've done for me and for all of us," he said. "I just can't — I just break down when I think of all the blessings I have been given."

It's heartwarming that, as the Greatest Generation departs, heroes such as Pedevillano are getting recognition they didn't get earlier, when such sacrifice was common. It's also good for those of us who haven't been called, because their sense of humble service and of national unity seems to elude us in public affairs.

This is the first Congress in more than 60 years without a World War II vet. It's no accident that the rise of the Greatest Generation in politics was also a time of American greatness and that their declining numbers have come with decline and dysfunction in Washington. They knew a cause greater than self and an enemy greater than a political opponent.

McCain, though a bit younger, knows something of that, and he recalled that Sens. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) — from opposite parties but the closest of friends — recuperated in the same hospital from their war wounds.

Their decades-long quest for common purpose, and Pedevillano's quiet heroism, stands in jarring contrast to the all-too-typical squabbling that occurred before McCain's committee Tuesday morning.

McCain berated Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey over Middle East policy, accusing the administration of "self-delusion" and calling the nation's top uniformed officer "intellectually dishonest."

It was a different McCain, serene and nostalgic, at Pedevillano's ceremony a few minutes later. "This is a generation which, let's be very frank, is now leaving us," McCain said, as the honoree clutched a rosary in one hand and dabbed his eyes with the other. "The inspiration that they provided to us, whether we served in the military or not, is something that is of transcendent importance."

Gen. Larry Spencer, the Air Force's vice chief of staff, recalled the triumph and tragedy of the "Mighty Eighth ," in which Pedevillano served under the command of Jimmy Doolittle. Pedevillano's 306th Bomb Group was later celebrated in the Gregory Peck film "Twelve O'Clock High." The Eighth Air Force suffered 47,000 casualties, including 26,000 deaths. "Thank you doesn't seem like enough," Spencer told Pedevillano.

Yet it almost seemed too much to the diminutive World War II bombardier, who tried often to escape his captors at the Nazi prison Stalag Luft 7, and who was forced to march 300 miles as his jailers tried to evade invading allied troops. In a barely audible voice, he voiced only one regret as he modestly accepted his commendation. "Unfortunately my wife, after 64 years, is not here with me," he said. "She's now interred at Arlington National Cemetery, and in the very near future I hope to be with her."

Pedevillano has earned that rest with her and with the brothers he lost more than 70 years ago. We do well to remember them. We would do better to emulate their quiet and selfless sense of country.

Twitter: @Milbank

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When the American military calls, America’s pastime answers. Here are 14 men who played on the diamond before serving on the battlefield. All of them went above and beyond in either the game or combat, and some distinguished themselves in both.

1. Yogi Berra volunteered to man a rocket boat leading the assault on Normandy.

Yogi Berra made his minor league debut with the Norfolk Tars in 1943, playing 11 games and earning an impressive .396 slugging average. But Berra’s draft card came in that year and he headed into the Navy.

Berra became a gunner’s mate and volunteered for a special mission to pilot rocket boats in front of the other landing craft at D-Day. The boats used their rockets and machine guns to hit enemy positions on the coast and draw their fire so the other ships could land.

After the war, Yogi Berra went on to play in the major leagues and became one of the most-feared batters in baseball. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.

2. Joe Pinder left the minor leagues and earned the Medal of Honor on Omaha Beach.

Joe Pinder spent most of his baseball time in Class D in the minors, but he rose as high as Class B for a short period. He joined the Army in January 1942 and was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division, where he fought in Africa and Sicily. On D-Day, Technician 5th Grade Pinder was wounded multiple times and lost needed radio equipment during the struggle to reach the beach. He kept going back and forth in the surf, retrieving items despite sustaining more injuries.

“Almost immediately on hitting the waist-deep water, he was hit by shrapnel,” 2nd Lt. Lee Ward W. Stockwell said, according to Baseball’s Greatest Sacrifice. “He was hit several times and the worst wound was to the left side of his face, which was cut off and hanging by a piece of flesh.”

After refusing medical treatment multiple times and finally getting his radio equipment all back together, Pinder was killed by a burst of machine gun fire to the chest. His bravery and perseverance earned him the Medal of Honor.

3. Jack Lummus excelled at baseball, football, and being a Marine Corps hero.

Jack Lummus was a college football and baseball star when he signed a contract with the Army Air Corps in 1941. He then signed a contract with a minor league team and played 26 games with them while awaiting training as a pilot. Unfortunately, Lummus clipped his plane’s wing while taxiing and was discharged.

Lummus then played professional football, playing in nine of the New York Giants’ 11 games in 1941. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lummus finished the season and volunteered for the Marine Corps. He served as an enlisted military policeman for a few months before enrolling in officer training.

At the battle of Iwo Jima, he was a first lieutenant leading a rifle platoon against three concealed Japanese strongholds. Wounded twice by grenades, Lummus still singlehandedly took out all three positions and earned the Medal of Honor. He stepped on a land mine later that day and sustained mortal wounds.

4. Bob Feller left a six-figure contract to join the Navy after Pearl Harbor.

Hall of Famer Bob Feller won 76 games in three seasons before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The day after the attack, Feller walked away from a $100,000 contract and enlisted in the Navy. He was originally assigned to play baseball for troop entertainment, but enrolled in gunnery school to join the fight in the Pacific. Feller spent 26 months on the USS Alabama, seeing combat at Kwajalein, the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands.

5. Ted Williams left the majors twice to fight America’s wars.

A lifetime Boston Red Sox player, Ted Williams only took two breaks from Major League Baseball. The first was for World War II and the second was for the Korean War.

In both, Williams served as a Marine fighter pilot though he didn’t see combat in World War II. In Korea, he flew 39 missions with Marine Aircraft Group 33, surviving ground fire that damaged his plane on two occasions before an ear infection grounded him for good at the rank of captain. He earned the Air Medal three times, the Presidential Medal of Freedom once, and a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

6. Warren Spahn fought in the Battle of the Bulge after his major league debut.

Warren E. Spahn pitched his first major league game in 1942, but joined the Army later that same year. He would fight as an engineer in the Battle of the Bulge, the Bridge at Remagen, and other important battles in the European theater.

After World War II, Spahn returned to the major leagues and played into his 40s. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973 after earning 14 All-Star selections and a Cy Young Award during his career.

