Maurice Bell was born in Mississippi on February 17, 1925, and grew up in the northeast corner of the state. Throughout 1942, he traveled around the country with his father on a construction crew that was building army camps. While in Indiana in early 1942, he met and started dating . . .

A kamikaze pilot dove straight where Maurice Bell stood aboard the USS Indianapolis.

He still thinks about the war quite often and it seems like a dream.

A Japanese woman shows the damage to her skin caused by the atomic bomb blast over Hiroshima. 1945

Source: National Archives (WC-1244)

News of the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima as reported by The Sacramento Bee on August 8, 1945. The headline reads: "Russians Declare War against Japanese; Atomic Bomb destorys most of Hiroshima."?

Source: The Sacramento Bee

Although there were extensive consultations about the employment of the atomic bomb, discussions always focused on how to use the new weapon, not whether to use it. The primary aim of Allied decision-makers was to achieve the unconditional surrender of Japan as quickly as possible at the lowest cost in . . .

Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., pilot of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, waves from his cockpit before the takeoff, 6 August 1945.

Source: National Archives

A lone Japanese soldiers walks amid the ruins of Hiroshima.

Source: National Archives

Nagasaki after it was leveled by an atomic bomb on August 9, 1945.

Source: National Archives (342-FH-A 60593 AC)

Survivors of the August 9, 1945 atomic bomb blast wander the ruins of Nagasaki.

Source: National Archives (111-SC-210680)

Truman gave the right order to drop the bomb, because that ended the War right then and there.

USS Indianapolis at the Mare Island Navy Yard after her final overhaul, 12 July 1945. Maurice Bell served on this ship which delivered the atomic bomb to Tinian. She also saw action from Tarawa to Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Source: U.S. Naval Historical Center (Photo #: 19-N-86915)

The sinking of the U.S. heavy cruiser Indianapolis by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine Sea two weeks before the end of the war remains controversial to this day. Built in Camden, New Jersey, and commissioned in 1932 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the Indianapolis (CA-35) displaced 9,800 tons and . . .