VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) -The 80th anniversary of the end of World War II is being remembered across America.
On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.
Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”
A few years earlier, a Jamestown College chemistry student, Clifford Klein was drafted to become a member of the Manhattan Project, a group of scientists responsible for the creation of the Atomic Bomb.
Neighbors thought Klein was a draft dodger, but that wasn’t the case. Ironically, Klein’s wife Elizabeth was part of a different secret project in WWII, and neither could share their work details.
Dr. Klein was a graduate of Eckelson, ND High School in 1938. He and his wife moved to Valley City in 1952 to start their medical practice following his graduation from medical school. Dr. Klein died in 2007 at the age of 86.