Spahn is commonly credited with having earned a Bronze Star at the Bridge of Remagen due to a false, unauthorized biography. The book claimed to be his biography but was mostly fabricated. Spahn sued the writer and publisher for defamation and for violating his privacy, and he won the case in the Supreme Court. Spahn did earn a Purple Heart in the war.

7. Bernard Dolan and a teammate play, fight, and earn posthumous service crosses together.

Bernard “Leo” Dolan was a minor league pitcher who conducted spring training with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1917. He wasn’t picked up by the Pirates and so continued to pitch in the minor leagues. When his team was disbanded, he finished the season with a semi-pro team before joining the U.S. Army.

In France on Oct. 16, 1918, Cpl. Dolan was wounded and took cover. He saw another soldier hit and rushed from his cover to assist, exposing himself to enemy fire and earning him a Distinguished Service Cross. He was hit again during the rescue attempt, leading to his death.

Dolan was friends and teammates with another baseball player who died heroically in the same battle, Sgt. Matt Lanighan. Lanighan was a semi-pro player who died just after capturing German machine guns and prisoners . He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

8. Tom Woodruff left a promising minor league climb to earn three valor awards in the Navy.

Tom Woodruff was a shortstop climbing through the minor leagues in St. Louis when he was drafted into the U.S. Army. Initially, he served in Army Public Relations but transferred to the Navy to become an aviator.

He became a fighter pilot and served in the Pacific in 1944 aboard the USS Enterprise, seeing combat in the Pacific multiple times, most of which was in the Philippines. He earned the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross with Gold Star as a Navy lieutenant junior grade. He was shot down over the Philippines on November 14, 1944, but his body was never recovered.

9. Pitcher Stanford Wolfson was executed by the Germans after his tenth bombing mission.

Stanford Wolfson played for multiple teams in the minor leagues as a pitcher and outfielder from 1940 to 1942. On Oct. 15, 1942, he joined the Army Air Force as a bomber pilot, earning a commission as a second lieutenant. From December 1943 to November 1944, he flew nine bombing missions over Nazi Germany. On November 5, 1944, he flew a tenth and final mission and was ordered to bail out by the pilot after the plane took heavy damage from anti-aircraft fire.

Most of the crew bailed out, though the pilot and bombardier successfully crash landed the plane in France. Wolfson, like the rest of the crew, was picked up by German authorities. When the Germans learned Wolfson was Jewish, they executed him in the city outskirts. The suspected killer was tried in Dachau in 1947 and executed. Wolfson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal, and Purple Heart.

10. Billy Southworth, Jr. flew 25 combat missions in Europe.

The son of Baseball Hall of Famer William H. Southworth, Billy Southworth spent 1936 to 1940 playing minor league ball at various levels.

In 1940, he enlisted into the Army Air Corps and flew out of England for most of the war. He was promoted numerous times, earning the rank of major as well as numerous awards including the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf clusters. He flew 25 combat missions in Europe before returning to New York.

In early 1945, he was training B-29 pilots. While piloting one of the B-29’s, Southworth attempted an emergency landing after an engine began smoking. he overshot the runway and crashed into the water near LaGuardia Field, New York.

He had been signed to an acting contract to take effect at the war’s end, but he died just months before the war concluded.

11. Keith Bissonnette flew fighters in Burma.

An infielder and outfielder who distinguished himself in the minor leagues, Keith Bissonnette left baseball to join the Army Air Force. He earned his commission and became a fighter pilot in the 80th Fighter Group, flying missions in P-40 Warhawks and P-47 Thunderbolts between India and China from 1944 to 1945.

He was killed in action as a first lieutenant on March 28, 1945 in a crash. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service.

12. Clarence Drumm fought in America’s first battle of the Great War.

Clarence Milton Drumm was a minor league infielder/outfielder in the minor leagues from 1910 to 1914. It’s unclear what Milton did between his successful 1914 season and his entering the Army in 1917, but he was commissioned as an Army second lieutenant in 1917 and was ordered to France to serve in World War I.

Drumm was killed in action May 28, 1918 by an enemy shell in America’s first battle of World War I, the Battle of Cantigny. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Citation Star, a precursor to the modern Silver Star, for his bravery and leadership in the battle.

13. Gus Bebas gave up his commission and his baseball uniform to become a Navy pilot.

Gus Bebas was a Naval Reserve Officer and minor league pitcher at the start of 1940, but he gave up both his baseball contract and his commission to pursue a career as a Naval aviator. He was selected to be an aviation cadet in early 1941 and became an ensign and aviator in September of that year.

Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Bebas was assigned as a dive-bomber pilot aboard the USS Hornet. Bebas first saw combat on June 6, 1942 in the Battle of Midway. He pushed through extreme anti-aircraft fire to achieve a near-miss that damaged a Japanese ship, earning him a Distinguished Flying Cross. He died during a training mission in 1942.

(h/t to Gary Bedingfield and his site, Baseball in Wartime, an exhaustive look at the intersection between baseball and the military. Bedingfield is also the author of the book, “Baseball in World War II Europe.”)

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Thanks to the digital camera, battlefield artists are quickly fading in relevance.

But handcrafted battlefield art often best evokes the realities of past armed conflict. Art from the skies of World War II is an fascinating genre unto itself.

Check out this blast-from-the-past aerial-combat art, a portal into the way aerial warfare used to be waged.

This post is originally by Geoffrey Ingersoll and Robert Johnson

Until the arrival of dedicated units like the US Army Air Corps' "Burma Bridge Busters," low-level attacks on Japanese supply lines were carried out by Royal Air Force Hurricane fighter-bombers like the ones shown taking out a bridge here.

Outraged when his guns jammed and determined to take down his foe, Parker Dupouy slammed his fighter into a Japanese plane to take it down.

Way less precise, way more aggressive.

In 1940, while the US still enjoyed relative peace, the Brits battled for the skies over England.

The Spitfire is synonymous with the Battle of Britain, the air war that started today, July 10, 75 years ago. The single engine fighter was at the frontline of British defence against countless waves of German bomber’s nightly attacks that lasted for three months and three weeks.

