It was trained and equipped with the specialist Silverplate version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress and sent to Tinian in the Mariana Islands. A plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapon, 'Fat Man,' was developed by the Allies' Manhattan Project in July 1945. After Germany capitulated on May 8, 1945, the Allies focused only on the Pacific War.
An earlier conventional and firebombing campaign damaged 67 Japanese cities. In the last year of WWII, the Allies planned a costly invasion of Japan. Between 129,000 and 226,000 persons died in the two attacks, most of them civilians.
The US launched two nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945.
