President Harry S. Truman meets with King George VI aboard the USS Augusta off the coast of Plymouth, England, 2 August 1945 [Public domain]
This week in the war, off the coast of Plymouth, England, President Harry S. Truman, en route home from the
Potsdam Conference aboard the
USS Augusta, met with King George VI, who was on board the British battlecruiser
HMS Renown.
The atomic bomb was a focus of discussion. At least one of Truman’s party, Admiral William Leahy, was sure that the power of the bomb had been exaggerated and remarked that it sounded like a ‘professor’s dream.’
Later, after he had become fully aware of the bomb’s destructive power, Leahy condemned the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as barbaric.