Yesterday, a restored Vickers Supermarine Spitfire Mark.1A, P9374, sold for a record £3,106,500 ($AU6.4 million) in London overnight, more than £500,000 above its top estimate. It was auctioned by Christie’s.

The plane is just one of two airworthy Mk.1 Spitfires and over the past several decades it’s been on an extraordinary journey thanks to American gold investor, philanthropist, plane buff and unabashed Anglophile Thomas Kaplan, chairman of the New York-based Electrum Group.

P9374 was the 557th RAF Spitfire to roll off the production line of 22,000, but it crashed on a beach near Calais on May 24, 1940, when Flight Officer Peter Cazenove, of the famed London stockbroking family, was on his first combat mission. Before belly-landing on the beach, Cazenove had radioed that he was OK, and: “Tell mother I’ll be home for tea!”

Cazenove managed to link up with a British regiment, but was captured when the Germans overran Calais. He became a POW, ending up in the notorious Stalag Luft III, on the German-Polish border, where he helped organise the legendary Great Escape, which saw 76 POWs escape in March 1945. Cazenove was a big man and wouldn’t fit in the tunnel. Coincidentally, 92 Squadron CO Roger Bushell, also known as “Big X”, the mastermind of the Great Escape, was among eight pilots who also flew P9374 before the crash.

Bushell was among 50 escapees executed by the Gestapo. Cazenove survived the war and died in 1981, still wondering what happened to his Spitfire.

The plane disappeared under the sand for the next four decades until heavy tides scoured the beach and the heavily corroded, barnacle-encrusted yet still intact wreckage made a return in September 1980, only to be heavily damaged by souvenir hunters and a salvage crew.

The remains ended up at the Musée de l’Air in Paris, and was subsequently passed around until Kaplan got wind of the find in 2006. He bought the wreck and embarked on a three-year restoration costing millions of dollars at the Aircraft Restoration Company in Duxford, England. P9374’s Rolls-Royce Merlin engine roared back to life in 2011 and it returned to the air.

Kaplan’s next step was even more remarkable. He put the Spitfire up for sale, pledging to donate the proceeds to charity. The $6.4 million raised from the sale of Spitfire P9374 has gone to the RAF Benevolent Fund, leading wildlife conservation charity Panthera, WildCRU and Stop Ivory.

The 52-year-old entrepreneur and his wife, Daphne, didn’t stop there. They also owned the only other flying Spitfire Mk.1, N3200, and donated it to the Imperial War Museum Duxford.

Kaplan said he embarked on the project with his childhood friend, Simon Marsh, to pay homage to the pilots Churchill called “the Few”, standing against the might of Hitler’s bomber force.

“The knowledge that P9374 has found a fine home, combined with the return of N3200 earlier today to the Imperial War Museum Duxford, marks the end of a profound journey of remembrance for us,” he said.

“Today’s events are, more than anything else, concrete gestures of gratitude and remembrance for those who prevailed in one of the most pivotal battles in modern history. History tells us all that there comes a time when one simply has to step up… to act with passion, and to remember with gratitude the few that actually do.

“And so it is with full hearts that we congratulate the buyers at the auction, as well as the Imperial War Museum, for their new acquisitions… and the wonderful causes which will be the recipients of these truly extraordinary auction proceeds.”

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In 1939, the U.S. Coast Guard had been turning away recruits for years during the Great Depression. But, the Seattle office found itself with seven openings in September of that year and admitted seven new men to the force.

One of them was future Signalman First Class Douglas Munro who would go on to earn a Medal of Honor at the Battle of Guadalcanal. He is the only Coast Guardsman to earn the award to date.

Douglas Munro was born to American parents in Vancouver, Canada in 1919, but grew up in Washington State. After one year of college, he enlisted in the Coast Guard. He volunteered for service aboard a Coast Guard cutter and was promoted. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the Coast Guard to man certain position on Navy ships, Munro volunteered for service on the USS Hunter Liggett.

Munro saw service on different Navy ships, gaining rank and changing commands until becoming a signalman first class aboard the USS McCawley. Meanwhile, U.S. military planners had their eyes set on Guadalcanal, a strategic island chain in the Pacific that was part of the Solomon Islands. Guadalcanal was especially important because Japanese forces were building an airstrip on the island.

The Marines began their campaign on August 7, 1942. The airstrip was quickly captured but Japanese defenders maintained control of the westernmost portion of the island. A river separated most of the U.S. and Japanese territory. Repeated attempts by the Marines to cross the river were rebuffed by Japanese forces.

The Marines adopted a new plan, commanded by none other than then-Lt. Col. Chesty Puller, for three companies of Puller’s Marines to land at Port Cruz, a position north of the Japanese forces, and push their way south.

Munro commanded the ships for the assault, and things initially went smoothly. The Marines landed with no resistance and quickly pushed 500 yards inland without major incident. After dropping off the Marines, all but one ship returned to the American base.

But the Marines had walked past hidden Japanese positions, and their counterattack was brutal. A friend of Munro was in the landing craft that remained at the beach. Then-Signalman Raymond Evans described what happened next in a Coast Guard video.

“In the meantime, all our boats had gone back to the base except the major had requested we leave one boat behind, for immediate casualties.  And so I stayed, I elected to stay behind and I had a coxswain named Sam Roberts from Portland, and the two of us were laying to in this LCP.  Unfortunately, we laid too close to the beach and the Japanese fired an automatic weapon at us and hit Roberts, hit all the controls, the vacuum controls on the boat. I slammed it into “full-ahead” and we tore out of there and I tore back to the, to the base, four miles, and when I got to the base, I pulled it out of gear, but it wouldn’t come out of gear, so we ran up on the beach, which is a long sloping sand beach.  Ran up on the beach the full length of the boat before it stopped.”

Roberts died during a medical evacuation. Soon after Evans returned to the American base, word came down that the Marines at Port Cruz were to be evacuated. Puller headed out to sea to personally supervise the Naval artillery fire covering the evacuation while the Coast Guard hopped into their boats to go and pick up the Marines. Evans moved into Munro’s boat for the return mission.

When the Coast Guard arrived at the beach, it was clear that the Marines were in a desperate position. They had 25 wounded and were under heavy fire. The beach was only five to six feet wide from the water to the jungle, and the Japanese were using the jungle for cover and concealment while firing on the Marines.

