Japan: Swords and Butterflies - The Wise World Traveler: Becoming a Part of All that You Meet - page 265

Millions died in the long years of Japan's war for the Far East. The fulcrum of Japan's
surrender was the dropping of the two atom bombs, in which huge sections of Nagasaki
and Hiroshima were burned out and vaporized. In Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, between
60,000 and 70,000 died instantly as a consequence of the first bomb. In Nagasaki three days
later, the second bomb was dropped in response to the failure of the Japanese government
to surrender. There, the instant death toll was about 40,000. In the imperial palace, those
opposed to surrender exchanged gunfire with those willing to end the war. As a last act of
a dying empire, imperial princes were dispatched to far-flung fighting forces to persuade
their officers that the emperor himself wished them to lay down their arms. The formal
surrender took place aboard the Battleship Missouri on September 2, 1945. Though they
could not then imagine it, the Japanese nation trembled on the brink of another transform-
ation. [240]
Figure 17.3. Ruined city of Hiroshima, U. S. National Archives