140 Days to Hiroshima

During the closing months of the Second World War, as Americas strategic bombing campaign incinerated Japans cities, two military giants were locked in a death embrace of cultural differences and diplomatic intransigence. The leaders of the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese Empire while developing historys deadliest weapon and weighing an invasion that would have dwarfed D-Day. Their enemy responded with a last-ditch call for the suicidal resistance of every able-bodied man and woman in The Decisive Battle for the homeland. But had Emperor Hirohitos generals miscalculated how far the Americans had come in developing the atomic bomb? How close did President Harry Truman come to ordering the invasion of Japan? Acclaimed historian David Dean Barrett recounts the secret strategy sessions, fierce debates, looming assassinations and planned invasions that resulted in historys first use of nuclear weapons in combat, and the ensuing chaos as the Japanese government struggled to respond to the reality of nuclear war.