All of the Coast Guard boats were made of plywood and were susceptible to enemy fire. To allow the other ships time to load Marines and move out, Munro and Evans began laying cover fire with the .30-cal. machine guns, the heaviest weapons the small landing force had. Under the cover of the Naval bombardment and the Coast Guard machine guns, the Marines were able to scramble onto the small craft.

The small flotilla began making it’s way back out to sea, and Munro ordered his boat in-between the beaches and the retreating craft while continuing to provide cover fire.

When the other ships were clear, Munro and Evans began their own slog back to the American parts of the island. On their way, they saw one of the landing craft stuck on a sand bar. Munro again ordered the ship stopped to assist the beached craft even though the nearby shoreline was controlled by Japanese forces.

Munro, Evans, and an engineer managed to pull the ship back into the water so it could make good its escape. Once Munro’s craft was finally headed out, Evans spotted Japanese forces placing a machine gun. He yelled a warning to Munro, but the engines drowned out his yell. Munro was struck in the base of the skull by a single bullet and died before reaching the operating base.

Munro was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, becoming the only Coast Guardsman to receive the award. Evans received the Navy Cross and stayed in the Coast Guard, eventually retiring as a commander. After Munro’s death, his mother joined the Coast Guard as an officer.

The Coast Guard has a collection of photos from Munro’s life, including him as a baby and him boxing in the Navy.

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More than 150 Allied World War II aircraft are lying 130 feet deep in the Pacific Ocean.

The so-called airplane graveyard is located in the Kwajalein Atoll, Roi-Namur, near the Marshall Islands. Fierce battle between American and Japanese forces during World War II left a trail of wrecks on the deep lagoon floor there.

Brandi Mueller, a Merchant Mariner licensed by the US Coastguard, captured some stunning photographs of Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers, F4U Corsairs, TBF/TBM Avengers, Helldivers, B-25 Mitchells, Curtiss C-46 Commandos, and F4F Wildcats, which he made available to Argunners Magazine (click the link for more images).

Notably, these planes were not actually shot down: According to Mueller, "they were taken out over the reef and pushed off intact after the war ended."

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When America’s Strategic Air Command is ordered to Defense Condition 3 (DEFCON 3) or above, it disperses its nuclear bombers fully-armed across the U.S. and certain allied countries so that the bombers are harder to target.

This keeps America’s second strike capability intact and hopefully deters an enemy from launching its own nuclear weapons.

The dispersal plan generally calls for the planes to go to Air Force bases rather than civilian airports, but it hinges on a few factors.

First, there have to be enough Air Force bases ready to receive the planes and the bases can’t be needed for other missions.

During the Cuban missile crisis, SAC was ordered to DEFCON 3 and carried out its dispersal plan Oct. 22, 1962. Bases in and near Florida were mostly blocked off because they were needed to host troops for a potential invasion of Cuba. Also, they would have been destroyed too quickly in an attack for a crew to attempt to take off.

So 183 nuclear-armed aircraft were sent to 33 military bases and civilian airports in the U.S., including the four civilian airports below.

Mitchell Field in Milwaukee, Minnesota

Local pop. in 1960: 741,324

Four bombers were sent to Mitchell Field. One of the co-pilots on the flight told a reporter years later that the crew was ordered to fly for at least four hours to ensure their flight pay would be protected in case they couldn’t get training flights for a while.

Since they arrived at Mitchell Field in under four hours, the pilots flew a holding pattern for a few hours over Milwaukee in inclement weather at a lower altitude than their planes were designed to optimally fly while fully armed with nuclear weapons.

Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts

Local pop. in 1960: 697,197

When the B-47s arrived at Logan Airport, they found that the fuel plan wasn’t ready to go. A lieutenant colonel had to buy fuel from a local Mobil station with his personal credit card.

When the pilots went to check on their planes in the morning, they found that the jets had sunk into the soft concrete and had to be pulled out with a tow truck, according to Michael Dobbs in his book, “One Minute to Midnight.”

Memphis Airport in Memphis, Tennessee

Local pop. in 1960: 497,524

Planes at the airport were filmed on the tarmac on Oct. 26, 1962. SAC had been upgraded to DEFCON 2 at this point, meaning they expected nuclear war to pop off at any moment and they had to be prepared to get all of the bombers into the air within 15 minutes of an alert.

Duluth Municipal Airport in Duluth, Minnesota

Local pop. in 1960: 106,884

Duluth Municipal Airport hosted eight bombers during the crisis.

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A month before World War II, German-born genius Albert Einstein wrote a two-page letter that launched the US into a nuclear arms race against the Nazis.

In the 1939 letter, Einstein warned President Franklin D. Roosevelt that a massive nuclear chain reaction involving uranium could lead to the construction of "extremely powerful bombs of a new type"— the atomic bomb.

Einstein, a pacifist who fled Nazi Germany, learned that three chemists in Berlin were on the brink of perfecting a game-changing weapon after they used nuclear fission to successfully split the uranium atom. The reaction released an unprecedented amount of energy, capable of powering a massive bomb.

Here's what happens during nuclear fission of a uranium atom:

"A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory," Einstein wrote to Roosevelt.

Two years later, and after multiple letters from Einstein, the US created the "Manhattan Project," America's plan to design and build the most devastating weapons ever produced up to that time.

Because he did not have a security clearance, Einstein didn't work on the Manhattan Project. But his simple, eloquent formula E=mc2 appeared in physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth's report, the first official account of the development of the atomic bomb in 1945.

Einstein's letters played more of a role in the construction of the bomb than his equation. His formula showed that atomic bombs were theoretically possible, but the equation was irrelevant in the actual creation of a bomb.

Here is the letter that launched America's A-bomb research:

And here's President Roosevelt's response to Einstein:

On August 6, 1945, the US dropped a 5-ton atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The blast killed 80,000 people immediately and leveled four square miles of the city.

Three days later, the US dropped another bomb on Japan's Nagasaki, killing about 40,000 people instantly; thousands more would die of radiation poisoning.

Eight days later, Japan informally surrendered to the Allied forces, effectively ending World War II.

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Hidden 10 stories below Grand Central Terminal, a secret basement can be found. This basement was a prime New York City target during World War II, as it provided electricity for trains in the Northeast dedicated to troop and equipment transport. The location remains confidential, and the facility continues to provide electricity to Metro-North trains. 

