Air Operations, CBI

• 5 341st Medium Bomb Group B-25s and more than 60 14th Air Force fighter-bombers attack transportation targets across northern French Indochina and southern and eastern China.

Air Operations, East Indies

XIII Bomber Command B-24s attack warehouses on Celebes.

Air Operations, Formosa

V Fighter Command P-51s attack a bridge and rail targets while sweeping the island.

Air Operations, Japan

• 33 11th Heavy Bomb Group B-24s attack rail bridges at Nobeoka.
• 6 B-24s attack port facilities and the town area at Aburatsu.
• 27 319th Medium Bomb Group A-26s, 1 B-24, and 39 FEAF P-47s attack the Miyazaki airfield on Kyushu and a nearby bridge.
• 36 41st Medium Bomb Group B-25s, 1 11th Heavy Bomb Group B-24, and 1 A-26 attack a bridge at Sadohara.
• 5 FEAF P-47s attack Yanagawa.
• V Fighter Command P-51s attack coastal targets around Kagoshima Bay.
• More than 100 VII Fighter Command fighter-bombers based on Iwo Jima attack airfields and several tactical targets on Honshu.
• 4 28th Composite Bomb Group B-25s attack shipping and strafe shore targets in the Kurile Islands.
• During the morning, 2 VC-13 (USS Anzio) anti-submarine TBMs help sink a Japanese submarine off Honshu.
• 21st and 506th Fighter group P-51s down 25 Japanese fighters over Honshu between 1320 and 1400 hours.
• During the night 119 58th Very Heavy Bomb Wing B-29s attack Numazu. 124 73rd Very Heavy Bomb Wing B-29s attack Oita. 94 313th Very Heavy Bomb Wing B-29s attack Kuwana. 129 314th Very Heavy Bomb Wing B-29s attack Hiratsuka. 3 B-29s attack targets of opportunity.

Air Operations, Philippines

V Bomber Command B-25s and V Fighter Command P-51s support US 8th Army ground forces on Luzon.

Air Operations, Pacific

A force of 500 B-29s bomb targets on Honshu and Kyushu. Altogether, more than 1,500 American planes pound Japan.

Atomic Research

The world's first atomic weapons test takes place at Alamagordo in New Mexico. The bomb used is based on the element plutonium and gives a yield of between 15 and 20 kilotons. It is mounted on top of a steel tower which is vaporized by the head of the explosion which is greater that the temperature inside the sun. The explosion is visible and audible up to 180 miles away. Truman is advised of the successful test at Potsdam in a terse coded message, 'Babies satisfactorily born.'

The type of bomb dropped on Hiroshima will not be identical to this but based on the isotope Uranium 235. The Nagasaki bomb will be a second Plutonium weapon.

China

Japanese units begin pulling out of Amoy, in southern China.

Occupied Germany

Churchill tours Berlin. During an inspection of Hitler's bunker, he declares: 'I have tracked the Nazi beast to his lair!'

Pacific

• The Japanese submarine I-13 is sunk by aircraft from the US escort carrier Anzio (CVE-57) and by the destroyer escort Lawrence C. Taylor (DE-415) east of Japan.
• The Japanese torpedo boat Kari is sunk by the US submarine Baya (SS-318) in the Java Sea.

Images from July 16, 1945

Trinity Site explosion, 10 seconds after explosion, July 16, 1945

Trinity Site Explosion

Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Harry Truman shake hands on the steps of Truman’s residence, 'The White House', at Kaiser Strasse, Babelsberg, Germany, on 16 July 1945

Churchill and Truman

Prime Minister Winston Churchill leaves the ruins of Adolf Hitler’s Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, on 16 July 1945

Churchill Leaving the Chancellery

The first atomic bomb was called 'The Gadget' and was detonated at 05:29:21 of 16 July 1945 on a ramp 30 meters high post in the desert of New Mexico.

'The Gadget'