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Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The Battle of Iwo Jima was the most intense ground fighting of the war, and it took 36 days to take the island from its 20,000+ defenders. 19,217 Americans were wounded and 6,822 were killed for every square mile. #2 The B-29s’ primary weapon was the M69 incendiary bomblet. Each bomblet contained Napalm-B encased in cheesecloth as its incendiary filler. The improved version of napalm included newly added polystyrene and benzene, which yielded a longer-burning fire at temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. #3 On March 9, 1945, the first B-29 crews started rolling down Guam’s runways and continued one at a time in fifty-second intervals. They flew parallel to the coastline of Tokyo Bay and released their white phosphorous M47 bombs to mark the primary target. #4 The fire raid on Tokyo was, by far, the most devastating attack the Americans had ever conducted. The scene that greeted the flying crews was beyond anything they could have imagined. A wall of flames stretched across the horizon, and it looked like Hell on earth.
During the closing months of the Second World War, as America's strategic bombing campaign incinerated Japan's 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 history's 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 Hirohito's 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 history's first use of nuclear weapons in combat, and the ensuing chaos as the Japanese government struggled to respond to the reality of nuclear war.
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