Produced by Justin Gmoser. Additional camera by Sam Rega. 

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Unfortunately, war can drive innovation. During World War II, the world's major powers set their sights on advancing technology, medicine, and communications in order to be efficient and fearsome in battle. Some of the advancements made in WWII were fundamental to modern technology — others, not so much.

Here is a look at some of the most bizarre, useless, and downright insane weapons developed on both sides during WWII.

1. A ship-mounted aerial mine rocket launcher

The unrotated-projectile rocket launcher was an especially ill-conceived antiaircraft measure. Created to protect ships from enemy planes, the unrotated projectile was fired from a ship, and, upon reaching 1,000 feet in elevation, it would explode and disperse mines attached to parachutes via 400 feet of cable. 

The general idea was to create an aerial minefield wherein enemy planes would become ensnared in the mess of cables, pulling the mines into their fuselages and downing the plane. However, the mines, cables, and parachutes were all easily visible and enemy pilots had no trouble flying above or below the "aerial minefield".

Here's what the weapon looked like when launched:

The undetonated mines would then be at the mercy of the wind, and they would often float back down toward the British ships that fired them.

"There are no records of UPs bringing down any aircraft. It's entirely possible that this system injured or killed more Britons than enemies due to accidents, fires, etc,"according to a page dedicated to one of the battle cruisers that carried the weapon. 

2. Suicide bomb dogs

In 1942, Hitler's Nazi infantry invaded Soviet Russia with German "Panzer" tanks.

The Russians, who had used military dogs since 1924, sought to turn their canine soldiers into antitank mines by strapping explosives around the dogs' bodies.

During training, the dogs were starved and let loose on stationary Soviet tanks that had food hidden under them.

Once the dogs were underneath the tank they were trained to pull a detonator cord with their teeth. However, most dogs were unable to comprehend or execute the task while the sights, sounds, and smells of battle raged around them. 

The dogs would usually turn around and run toward their Russian handler, only to be shot and killed on sight.

3. The largest gun ever used in battle

Eager to invade France, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler demanded a new weapon that could easily pierce the concrete fortifications of the French Maginot Line — the only major physical barrier standing between him and the rest of Western Europe.

In 1941, the year after France fell, German steelmaker and arms manufacturer Friedrich Krupp A.G. began constructing Hitler's Gustav gun, according to the documentary "Top Secret Weapons."

The four-story, 155-foot-long gun, which weighed 1,350 tons, shot 10,000-pound shells from its mammoth 98-foot barrel. 

Here's what this beastly weapon looked like when fired:The gun's size was not only its source of strength, but also its downfall.

The huge gun could only be transported via rail system and was an easy target for Allied bombers flying overhead. The project was scrapped within a year.

4. V-3 cannon

The V-3 was the unnecessary younger sibling of the V-1 and V-2 rockets that pulverized London during the Blitzkrieg. 

Devised in the summer of 1944, the V-3 was designed to fire 300 nine-foot-long dart-shaped shells every hour. A series of secondary charges positioned along the 416-foot barrel were meant to speed up the projectile, which would hypothetically be able to reach London from well over 100 miles away in the French town of Mimoyecques. But when the V-3 finally became operational, the velocity of the shell was a mere 3,280 feet per second, which was estimated to be about half what was needed to reach London.

Hitler had authorized the production of 50 of these weapons, but before the original plans for the V-3 could be implemented, Allied forces bombed and destroyed the gun, despite Germany's best efforts to hide the munitions under haystacks.

In the end, only two miniature (if you can call 150-feet long miniature) versions of the gun became operational, with only a few shots ever fired to an unknown effect.

5. A mini "tank-like" remote-controlled demolition vehicle

The Nazis' Goliath tracked mine was anything but Goliath-like in stature. Known as the "Doodlebug" by American troops, the Goliath was run with a joystick operated by a controller. It had coiled within its compartments 2,145 feet of cable leading back to the controller. The mini-tank was powered by two electric motors, later replaced by gas burners, and able to carry more than 100 pounds of high explosives.

The Goliath was meant to slide under Allied tanks and deliver its explosive payload to their vulnerable undersides. However, it proved to be susceptible to cord-cutting and later on radio-controlled models were introduced. The Germans built 7,500 Goliaths during the war, which suggests that they met with some success. 

However, the real success of the Goliath was that it paved the way for radio-controlled weapons, which in our modern age are becoming the new mode of warfare.

Amanda Macias contributed to this report.

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Tanks are a staple of ground warfare. Militaries around the world deploy a wide range of tanks, but typically they conform to some basic principals. In nearly all of them, a large turret sits on top of an armored vehicle that moves on treads.

However, this wasn't always the case. In the early 20th century, engineers around the world were scrambling to figure out how exactly to pass uneven terrain and mobilize troops. This period of innovation resulted in today's technologically marvelous tanks, but before that, they had some truly outrageous ideas.

The Tsar Tank

Tank development was in its earliest stages when Tsar Nicholas II ruled Russia in the first decades of the 20th century. The Tsar differed from modern tanks in that it didn't have treads, instead using two massive 27-foot-tall front wheels and a small third wheel, 5 feet in diameter, that trailed behind for steering. Reportedly, when Nicholas II saw a model of the tank roll over a stack of books he was sold on the project, and gave it his blessing.

Russian engineers Nikolai Lebedenko, Nikolai Zhukovsky, Boris Stechkin, and Alexander Mikulin developed the Tsar from 1914 to 1915. The vehicle resembled a hanging bat when viewed from above, so it gained the nickname "Netopyr" which translates to "pipistrellus," the genus name for "bats."

The giant, bicycle-style wheels in front of the tank did prove effective for traversing a variety of terrains. But they severely limited the firing range of the 12 water-cooled machine guns situated in between the massive wheels. Thanks to two 250 horsepower Sunbeam engines powering either wheel, the Tsar could reach a respectable speed of up to 10.5 mph.

But mobility eventually doomed the Tsar.

When testing began in a forest outside of Moscow, the rear wheel became mired in soft soil. Despite the Russian military's best efforts to free the 60-ton behemoth, it remained in that spot until 1923 when it was sold for scrap.

