Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in a total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale or its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations. This tactic was used by the United States and Britain against the Germans and Japanese in World War II. Strategic bombing is debated on whether the United States and Britain were justified in using it. The United States and Britain used strategic bombing to protect their people from fascist dictators and were justified in doing so. In the beginning of World War II, air forces only attacked military targets. This changed once “the German Luftwaffe began conducting air raids on British cities, including London, during the summer of 1940,” (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica). Strategic bombing soon became a main part of military combat. It was seen to be in the best interest of the country’s side in the war. To the British, bombing German cities was a type of revenge. They showed the same amount of mercy for the German civilians as the Germans did for them, which was little to none. What the Allies did in Japan reflects what they did in Europe. Like the British, the U.S. bombed Japan as a response to the Pearl Harbor attack. “As was the case in the air war against Germany, military planners experimented with different bombing tactics in order to maximize the damage inflicted on Japan and force a surrender,” (The Choices Program). The United States was working to decrease the power Japan had in the Pacific
Bombing cities that were seen as industrially advanced and vital to economic production became the
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Although, most of the damage caused by the U.S. and Britain was in the best interest of their citizens. They wanted to stop the war as soon as possible and bombing the Axis powers helped accomplish their goal. The United States and Britain were justified in using strategic bombing against the German and
Despite the allied bombing of Germany in WWII perhaps appearing to be significant, overall, it was only such to a limited extent. It is possible to analyse the extent to which the bombing was significant in four aspects: economic, morale, international relations and others theatres of war. The extent to which they were significant will be assessed against their respective pre-war expectations. Whilst each dimension are important, I am going to specifically focus on economic and moral because they were the main objectives of the Allies, and directly affected Germany.
The technological developments that assisted bombing, the impact of bombing on the German economy, the impact of bombing on the German civilian morale and also the effects on the German war effort all help explain why the Allied strategic bombing of Germany during the Second World War was significant to quite a far extent. Each of the following paragraphs will analyse the impacts of the Allied strategic bombing on different aspects of Germany and also what factors assisted the Allied bombing campaign in creating a significant impact on Germany during the Second World War.
Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the cities that got bombed. And because of all these reasons america ended up winning the war also with the aid of allies. Yes innocent people were killed but it was necessary for stopping japan. Many lives were sacrificed and killed during and after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. Hopefully we don't repeat the past and get into another world war that could end in the extinction of the human
1. The bombings killed 129,000-246,000 people in total over two to four months. The Japanese army managed to kill over 300,000 people in a single city over a span of just over a month. People really shouldn't be calling the bombings truculent when Japan's allies, the nazis, started the Holocaust and committed genocide .2. The US even gave Japan a chance to surrender before the bombs were dropped by issuing the Potsdam declaration which stated that if they didn’t surrender, Japan would face “prompt and utter destruction”. Japan did not surrender so they had to face the consequence. The US could have just dropped the bombs without any warning, but they decided to give Japan a chance to surrender first. This shows that the US were not inhumane in the bombings of Hiroshima and
After victory in Europe and defeating the Third Reich Nazis, World War II was not yet over. Japan was still a threat, their persistence and ability to fight really annoyed America. As a propaganda poster from World War II exclaimed, “Shall we let him get away with it,” (Document B). The United States needed to punish Japan for attacking American territories such Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, and Wake Island. Dropping the bombs would send a message
Bombing two major cities may seem wrong but it was necessary in order to come out as a successful nation. During World War 2 on August 6th and 9th of 1945 the United States was the first country to use an atomic device against an enemy. This enemy was the country of Japan. After the Japanese killed thousands of U.S soldiers with their ruthless and unexpected attack on Pearl Harbour the United States released two atomic bombs on their two major cities. These cities were known as Nagasaki and Hiroshima. After the bombs were dropped the war was put to an end. The use of the atomic bombs is a widely debated topic on whether their use was necessary or not. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not only necessary to end the war but it was also necessary because many American lives were lost.
The fatal atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the end of World War II are written down in history books today. This is because they had a drastic story behind them that changed the world and the lives of many civilians. The United States decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II had both positive and negative results.
