The Consequences Of Harry Truman's Dropping The Atomic Bomb

The U.S. continued conventional bombing in the 1940s but determined that it would not be enough to cause Japan to come to an unconditional surrender. Japanese military leaders strongly opposed the idea of surrendering while political leaders urged for the country to surrender

Had he chosen a different alternative , the world as we know it today might not have been the same and the balance of powers of the world would be extremely different. “The losses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki assuredly were horrific, but they pale when compared to the estimates of 17 to 24 million deaths attributed to the Japanese during their rampage from Manchuria to New Guinea. The historian Gavan Daws accurately described "Asia under the Japanese" as "a charnel house of atrocities." During the months of war following the attack on Pearl Harbor, reliable estimates establish that between 200,000 to 300,000 people died each month either directly or indirectly at Japanese hands. The historian Robert Newman tellingly reveals that "the last months were in many ways the worst; starvation and disease aggravated the usual beatings, beheadings and battle deaths. It is plausible to hold that upwards of 250,000 people, mostly Asian but some Westerners, would have died each month the Japanese Empire struggled in its death throes beyond July 1945." (Yes: Truman’s Simple Decision). It was clear that the Japanese war machine had to be stopped, the atomic bomb was the fastest way to draw the war to a close and prevent the deaths of thousands of Americans. While the instantaneous destruction of entire cities and their occupants is without a doubt horrendous, It was the by far the best of a multitude of other

It was predicted that the invasion of the Japanese mainland at the Island of Kyushu, scheduled for November of 1945, would be even worse. The entire Japanese military and civilian population would fight to the death. American casualties for just the initial invasion to get a foothold on the island of Japan would have taken up to an estimated two months and would have resulted in up to 75,000 to 100,000 casualties and potentially up to 20,000 dead. And that was just to secure the beginning of the invasion. "If we were to go ahead with the plans for a conventional invasion with ground and naval forces, I believe the Japanese thought that they could inflict very heavy casualties on us and possibly as a result get better surrender terms.” said General Carl Spaatz who was in charge of the Air Force operations in the Pacific. He expresses in his words that he strongly believes that the Japanese knew they had a good chance of overcoming this invasion due to their potential to cause mass destruction in terms of outnumbering the American troops. Thus, due to the undesirable costs the alternative of invasion presented, the USA was justified in using the atomic bomb on Japan as the more ideal alternative.

During World War II the war in Europe ended after the unconditional German surrender at General Eisenhower's Headquarters in Reims, France, May 7, 1945. "After the unconditional German surrender in Europe the war shifted to Asia and the Pacific. As the war continued against Japan the Allied forces captured islands such as Iwo Jima and Okinaawa close to Japan brought the Japanese homeland within range of naval and air attacks." (Dannen) On August 6, 1945, the city of Hiroshima was the target of the first atomic bomb used against civil population in history. On August 9, 1945, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb over the city of Nagasaki. In total,

Imagine yourself making the toughest decision in your life, whether sacrificing a million of our men and thousands of war ships and plans, verses several thousand of Japanese civilian populists. This decision was on the shoulder of Harry S. Truman, the United States President, who had to make this decision by deciding whether or not to drop a newly designed weapon. The atomic bomb was tested in the sands of New Mexico, where it proved to be very successful. Harry S. Truman made a very successful decision, because he wanted to end the war quickly, show others that the United States had power, and the retribution of Pearl Harbor.