The Boirault Machine

The French also had their own ideas about what a mobile weapons platform should look like.

In 1914, a few months before Britain began work on the "Little Willy" tank that would set the precedent for modern tanks, French engineer Louis Boirault presented the French War Ministry with plans for the Boirault Machine.

Boirault's tank design was 26 feet high, and has been described as a "rhomboid-shaped skeleton tank without armor, with a single overhead track.” The machine weighed a whopping 30 tons, and was powered by a single 80 horsepower motor which enabled the craft to move at a leisurely rate of less than 1 mph.

The singular tracked "wheel" that encompassed the Boirault was nearly 80 feet long and had a cumbersome 330 foot turn radius, earning it the nickname"Diplodocus Militarus," after one of the longest and most sluggish dinosaurs of all time.

The Boirault did have success in crossing over trenches and trampling barbed wire. But more conventional tanks were taking shape around Europe by 1915, and the French War Ministry abandoned the project.

The Screw Tank

Before tracked wheels came into prominence as the most efficient way to traverse difficult terrain, there was some exploration into corkscrew-driven machines that could twist and crush their way through ice, snow, and mud. As early as 1899 patents were filed for agricultural machines that utilized auger-like wheels for work in the fields.

In the 1920s, the Armstead Snow-Motor kit made waves across the Northern US and Canada as a screw-driven tractor that could haul up to 20 tons through unwelcoming northern conditions.

Then, in World War II, the unorthodox inventor Geoffrey Pyke worked with the US military to developed a screw-driven tank to pass over ice and snow in Northern Europe.

The tank made it to a prototype stage, but was never fully realized and died on the drawing board.

Recently, the idea of a screw tank has resurfaced, with the Russians seemingly perfecting the design as illustrated in the video below:

SEE ALSO: The 5 most bizarre weapons of World War II

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Seventy years ago, the worst naval disaster in US history and worst shark attack ever were overshadowed by the dropping of the world’s first atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

SEE ALSO: Stranded in open ocean for 5 days — the survivor of the worst US Navy disaster shares his experience

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Sometimes in life, the guy with the drunken, so-crazy-it-just-might-work ideas hits one out of the park and saves the day.

This seems to be what happened in 1942 aboard the HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen, the last Dutch warship standing after the Battle of the Java Sea.

Originally planning to escape to Australia with three other warships, the then-stranded minesweeper had to make the voyage alone and unprotected.

The slow-moving vessel could get up to only about 15 knots and had very few guns, boasting only a single 3-inch gun and two Oerlikon 20mm cannons — making it a sitting duck for the Japanese bombers that circled above.

Knowing their only chance of survival was to make it to Australia, the Crijnssen's 45 crew members frantically brainstormed ways to make the retreat undetected. The winning idea? Turn the ship into an island.

You can almost hear crazy-idea guy anticipating his shipmates' reluctance: "Now guys, just hear me out …" But lucky for him, the Abraham Crijnessen was strapped for time, resources, and alternative means of escape, automatically making the island idea the best idea.

Now it was time to put the plan into action.

The crew members went ashore to nearby islands and cut down as many trees as they could lug back onto the deck. Then the timber was arranged to look like a jungle canopy, covering as much square footage as possible.

Any leftover parts of the ship were painted to look like rocks and cliff faces — these guys weren't messing around.

Now, a camouflaged ship in deep trouble is better than a completely exposed ship. But there was still the problem of the Japanese noticing a mysterious moving island and wondering what would happen if they shot at it.

Because of this, the crew figured the best means of convincing the Axis powers that they were an island was to truly be an island: by not moving at all during daylight hours.

While the sun was up they would anchor the ship near other islands, then cover as much ocean as they could once night fell — praying the Japanese wouldn't notice a disappearing and reappearing island among the nearly 18,000 existing islands in Indonesia. And, as luck would have it, they didn't.

The Crijnssen managed to go undetected by Japanese planes and avoid the destroyer that sank the other Dutch warships, surviving the eight-day journey to Australia and reuniting with Allied forces.

SEE ALSO: It's been 70 years since the worst disaster in the history of the US Navy

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The 718th Amphibian Tractor Battalion shipped out just in time to participate in the invasion of Leyte Gulf, where they took part in raids behind Japanese lines.

Though seeing a fair amount of action, they only suffered one KIA.

After the Philippines, they participated in the invasion of Okinawa where their duties were more supply and logistical in nature, rather than engaging the enemy.

The son of Jerry Smith, of the Army’s 718th Amphibious Tractor Battalion, has shared the following photos.

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Jerry Smith served in the Army’s 718th Amphibious Tractor Battalion. He was a driver and armorer on an LVT-4 amphibian tractor.

The Okinawa countryside.

Jerry Smith on duty in Okinawa.

The Vought F4U Corsair is probably one of the most famous American fighter planes ever.

More than 12,500 examples of this aircraft were manufactured by Vought beginning in 1940, with final delivery of 1953, in what is known as the longest production run of any piston-engined fighter in U.S. history.

The Corsair, designed to operate from the flight deck of US aircraft carriers, saw service during the WWII, during which it initially mainly operated from land bases in the hands of US Marine pilots because of issues with carrier landings: once these were solved, the F4U became the most capable carrier-based fighter-bomber of the conflict.

The Corsair flew also during the Korean War.

As mentioned before, it is one of the most famous warbirds ever: even my son knows this plane very well as its fame was boosted amoung younger generations by its participation in the Disney movie “Planes” that features a Corsair named “Skipper” among the leading characters.

The following video shows a civilian registered F4U-1 (NX83782), the oldest airworthy Corsair in the world, during the 2012 Planes of Fame Air Show fly by.

SEE ALSO: Stunning images show US Air Force A-10s operating on a dry lake bed in California

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When the USS Indianapolis was sunk by Japanese torpedoes in the final weeks of WWII, around 900 men of the crew jumped into the water to escape the burning ship.

Yet that was just the start of their horror story.

It was 30 July 1945, two days ago the USS Indianapolis delivered crucial components for the first atomic bomb to a U.S. Naval base on the Pacific Island of Tinian, when she set sail for the Leyte Gulf in the Philippines to meet the USS Idaho.

