The Use and Necessity of the Atomic Bomb in World War II Essay

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.

It was December 7, 1942 a beautiful mourning in Pearl Harbor. When out of the blue, hundreds of Japanese planes bomb and either sunk or severely damaged eight battle ships and at least thirteen other naval ships that were docked on the shore. This spark is what involved the United States the forest fire known as World War II. My paper is not on the war itself, but is on the atomic bomb, and what was known as the Manhattan project. In my report I will talk about the many reasons, the atomic bomb had to be created and used.

During 1941 through 1945 a war had occurred in the Pacific between the Americans and the Japanese this war was called The Pacific Theater. This war was also being fought during the duration of another World War against Germany and Japan but on May 8, 1945 Germany surrendered to the allied powers leaving Japan to still be dealt with. However Japan would not surrender even after the major battles between the Americans and Japanese in Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The Americans then came to conclusion to try and get to a new military weapon which then started the ManHattan Project. The Manhattan Project established a new powerful military weapon known as the Atomic Bomb. This new entirely militarized weapon was designed to force Japan into surrendering because Japan was still willing to fight even though they were on a brink of defeat and they were

The necessity of the atomic bombs have long been debated in America. Although they did contribute to stopping the war, Americans still wonder if murdering Japanese civilians was a necessary means to an end, or if it could have been avoided. Some people believe that the war would have ended without using the bombs. Others believe they were the sole purpose that the war finally ended. Many people were involved with bringing the bombs to fruition, such as the scientists, the government and military leaders, and the very teams that flew them to their targets. Then the President addressed the situation and American citizens spoke their minds. All of these people had their own thoughts on whether the bombs were needed. In this essay, the opinions on the atomic bomb’s necessity will be reviewed by presenting both the pros and cons from a variety of sources.

The pressing question still lingers: Was the United States justified in using the Atomic Bomb against Japan during WWII? World War II stands as the bloodiest and deadliest war of all time. It involved more than thirty countries and resulted in over fifty million civilian and military deaths. It lasted six years, beginning with Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939. As the Allied Powers (mainly the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union) and the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) were in direct conflict with each other, many wonder if the cost of victory was too extreme. In late 1941, the process of creating the world’s first, most deadly weapon began. The production of the first atomic bomb was code named “the Manhattan Project.” After months of production, August 6, 1945, America dropped the “Little Boy” bomb on Hiroshima, wiping out ninety percent of the city. August 9, 1945, just three days after the devastation of the first bomb, America dropped the “Fat Man” bomb on Nagasaki. Dropping the atomic bomb on Japan was not necessary, nor justified in ending World War II. Due to the fact that America targeted heavily civilian populated cities (with limited military value), that Japan was in a position of surrender before the bomb was dropped, and the fact that the U.S. did not give enough time for Japan to process the devastation of the first bomb before the second in Nagasaki shows that America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb was entirely unjustified.

The dropping of the atomic bombs was so devastating because no one saw it coming. Although, the bombs shortened the war the lives of thousands were taken including men, women, and innocent children. The United States did send the Japanese a warning stating what they were going to do, but the citizens refused to pay attention to the warnings.When the bombings took place there were a lot of different arguments that will be discussed in this paper. These events took place on August 6, 1945, and August 9, 1945, and about 225,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many individuals have shared their opinions stating why they are for or against the bomb.

A retired Major, Richard Gordon, was a POW in Japan and said, ?The dropping of the bomb saved the lives of all of us being held in Japan. There wasn?t one prisoner who wasn?t told they were dead if the Americans invaded Japan. We were looking forward to an invasion, but we knew we might not be around to see it.? Another survivor of the Bataan Death March, Grayford C. Payne, was quoted as saying, ?I had not been a prisoner for fifteen minutes before they bayoneted a fifteen-year-old Filipino kid right next to me.? A Japanese directive describes how the prisoners were to be killed: ?mass bombing, or poisonous smoke, poisons, decapitation?. In any case, it is the aim not to allow the escape of a single one, to annihilate them all, and not to leave any traces.? An invasion was the most favored alternative of the allies to force a Japanese surrender, if the bomb was not used. The other alternatives were naval blockades, modification of unconditional surrender terms, conventional bombing, and waiting a little longer to see if the Soviets would enter into the war. The number of Americans and Japanese who would have died if such invasions had occurred would have been astronomically higher than the number who died at Hiroshima. Pentagon planners projected 132,000 American casualties for an invasion of Kyushu, and 90,000 or so for Honshu. Using Okinawa as a model, there would be one American casualty for every four Japanese casualties, and Japan?s