In 1945, World War Two was coming to an end. Following Adolf Hitler’s suicide, and Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender on May 7, 1945, the war in Europe was finally over. The allies began began postwar planning for future, as well as establishment of post-war order and peace treaties issues. America’s war wasn’t done yet as they were still fighting Japan, eventually pushing them back to their main island. The Japanese’ plans of defending themselves was a group of final decisive battles on the Japanese mainland utilizing all people in Japan to fight to death against the Americans. Fearing costly land battles,

Webster’s dictionary defines hindsight as “the ability to understand, after something has happened, what should have been done or what caused the event”. It is a fair assumption that most people understand the old adage “hindsight is always 20/20”; alluding to the fact that, in our everyday lives, we as humans make decisions based on what we know, what seems right and occasionally what makes our lives easier. The average person does not have the mental capability to consider every possible outcome that a choice will have on his entire life, all within the thought process that leads him to reach a conclusion, however long and detailed that process may be. If we add massive amounts of pressure, contradictory advisement, the lives of

I believe that the Presidents decision was based dually on military necessity and on the Nation's reputation. Truman was not a dumb man; he was inexperienced and quickly expected to make important decisions based on very little information that he had been recently made aware of. I believe that his first thought was to just end the War. I do not think he felt the need

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States of America. He became president because Franklin D. Roosevelt died during his term; Truman was Roosevelt’s Vice President at the time. Truman found himself facing some of the greatest challenges met by any 20th-century president. He discovered in July 1945 that some scientists working for the United States government had successfully tested an atomic bomb in New Mexico. President Truman wanted to use the atomic bomb to end the war in the Pacific, but with fewest U.S. catastrophes. This decision was one of the most momentous decisions of the 20th century and extremely perplexing when analyzed.

Because of such drastic Japanese resistance, it would not only be impractical, it would be senseless to launch an attempt to invade and occupy Japan. Thus, dropping the atomic bomb was a military necessity in order to prevent a disastrous and precarious land invasion.

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

Although the Japanese believed it was dishonarable to surrender and probably thought they made the best decision, I am sure they didnt think about the lives they were putting in danger. The civilians that died were not to blame, and shouldnt have had to endure the devastions of the war but sadly they did live on a military port.

A famous expression often used by Harry Truman was “the buck stops here”. This means that all people have the tendency to pass along responsibilities and blame. Harry Truman, however, believed that as the President of the United States, he must take responsibility for his actions. One decision he weighed was the decision to use nuclear weapons during the Pacific War in the year 1945. President Harry Truman’s decision to drop the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a suitable decision and saved far more Japanese lives in the long run, while also preserving hundreds of thousands of American lives.

This decision remained the same until December 7, 1941 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Before entering the war, President Roosevelt, certain key advisors and scientists cultivated a top-secret plan and project to build an atomic bomb. Before 1939, there was little knowledge of using atomic energy in warfare, but by 1942 it was known that the Germans were working to find a way to add atomic energy to war (Stimson 1945, 2). Roosevelt established a partnership with Great Britain and Canada to block the Soviet Union from knowledge of the project, and to block an international control of atomic energy (Bernstein 1975, 24). It was clear to President Roosevelt that there would be little if any postwar peace between the United States and the Soviet Union, but he was confident that the atomic bomb was useful and made the United States a dominate role in nuclear warfare, and it could shape the postwar world (Bernstein 1975, 27).

Japanese officers high and low had been ready to fight till the death because surrender was considered dishonourable.'[6] To ensure that the fighting in the Pacific was completely nullified Truman had to destroy the Japanese will to fight. As Bonnet illustrates ‘winning the conflict was not only contingent on removing the opponent’s material capacity to resist, but also, its psychological capacity to resist.'[7]Truman's diary entries suggests that he understood that the Japanese defeat by invasion, would not necessarily guarantee the defeat of the Japanese throughout the entirety of the Pacific theatre, as his entry from August 6th suggests: ‘That its power may be an overwhelming influence towards peace.[8] Clearly, Truman understood that Japan had to be defeated psychologically as well as militarily if their defeat was to be ensured throughout the Pacific theatre of war. It was therefore paramount that Truman used the Atomic weapons to ensure the sustainability of peace in the Pacific and thus ensure that no more American lives would be lost. It was this aspect of the Atomic weapons deployment which was perhaps most attractive to Truman when he was considering how to bring about the defeat of the Japanese in June 1945.