All of a sudden, just passed midnight, a torpedo from the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-58, hit the USS Indianapolis in the starboard bow and igniting a 3,500 gallon tank of aviation fuel into a pillar of fire.

Just after the first explosion, a second torpedo hit the ship causing a massive set of explosions and obliterated the ship almost in half. The ship started to tilt to its right side and heading straight down into the ocean. Tons of water rushed in, sinking the USS Indianapolis in just 12 minutes.

“Twelve minutes. Can you imagine a ship 610 ft long, that’s two football fields in length, sinking in 12 minutes? It just rolled over and went under”, a veteran remembered.

Around 300 of the 1,196 crewmen went down with the ship, 900 others jumped into the water – many without lifejackets – and were left drifting in the Pacific Ocean, hoping to be rescued quickly. Only beneath the waves, another danger was lurking, hundreds of sharks would soon become the survivors worst nightmare. The survivors would await the same fate as the survivors from ‘La Seyne‘, a French Liner that sunk in 1909, who were constantly attacked by sharks.

According to sources the animals were drawn by the sound of the explosions, the sinking of the ship and the thrashing and blood in the water. Specialists believe the attacks were done by oceanic whitetips. Oceanic whitetips tend to be scavengers and they’ll investigate anything that could be food floating on the surface. This behavior means that they are likely responsible for open-ocean attacks following air or sea disasters.

One of the survivors Woody E. James remembered: “You’d hear guys scream, especially late in the afternoon. Seemed like the sharks were the worst late in the afternoon than they were during the day. (…). Everything would be quiet and then you’d hear somebody scream and you knew a shark had got him.”

Though not only sharks were the killers, under the scorching sun, without any food or water for days, men were dying from exposure or dehydration day after day. Some starting to hallucinate. Their life jackets waterlogged, many became exhausted and drowned.

Thought Navy intelligence intercepted a message from the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-58, describing how it had sunk an American battleship along the Indianapolis’ route, the message was disregarded as a trick to lure American rescue boats into an ambush. It would take four days before any help came a shore and only because a Navy plane flying overhead spotted the survivors and radioed for help.

From the USS Indianapolis’ original 1,196 crewmen, only 317 remained. An estimated number from survivors who were killed by the sharks range from a few dozen to almost 150.

SEE ALSO: Incredible photos a son found of his father in Okinawa

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The Associated Press and partner British Movietone have made 120 years of historical news footage available online for the first time ever by uploading 550,000 YouTube videos.

That adds up to over one million minutes of footage.

On the AP's new Youtube Channel and the British Movietone Channel, people now have instant access to footage of some of the most pivotal moments in modern history, including news footage of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., as well as videos of the Titanic leaving an Irish port, the stock market crash of 1929, and the the bombing of Hiroshima.

The Washington Post reports that before putting this footage on Youtube, most of it was only available to be seen in historical archives or museums. 

Here are 17 of the best videos released by the AP:

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The Titanic leaving Belfast Lough for Southampton, 1912.

Youtube Embed:
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Footage of World War 1, 1914 — 1918.

Youtube Embed:
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News report of the stock market crash of 1929.

Youtube Embed:
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Height: 500px

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TOKYO (AP) — The 4 ½-minute speech that has reverberated throughout Japan's modern history since it was delivered by Emperor Hirohito at the end of World War II has come back to life in digital form.

Hirohito's "jewel voice"— muffled and nearly inaudible due to poor sound quality — was broadcast on Aug. 15, 1945, announcing Japan's surrender.

On Saturday, the Imperial Household Agency released the digital version of the original sound ahead of the 70th anniversary of the speech and the war's end.

In it, the emperor's voice appears clearer, slightly higher and more intense, but, Japanese today would still have trouble understanding the arcane language used by Hirohito.

"The language was extremely difficult," said Tomie Kondo, 92, who listened to the 1945 broadcast in a monitoring room at public broadcaster NHK, where she worked as a newscaster. "It's well written if you read it, but I'm afraid not many people understood what he said."

"Poor reception and sound quality of the radio made it even worse," she said. "I heard some people even thought they were supposed to fight even more. I think the speech would be incomprehensible to young people today."

Every Japanese knows a part of the speech where Hirohito refers to his resolve for peace by "enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable," a phrase repeatedly used in news and dramas about the war.

When people heard that part 70 years ago, they understood the situation, Kondo says. But the rest is little known, largely because the text Hirohito read was deliberately written in arcane language making him sound authoritative and convincing as he sought people's understanding about Japan's surrender.

Amid growing concern among many Japanese over nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to expand Japan's military role, the current Emperor Akihito is increasingly seen as liberal and pacifist, and the effort by his father, Hirohito, to end the war has captured national attention.

Speaking in unique intonation that drops at the end of sentences, Hirohito opens his 1945 address with Japan's decision to accept the condition of surrender. He also expresses "the deepest sense of regret" to Asian countries that cooperated with Japan to gain "emancipation" from Western colonization.

Japan itself colonized the Korean Peninsula and occupied parts of China, often brutally, before and during World War II.

Hirohito also laments devastation caused by "a new and most cruel bomb" dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and asks everyone to stay calm while helping to reconstruct the country.

Its significance is that Hirohito, who at the time was considered a living deity, made the address, said Takahisa Furukawa, a historian at Nihon University in Tokyo.

"What's most important is the emperor reached out to the people to tell them that they had to surrender and end the war," he said. "The speech is a reminder of what it took to end the wrong war."

On the eve of the announcement, Hirohito met with top government officials to approve Japan's surrender inside a bunker dug at the palace compound.

Amid fear of violent protest by army officials refusing to end the war, the recording of Hirohito's announcement was made secretly. NHK technicians were quietly called in for the recording. At almost midnight, Hirohito appeared in his formal military uniform, and read the statement into the microphone, twice.

A group of young army officers stormed into the palace in a failed attempt to steal the records and block the surrender speech, but palace officials desperately protected the records, which were safely delivered to NHK for radio transmission the next day.

The drama of the last two days of the war leading to Hirohito's radio address was made into a film, "Japan's Longest Day," in 1967, and its remake will hit Japanese theaters on Aug. 8.

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BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing will limit the number of vehicles on the streets and shut factories to ensure clean air during a commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two, the government and media said on Monday.

