Retaliation!

This Day in History: August 6, 1945

Enola Gay after Hiroshima mission, entering hard-stand. It is in its 6th Bombardment Group livery,
with victor number 82 visible on fuselage just forward of the tail fin.
Image Source: en.wikipedia.org

The American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops an atomic bomb, nicknamed "LIttle Boy", on Hiroshima, Japan. It is 8:16 the morning of August 6, 1945. U.S. President Harry S. Truman had called for unconditional surrender of Japan. Discouraged by the Japanese response, the decision was made to use the atom bomb to end WWII in order to prevent what Truman predicted would be a much greater loss of life were the United States to invade the Japanese mainland. The total casualties and destruction was devastating with the aftermath going on for decades!
 

At the time this photo was made, smoke billowed 20,000 feet above Hiroshima while smoke from the burst of the first atomic bomb had spread over 10,000 feet on the target at the base of the rising column. (August 6, 1945)

(Picture courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration)

BUT this is where it all began. . .

Awakening the Sleeping Giant: WWII 

In hopes of crippling the United States Pacific Fleet, the

Combined Japanese Fleet received orders to attack
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and surrounding military targets.
We never saw it coming nor did they in America’s retaliation.
 

USS Arizona (BB-39) during the attack
Source: www.en.wikipedia.org