“Truman stated that his decision to drop the bomb was purely military. Truman believed that the bombs saved Japanese lives as well. Prolonging the war was not an option for the President,” (ushistory.org 1). President Truman and the United States government made a fair decision by dropping the atomic bomb on the Japanese citizens in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during 1945. The bomb allowed the United States to appear more powerful and led to them influencing the rest of the world. The dropping of the atomic bomb was also a just response to the previous atrocities committed by Japan to other countries including the United States. In the long run, the bomb saved more lives that would have been lost in the war, since the bombs caused the

President Harry Truman’s use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan during the Second World War is the most controversial decision in history. While it was an undoubtedly difficult decision, it was indeed necessary in order to end this six-year war that had ravaged the world. While many critics argue that the bomb was used primarily as an act of vengeance toward Japan, simplifying such a crucial moment in human history downplays the very real risk invading Japan posed to the United States. While avoiding strained relations with the other Allied countries, Truman had to assess the possible danger of the Soviet Union in a post-war world. Furthermore, the possibility of an arms race, the moral implications of using this

During WW2 Truman, the United States President at the time, was asked to make one the toughest decision in History. Choosing between dropping an atomic bomb or invading are both choices that will result in a lot of deaths. The huge diffrence between the two was who died wether it be the Japanese with the bomb, or the American soldiers with the invasion. Trumans decision was supposed to end the war sooner, hence reducing the amount of agony,deaths, stress or any other negative effects that could result in the continous war. Truman's decision on dropping the Atomic Bomb's was an efficient course of action for the Americans, but was deffinantly not the most educated decision. If I had been placed in Truman's shoes and had to make this

This number was much lower than predictions from other sources. A.C. Snow, a News and Observer editor, wrote, "The invasion was expected to be the Armageddon of World War II some historians project that a million or more lives would have been lost" (screen 1). President Truman and Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, said that dropping the bomb was a military action that avoided the loss of many lives in the upcoming invasion of Kyushu (Goodman, screens 1-2). During the war the Japanese were killed twenty-two to every one American, so if the invasion would have taken place with these numbers the bomb saved many lives (screen 6), On the side of President Truman's decision to use the bomb to end the war was the fact that far, far more people, civilians and military would have been killed on

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.

Some regard the atomic bomb as “the thank God for the atom bomb”. This places God on the U.S. side and regards the bombs as our saving grace. This bomb forced the Japanese to surrender which in turn proved the U.S. to be the heroes who saved the American’s lives.1 The Americans intended on ending the war but did not expect to end it with such a large number of casualties. The results of the atomic bomb and how it effected the Japanese people both emotionally and physically will be addressed. “The bombs marked both an end and a beginning—the end of an appalling global conflagration in which more than 50 million people were killed and the beginning of the nuclear arms race and a new world in which

This investigation will explore the question: To what extent was the nuclear bombing of Japan necessary to end World War II? The years 1940 to 1950 will be the focus of this investigation, to allow for an analysis of the circumstances during the war and commentary of the decision to drop the bomb after the war ended.

On August 6th, 1945 sixty thousand people instantly disintegrated within a five-mile radius blast that erupted over Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later an even stronger blast was felt over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Though thousands died, the technologic improvement from the original bomb did not go unnoticed. Both “Little boy” and “Fat man” were successful in collapsing the Japanese will to fight and on August 15th Japan surrendered to the United States. Without the introduction of the atomic bomb, no one can say for sure how long the war would have raged on for. As noted in the Battle of Midway the shortage of experienced pilots hindered Japan but advanced their tactics as well. Rather than training proficient pilots, the Japanese took a kamikaze approach to aerial combat and rammed fighter planes into the sides of US ships. At this point, the Japanese were literally willing to die for their country even if it meant complete suicide. The success of the Manhattan Project did