The heavily polluted capital, often cloaked in a choking gray haze, will hold a military parade on Sept. 3, which is likely to center around Tiananmen Square in the heart of the city.

The parade will be a highlight of a series of events the government has planned for the anniversary of Japan's formal surrender on Sept. 2, 1945.

From Aug. 20 to Sept. 3, the city will halve the number of vehicles allowed on the streets, restricting cars according to their license plate numbers, the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper, said on its microblog.

The city will also impose temporary controls on industry, coal-burning boilers and construction, forcing them either to stop or curb operations during the period, the government said on its microblog account on Weibo.

The capital, which has been enveloped by smog for the past few weeks, often enacts pollution controls ahead of major events such as the 2008 Olympic Games and a meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum leaders last year.

The city government said it was drawing from the experience of the 2008 Games and the APEC meeting to ensure "the full protection of air quality during the commemoration".

On Saturday, the Xinhua state news agency said authorities would impose temporary air traffic restrictions over Beijing during the military parade.

Workers will also be given three days off over the anniversary, ostensibly to ease congestion.

Chinese communist and nationalist forces battled Japanese forces that occupied much of China during World War Two.

The Chinese forces later fought a civil war which communist forces won in 1949. 

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Additional reporting by Adam Rose; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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1. The bomb ended the war.

The notion that the atomic bombs caused the Japanese surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, has been, for many Americans and virtually all U.S. history textbooks, the default understanding of how and why the war ended.

But minutes of the meetings of the Japanese government reveal a more complex story.

The latest and best scholarship on the surrender, based on Japanese records, concludes that the Soviet Union's unexpected entry into the war against Japan on Aug. 8 was probably an even greater shock to Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima two days earlier.

Until then, the Japanese had been hoping that the Russians — who had previously signed a nonaggression pact with Japan — might be intermediaries in negotiating an end to the war .

As historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa writes in his book "Racing the Enemy,""Indeed, Soviet attack, not the Hiroshima bomb, convinced political leaders to end the war." The two events together — plus the dropping of the second atomic bomb on Aug. 9 — were decisive in making the case for surrender.

2. The bomb saved half a million American lives.

In his postwar memoirs, former president Harry Truman recalled how military leaders had told him that a half-million Americans might be killed in an invasion of Japan. This figure has become canonical among those seeking to justify the bombing.

But it is not supported by military estimates of the time. As Stanford historian Barton Bernstein has noted, the U.S. Joint War Plans Committee predicted in mid-June 1945 that the invasion of Japan, set to begin Nov. 1, would result in 193,000 U.S. casualties, including 40,000 deaths.

But, as Truman also observed after the war, if he had not used the atomic bomb when it was ready and GIs had died on the invasion beaches, he would have faced the righteous wrath of the American people.

3. The only alternative to the bomb was an invasion of Japan.

The decision to use nuclear weapons is usually presented as either/or: either drop the bomb or land on the beaches. But beyond simply continuing the conventional bombing and naval blockade of Japan, there were two other options recognized at the time.

The first was a demonstration of the atomic bomb prior to or instead of its military use: exploding the bomb on an uninhabited island or in the desert, in front of invited observers from Japan and other countries; or using it to blow the top off Mount Fuji, outside Tokyo.

The demonstration option was rejected for practical reasons. There were only two bombs available in August 1945, and the demonstration bomb might turn out to be a dud.

The second alternative was accepting a conditional surrender by Japan. The United States knew from intercepted communications that the Japanese were most concerned that Emperor Hirohito not be treated as a war criminal.

The "emperor clause" was the final obstacle to Japan's capitulation. (President Franklin Roosevelt had insisted upon unconditional surrender, and Truman reiterated that demand after Roosevelt's death in mid-April 1945.)

Although the United States ultimately got Japan's unconditional surrender, the emperor clause was, in effect, granted after the fact. "I have no desire whatever to debase [Hirohito] in the eyes of his own people," Gen. Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of the Allied powers in Japan after the war, assured Tokyo's diplomats following the surrender.

4. The Japanese were warned before the bomb was dropped.

The United States had dropped leaflets over many Japanese cities, urging civilians to flee, before hitting them with conventional bombs. After the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, 1945, which called on the Japanese to surrender, leaflets warned of "prompt and utter destruction" unless Japan heeded that order. In a radio address, Truman also told of a coming "rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this Earth."

These actions have led many to believe that civilians were meaningfully warned of the pending nuclear attack. Indeed, a common refrain in letters to the editor and debates about the bomb is: "The Japanese were warned."

But there was never any specific warning to the cities that had been chosen as targets for the atomic bomb prior to the weapon's first use. The omission was deliberate: The United States feared that the Japanese, being forewarned, would shoot down the planes carrying the bombs.

And since Japanese cities were already being destroyed by incendiary and high-explosive bombs on a regular basis — nearly 100,000 people were killed the previous March in the firebombing of Tokyo — there was no reason to believe that either the Potsdam Declaration or Truman's speech would receive special notice.

5. The bomb was timed to gain a diplomatic advantage over Russia and proved a "master card" in early Cold War politics.

This claim has been a staple of revisionist historiography, which argues that U.S. policymakers hoped the bomb might end the war against Japan before the Soviet entry into the conflict gave the Russians a significant role in a postwar peace settlement. Using the bomb would also impress the Russians with the power of the new weapon, which the United States had alone.

In reality, military planning, not diplomatic advantage, dictated the timing of the atomic attacks. The bombs were ordered to be dropped "as soon as made ready."

Postwar political considerations did affect the choice of targets for the atomic bombs. Secretary of War Henry Stimson ordered that the historically and culturally significant city of Kyoto be stricken from the target list. (Stimson was personally familiar with Kyoto; he and his wife had spent part of their honeymoon there.) Truman agreed, according to Stimson, on the grounds that "the bitterness which would be caused by such a wanton act might make it impossible during the long postwar period to reconcile the Japanese to us in that area rather than to the Russians."

Like Stimson, Truman's secretary of state, James Byrnes, hoped that the bomb might prove to be a "master card" in subsequent diplomatic dealings with the Soviet Union — but both were disappointed. In September 1945, Byrnes returned from the first postwar meeting of foreign ministers, in London, lamenting that the Russians were "stubborn, obstinate, and they don't scare."

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