Ray Bradbury once said, “After Hiroshima was bombed, I saw a photograph of the side of a house with shadows of the people who had lived there burned into the wall from the intensity of the bomb. The people were gone, but their shadows remained.” Keep in mind that quote only described the intensity of “Little Boy”, the nickname for the bomb that devastated Hiroshima. The bombs that dilapidated both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were harrowing, gruesome, and in all sincerity, needless. The reasoning people have given to justify the bombings was because it was a military necessity; they thought the atom bombs were needed to save lives and to end the war quickly. However, the Merriam-Webster dictionary explicitly defines a ‘military necessity’ as “the necessity attending belligerent military operations that is held to justify all measures necessary to bring an enemy to complete submission excluding those (as cruelty, torture, poison, perfidy, wanton destruction) that are forbidden by modern laws and customs of war.” According to this interpretation of a ‘military necessity’, both of the bombings do not match this definition. Various people wonder why the U.S. would condone the use of the explosives and inflict such destruction on others, considering that they had first hand experiences on devastating attacks that seemed gratuitous. Many have argued that there were multiple alternatives to such a catastrophe, and the bombs did not have to be utilized. Others state that the bombings were
Few inventions have shaped war as much as the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb enabled massive indiscriminate destruction on a scale the world had never seen. The offensive capabilities of the atomic bomb were terrifying and many believed a nuclear war could destroy the world. Bernard Brodie, Albert Wohlstetter, Thomas Schelling, and André Beaufre describe the state of war the atomic bomb introduced in the Nuclear Age. Their writings show that atomic bombs changed warfare by changing the focus of arms development to avoid conflict and threats against civilians were now used to force surrender.
When the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki all living things in a five square mile radius of where the atomic bombs impacted died instantly, it ended the war and saved thousands lives. The following documents tell you about the importance of dropping the atomic bomb and the thinking behind there strategies. The US wanted Japan to surrender and wanted no more bloodshed and wanted the Soviet Union to be surprised. As stated in document 13 the Americans concern for Japan's unwillingness to resign, “imminent threat of a landing, on Japan proper by us, to convince them of the hopelessness of their situation”1. and again in document 16 shares thoughts for Russia involvement, “atomic attack against Japan would shock the Russians”2 finally document 17 shows the stubbornness of “Japan to agree Japanese leadership would probably not have surrendered if the Truman administration had clarified the status of the emperor when it demanded unconditional surrender prolongation of the war and cost a large number of human lives”3. Although some people think dropping the atomic bombs on Japan wasn’t justified, I think that dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was justified.
In this essay I will assess the significance of strategic bombing of Germany. I will do this by evaluating four key areas of the German war effort. This will include German and British moral, German economy, its effect on the outcome of the Eastern Front and the results of the preparation for D-Day. Overall allied bombing did not have a significant impact on the outcome of the war as for the majority of the war bombing techniques and technology were primitive and so had little effect. It only became a threatening tool latter on in the war, when the allies had effectively won.
On the 6th and 9th of August, 1945, the United States of America dropped the Atomic Bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The use of these bombs brought a quick end to World War 2, yet caused extensive damage to the two Japanese cities. There have often been disputes as to whether the USA was justified in the dropping of the atomic bombs because of the damage they caused, not only to the cities, but to the people of Japan as well. Many people believe that the USA should not have dropped the bombs because of the damage they caused, and they also claim that Japan was already defeated. However, Japan did not surrender, and prolonging the war was not an option for America, as it believed it would cause even more casualties, not only to American troops, but to Japan as well. Thus the USA was justified in dropping the bombs on Japan.
By bombing Japan, many civilians were killed as a result of the U.S. 's desire to use a new weapon. Laurence describes the bomb as, "a thing of beauty to behold" and "Never before had so much brain power been focused on a single problem" (11). This demonstrated how the U.S. saw Japan as a problem that needed to be dealt with quickly and that the new and supposedly destructive weapon was the best choice. While the targets, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were both production areas ,they were inhabited by a number of civilians. By choosing to drop the bomb, thousands were annihilated and any survivors began to suffer from radiation sickness shortly after. Because of its destruction, the U.S. believed the atomic bomb was a quick solution to the war.
In a diplomatic sense, the U.S, needed to drop those bombs to end the war according to the
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.