Dropping The Atomic Bomb: Necessary Or Justified?

Dropping the atomic bomb on Japan was wrong. The United States needed a way to end the war, but killing innocent civilians is not morally right. When we dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, ninety-five percent of the people who died were civilians (Kauffman, Jill). President Truman said the bomb targeted military cities, but that does not make up for the fact that he was wrong (Ragone). Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s Chief, said it perfectly when he said “…wars cannot be won by destroying women and children” (Kauffman, Jill). Bringing President Harrison Truman to power was one of the biggest issues. Truman was only Vice President for three months before being called to duty (Ragone). When asked about his job as Vice President he said “I don’t

In a political manner, the use of the atomic bomb put an end to the Japanese military dictatorship and put in place a constitutional monarchy, similar to the United Kingdom's. Even though they still have an emperor, the power rests in the hands of politicians. This helped stop the spread of communism here.

During World War II, President Harry S. Truman ordered for an atomic bomb to be dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6th ,1945. The second and last atomic bomb to ever be dropped was in the city of Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945. Many Americans believed dropping the atomic bomb was necessary to end the war in a more timely manner, however, many others believed dropping the atomic bomb was too extreme of a measure to take against Japan. With the creation of the atomic bomb, the United States had a weapon of mass destruction that no one else yet had. Therefore, with the power the atomic bomb possessed, some people believed its use should only be used as a last resort. If Japan would not surrender during this war, then the United States would have a valid and necessary reason in using the power of an atomic bomb. For the other Americans that believed in the immediate drop of the atomic bomb, dropping it would end the war sooner, which would then decrease the amount American soldiers who would be killed during the war. Whether dropping the atomic bomb on Japan was the most ethical decision that President Truman could have ordered is still debated.

The United States should not have dropped the atomic bomb because it was inhumane. By using that powerful bomb on japan lots of people died and lots of people lost their children, families, and it also ruined everything on their land so they can’t have access to anything. According to document ‘E,’ the evidence shows that it was hard for Japanese because they lost lots of people, 64,000 people total died from Nagasaki and 135,000 total died from Hiroshima which was terrifying. This evidence helps explain that the U.S. should not have dropped the atomic bomb because it took lives of civilians and innocent people.

Furthermore, if the true intention for the use of bombings was to end the war quicker as declared by the President Truman, then the war could really have ended months earlier without the bombs. This is because, in January 1945, General Douglas MacArthur informed President Roosevelt that the Japanese had offered peace overtures to end the war (Trohan, 1986, as cited in Weber, 1997). The terms were virtually similar to the Potsdam Declaration, but, with emphasis that the Emperor must not be touched. The Japanese were willing to end the war on any terms, as long as the Emperor was not molested (Weber, 1997). I believe that if the U.S. had not insisted on unconditional surrender and was willing to permit the Emperor to remain in place; the end of the war could have been brought forward as the Japanese would have surrendered immediately, thus saving many innocent civilians.

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

On August 6, 1945 the United States deployed the first atomic bomb over Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Once the United States dropped the atomic bomb there has been a lot of comments whether or not it was the right move to do. I believe that it was justified for the United States to drop the atomic bomb on Japan however, it did have some cons to it. The reason behind dropping the first atomic bomb was to stop the war. Although it roughly killed around 60,00 people in Hiroshima and 35,000 in Nagasaki. If they didn’t drop that bomb the war could have claimed more lives than the atomic bomb dropping.

was fully justified in dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because of the unprovoked and brutal attacks on civilians, grounded airplanes, and the docked U.S. Pacific fleet by the Japanese. By retaliating with the atomic bomb to end the war the United States showed the world the power and weapons of mass destruction that it possessed and that it was not afraid to use them. This also issued a warning to the Soviet Union, who at the time was our ally, but was slowly turning into an enemy. In addition to showing the world the United States power, the atomic bombs crushed Japan not just physically, but also morally giving them no other option, but to surrender. Japan was on the edge of surrender with a great amount of inner turmoil, but Japans military leaders had declared no surrender and ordered their people to fight to the death of the last man, woman, and child, so in using the atomic bomb we forced them to the breaking point and saved millions of lives. Without the dropping of the atomic bombs the U.S. would have invaded the Japanese homeland in Operation Downfall where a great slaughter would have ensued. Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were pre-made in anticipation of the invasion, but the atomic bombs saved this massive loss of life. The results brought about by the atomic bombs were very devastating and gruesome; they caused thousands of deaths and injuries and should not be employed except in the most dire

On August 6, 1945 the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. This was an extremely controversial military strategy in the United States. Was the United States justified in the dropping of the atomic bomb? The U.S. feared the rise of communism and gave aid to any country against it. The U.S. also fought countries threatening the spread communism. One of these countries was Japan. We began a harsh and brutal war against Japan and against communism. This war was killing many soldiers and Japan was not backing down. President Truman decided to use the atomic bomb when things were getting worse. The decision to use the atomic bomb was a difficult one and many people wonder if it was the right

