HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI By August of 1945 the United States had won the "race" with Germany to develop atomic bombs. Germany had not developed a bomb and had already capitulated to Allied Forces. Japan, however, was still considered an instransigent belligerent. While U.S. Forces were fighting their way up from the Solomons and New Guinea, they were also making a devastating drive across the Pacific through the Ryukyu Islands and through the Carolines, Marianas and Marshall Islands, all with the intent of launching a massive invasion of the Japanese heartland. Incendiary bombing missions on civilian populations of Japanese cities had already been carried out by U.S. planes. It was clear to both sides that the current of war was running strongly against the Japanese and the end was near. One writer has even suggested that Japan was only waiting for the appropriate moment to capitulate. Whether or not this is true may never be known. In August 1945, two American B-29's would lift off into the skies for Japan carrying what was in essence the end result of three years of the most intensively planned and coordinated, massive industrial efforts in the history of mandkind -- just to produce a few pounds of fissionable material. This material, weighing less than 50 pounds, had cost more than three billion dollars e * ($3,000,000,000), or $6,000,000 per pound. *this of course does not include the plutonium used in the Trinity test, nor does it consider the cost of facilities, being spread out over their usable lifetime for production of subsequent material. 43 [O14 b4S