Dropping The Atomic Bomb

“In 1957, with the arms race in full swing, the Department of Defense had decided it was just a matter of time before an airplane transporting an atomic bomb would crash on American soil, unleashing a radioactive disaster the likes of which the world had never seem.” On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, killing 20,000 soldiers and 70,000 – 126,000 civilians. On August 9, 1945, the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing 39,000 – 80,000. A total of 129,000 – 226,000 people were killed in combining both bomb droppings. Dropping both atomic bombs on Japan was necessary to end the war because the military needed to end the war, the Japanese were given fair warnings

With the closing of the Second World War at hand, Harry S. Truman represented the United States in Potsdam Germany to decide the fate of a post war world. The key individuals in the conference consisted of the allied leaders, Soviet Premier Stalin, Prime Minister Churchill, and Truman. Dubbed the “big Three” in the second conference of the post war, they were charged with the daunting task of dealing with Japan and their continued effort in the ending war. The Potsdam Declaration was devised. It simply stated that Japan must immediately agree to an unconditional surrender or face total destruction. Japan would ignore this declaration (Scoenberger, 1969).

The dropping of the Atomic Bomb changed not only warfare forever, but also all international relations. With that being said, the decision to do so was one of the biggest decisions made by any government in the history of time. Nuclear warfare was way more destructive and way faster than any other form of warfare preceding. With the United States seemingly always viewed to be “the good guys” it is puzzling that this country is the same one who killed hundreds of thousands of people all at once and essentially ruined not one but two entire cities within minutes of dropping two single bombs. This decision was not taken lightly, and with basically two schools of thought, liberalism vs. realism, insisting to do so or not to do so, and realism won out. Realism and the many counterparts that strengthen this school of thought is what drove the decision to go ahead and drop the atomic bomb.

Japan during the 1940’s was a nation that prided itself on the concept of never surrendering. It was something that they took fierce and obsessive pride in. Their culture dictated that they are never to give up, even if they fought until every single man,woman, and child living in Japan was slaughtered, they would never surrender. This doctrine was one of the key deciding factors that influenced Truman in making the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Several weeks before the Atomic bomb was dropped, The Untied States of Military issued a warning to the Japanese government. “It warned the Japanese to surrender immediately or face ‘prompt and utter destruction.” (Yes! Harry Truman’s Simple Decision) Unfortunately, a mere two weeks before the first atomic bomb dropped, the Japanese prime minister publically dismissed the warning and refused to surrender. Even after the bombing of Hiroshima, the Japanese government refused to stand down. Even though they had suffered over 225,000 civilian casualties in the attack, the Japanese military refused to surrender. It took until the second bombing of Nagasaki to finally force the Japanese to surrender on American

Keeping the secret of how to build a nuclear weapon and developing and testing that weapon so our enemies would not discover was a huge task.

Before they knew what happened, thousands of people were dead. Towards the end of World War II, Japan would not surrender so President Truman made a big decision and decided to drop the atomic bomb. This bomb was deadly and killed people instantly. President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb was questioned by many. He made the wrong decision to drop the atomic bomb because other methods could have worked, it killed lots of innocent civilians, and the war could have ended soon without the atomic bomb being dropped.

In the late July of 1945, Japan’s Militarist government refused the demand for surrender that was put forth in the Potsdam Declaration by the Allied forces. General MacArthur, along with other top military commanders, agreed to continue the bombing of Japan that was already in effect, followed up with an invasion, which was codenamed “Operation Downfall”. President Harry Truman was advised that such a massive invasion will cause the U.S to lose up to one million soldiers. To avoid the risk, President Truman decided to use the bomb to end the

Truman’s choice to drop the bomb was to stop the bloody war. “For Truman, the choice whether or not to use the atomic bomb was the most difficult decision of his life.” His decision to drop the bomb was purely military. America lose many soldiers and civilians because of 4 years of non-stop war and was weary of it, but Japan was denying to give up their fight.

If the United States did not drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima, Nagasaki in Japan,The world would have had different history than now. The Japanese did not have to die because of the atomic bomb, which might save life in a positive way. However, if the United States did not attack Japan, then the World War might have taken longer to end, and it would cause more people including soldiers to die. Also, the US might not leave their strength to other countries in the world, and other countries including Japan would have attacked the United States because others might think that the US is not that strong, so that the US would no longer be the best country in the world as it is marked in the society in these days. If the best and the strongest country

“At 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945.The U.S was in japanese air ready to drop the first atomic bomb.About an hour previously, the Japanese early warning radar net had detected the approach of some American aircraft headed for the southern part of Japan.”The alert was given and the broadcasting was finished in all the cities including Hiroshima.

Three days after the bomb was dropped and the emperor still didn’t surrender, Truman dropped the second and last atomic bomb on Japan, on the city of Nagasaki. An estimated 263,000 people were in Nagasaki at the time and total deaths counted up to 80,000 people. Finally, on August 14, Japan surrendered. That's when America took over.

The dropping of the atomic bomb was used to save American lives; the most common excuse as to why President Harry Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. In Major Problems in the History of World War II it has been discussed in the chapter The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II that former President Truman recalled how he learned about the atomic bomb project as well as the public opinion on the Atomic Bomb. I believe that the solution that Truman gave when dropping the Atomic Bomb should not have been done.

The dropping of the nuclear bombs by the United States on Japan did not win the war but they did end the war but the dropping of them and the damage they caused was unnecessary. Reynolds describes in the text how technological and medicinal advances like radar and penicillin won the war not nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons were more trouble then they were worth according to sources in Reynolds book “In vain they argued the program had cost up to 50 percent more, with a price tag of some $3billion. To no avail. The world war had ended with a atomic bang, not an electronic whimper” . In the text the author describes how the war was ending and the allies were closing in on Germany and Japan but the U.S instead of wasting more time and losing

The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and later Nagasaki is a much contested debate on its importance in ending WW2. While many argue that the use of the bombs prevented callous loss of life upon both sides of the war many counter historians question the need of the atom bomb to close the conflict.

On August 6, 1945, after forty-four months of increasingly brutal fighting in the Pacific, an American B-29 bomber loaded with a devastating new weapon flew in the sky over Hiroshima, Japan waiting for a signal. Minutes later the signal was given, that new weapon, the atomic bomb, was released. Its enormous destructive energy detonated in the sky, killing one hundred thousand Japanese civilians instantly. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb over the city of Nagasaki, with similarly devastating results, killing seventy-thousand Japanese citizens. The following week, Japan’s emperor addressed his country over the radio to announce the decision was made to surrender. At that moment World War II had finally come to its dramatic conclusion. Even though some people defend the atomic bombings, because of a weak Japan refusing to give up, the U.S. could’ve chosen a less populated area of Japan to bomb, like the coast to warn the Japanese. Claiming thousands of innocent lives, prove that the U.S. unnecessarily dropped the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.