Harry S. Truman called for Japan’s surrender after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945.
Truman announced the Hiroshima attack in a statement on 6 August 1945. He described the weapon as an atomic bomb and warned Japan that further destruction would follow if it did not accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. Truman had become president only months earlier, after Franklin D. Roosevelt died in April 1945.
The statement was made while the Pacific War was still continuing and before Japan had accepted the Allied terms. The United States later dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki on 9 August, while the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan.
Truman’s warning is sometimes confused with the later surrender announcement, which was made by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August. Truman was the American president directing U.S. policy; Hirohito announced Japan’s decision to its people.