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The Atomic Bomb Essay

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It was April of 1945 and Harry Truman had been sworn into office following the death of a beloved president, Franklin Roosevelt. President Roosevelt left Truman with the hardest and still most controversial decision of all time, whether or not to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. This decision would determine whether or not the outcome of World War II would be quick or prolonged. The Manhattan project for developing the bomb began with the fear of Germany inventing a type of nuclear weapon. The Allies had just defeated Germany and now, the United States focus was ending war with Japan. America had been in war for four years accumulating 1 million casualties in the process. The United States wanted Japan to surrender unconditionally, as the …show more content…

In 1937, the Japanese troops took Nationalist Army headquarters city and spent seven weeks killing 300,000 men, women, and children by hand in the Rape of Nanjing. “Death from two atomic bombs are pale shadows to the deaths resulting from the Japanese military’s systematic abuse and killings of prisoners of war and slave laborers from Korea, China, and Southeast Asia,” Ohio University Professor of History Donald Jordan. In the Rape of Nanjing thousands of women were forced to become sex slaves for the Japanese. Not only was this enemy fanatical with their treatment of prisoners, the action on the battlefield was even more dreadful. Kamikaze pilots would fly their planes into US ships and naval bases. They believed in the Brushido, which emphasized on not surrendering. If a Japanese person were to surrender, it would be in vain towards their country, and should commit suicide rather than surrender. With this type of mentality, how could one argue Japan was leaning towards surrendering? The Japanese wanted Soviet mediation for a settlement in their best interest. If it was not met to their approval, Japan would prepare a bitter, suicidal resistance that could last for months until meeting their desired terms. In July of 1945, Admiral Kantaro Suzuki told the Japanese Cabinet that thousands of kamikaze pilots would fly against enemy ships even in training planes, that millions of soldiers would fight the “Decisive Battle” by suicide banzai charges

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