As the war continued and violence escalated, bombings caused enormous destruction and high death tolls, leading inevitably to the use of the atomic bombs. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki represented a culmination in the destructiveness of bombings, not a significant deviation from previous bombing practices. The alternatives to the use of the atomic bomb were likely to have caused equal suffering for the Japanese people. The use of the atomic bomb was no less moral than these horrific wartime practices. Harry Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan was justified by Japan’s refusal to immediately surrender. Harry Truman gave the Japanese time to surrender in order to preserve the existence of their people. They did not comply and as a result endured the consequences. (Walker) Yet an alternate perspective states that it was quite unnecessary to drop the Atomic Bombs in that Japan was practically an already defeated opponent. If a conditional surrender were to be issued by the United States to Japan in

On August 6, 1945 uranium gun-type atomic bomb (Little Boy) was dropped on Hiroshima, within the first day of the bombings the effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima. The effects of the atomic bomb left many dead, homeless, and sacred. Even four months later people would die from radiation poisoning and discovering they had cancer now. Skin would be peeling off like bark on trees, this was a true horrifying sight. The United States were at war with japan but, does that justify what they did? Some would say what they did was inhuman and just plan wrong. They say there were other alternatives that the United Sates could have done. I believe there could have been a better way of ending the war with japan but I understand why the United States did what they did. The Japanese came out of nowhere and attacked the United States did they think that the US would just roll over and die? The should of known not to surprise attack one of the strongest nations. The needed to be put back in place and show the rest of the world that the US was one not to be reckon with.

Why did Truman decide to bomb the japan even though they were already to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and bombing with conventional weapons. So what was Truman thinking he knew that Japan was ready to surrender why did he bomb them with the nuclear bomb anyways. In the Washington’s blog it says that one reason that he dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to test the bomb itself. We had just invented one of the most powerful weapons at the time and we needed to test it. I believe another reason was that he wanted to strike fear into all of the other opposing countries. In Truman’s diaries he also say that he dropped them to make the countries surrender before Russia intervened. As Truman said “it occurred to me that a quarter of a million of the flowers of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese

Imagine yourself standing in Nagasaki or Hiroshima, and you look up to see an airplane fly past, dropping thousands of papers. You pick up one of them and read it; the paper warns you to leave your city because a bomb will be dropped that will destroy the entire city. Everyone else thinks it is a joke and you agree, but in three days all of you wish you had taken the advice. The United States dropped an atomic bomb on each of the cities, and completely destroyed them. This caused Japan to surrender, ending WWII, but at no small cost. Between the two bombs over three hundred thousand people died, majority civilians, leaving some to wonder if it was the right decision. I believe that it was morally just and the right decision

On August 6, 1945, the war in Europe was over and both the U.S. and Russia were concentrating on defeating Japan. When the U.S. decided to use the atomic bomb, 68 major cities in Japan had already been devastated by airstrikes. It was hoped that the bombing of Hiroshima with an atomic weapon would cause Japan to finally surrender unconditionally. That did not happen. Three days later on Aug 9, 1945 Nagasaki was bombed with the second atomic bomb. Japan surrendered unconditionally Aug 14, 1945. The United States had already been bombing Japan for years with a net effect worse than the outcome of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but Japan did not show any signs of surrendering. Why did the United States believe that it was justified to drop an atomic bomb that would kill tens of thousands of Japanese civilians? There are a few well documented reasons why the U.S. felt they had to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. The leading thoughts were that the U.S. wanted to end the war as quickly as possible with the added benefit of preventing Russia from gaining territory in Japan. It would also prevent the need for an all out assault on Japan, thereby preventing American casualties while demonstrating to Russia that the U.S.’s nuclear capabilities were in fact real.

It has been seventy years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of the Second World War in the Pacific Theatre. However, the unconditional surrender that was favored by the Allies was only accepted by Japan after the Soviet Union entry into the “Greater East Asia War” and the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is a common myth in the Western world that the nuclear bombs “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” caused Japan to surrender and in turn saved the lives of thousands of American soldiers that were about to embark upon Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan. However, decades after the war the idea that the nuclear bombing of Japan was a military necessity is not taken at face-value as it once was. Any historian who would explore the situation in the Pacific theater will find that most of the actions taken by the warring nations during the end were in reality very political in nature. This means that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have a political necessity instead of a military one. This political necessity was which nation would ‘win’ the surrender of the Japanese Empire. The United States of America and the Soviet Union were racing each other for the surrender of Japan for different reasons. The Soviets wanted to make sure that their prize promised to them at the Yalta Conference would be upheld. On the other hand the Americans wanted to win Japan’s surrender before the Soviets could launch an invasion on Japanese home