The War Policy Of Bombing Cities Essay

They think that the Japanese were going to surrender, that Truman’s advisers didn’t all agree that the bomb was necessary, and that there was a better way to get Japan to surrender. But, it turns out that this was not the case. Japan was an honor-based country. Surrendering was not honorable to them. They were taught that suicide was an honorable death. “A prominent local Navy man, a former employee, had committed suicide the day before by throwing himself under a train- a death considered honorable enough to warrant a memorial service.”. (Hersey, 16). If it was honorable enough for a normal man to commit suicide, then people wouldn’t hesitate to die for their country. Japan would be wiped out because they wouldn’t know when to give up. In an interview with a high ranked Japanese officer on v-j day, Karl T. Compton asked him what he thought would happen if we hadn’t dropped the bomb, and invaded instead. He said, “We would have kept on fighting until all Japanese were killed, but we would not have been defeated.”. By this he means that they would have kept fighting until they were dead, and even though they would lose, it wouldn’t be losing if they died honorably, fighting for their country. Another reason why people did not think that he atomic bomb was not necessary was because people think that Truman’s advisors were not in favor of the bomb, therefore making the decision to drop the bomb only up to Truman,

On July 26, U.S. President Harry S. Truman and Allies issued a final ultimatum to Japan, known as the Potsdam Declaration. The Potsdam Declaration is a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces. The Proclamation Defining Terms of Japanese Surrender consisted of thirteen conditions that the Japanese had to abide by. Japan was warned numerous times from the United States about the potential threat of an invasion or the use of a new weapon. “Japan would be warned that the new weapon would be used against Japan unless surrender was forthcoming.” Premier Kantaro Suzuki had rejected Truman’s final warning by stating that it was unworthy of public notice. January of 1945, a reporter for Newsweek wrote, “This intense hatred was first aroused by the sneak attack on Pearl Harbour. I remember men who, when they came to the Pacific, had no particular hatred of or desire to kill Japanese. When treachery affects you, or somebody you know, you grow to hate violently.” President Truman was disturbed over the unwarranted attack of Pearl Harbour and the murder of their prisoners of war. Japan had, not only attacked Pearl Harbour, involvement of the Bataan Death March, and the bloody battles in the Pacific. Leaflets were also dropped over Japan to let the people acknowledge that if Japan would not surrender, the U.S. is willing

The first atomic bomb that Japan was to get a glimpse of was on August 6th, 1945, during World War II in the city of Hiroshima. The explosion annihilated 90 percent of the city; without hesitation killed 80,000 people. More than tens of thousands of people would have eventually died due to radiation exposure. Within three days of the attack, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb in another location known as Nagasaki, killing an estimation of 40,000 people. Hirohito, Japan’s emperor announced his country’s unequivocal surrender in WWII in a radio address on August 15th, in allude to the calamitous power of “a new and most cruel bomb.” President Truman had to make one of hardest pre arrangements that he had ever faced. Truman based this decision off of the results of to justify the cost of the Manhattan project, in response of

Document 2 describes that the Japanese surrender was not a result of the atomic bombs. The United States had hit 60 cities with their high explosive bombs and made Japan inaccessible to a wide-ranging war. This reveals that the Japanese had no access to a large war because of the raids caused by the Americans. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a way that the Americans got the Japanese to surrender. The United States bombing on Japan was similar to the raids because it killed many people but found a way to make Japan to give up.

Before the United States dropped the bomb, they allowed Japan a chance to surrender. On July 26, 1945, the allies issued the Potsdam Declaration. This treaty was meant to make Japan surrender without a war. This was a warning that Japan will undergo harsh and utter destruction if they refused the declaration. Two days later Japan stated that they were going to ignore the Potsdam Declaration (“Was the Atomic Bombing”).

The following day on December eighth,1941, the United States declared war on Japan.2 Throughout the war, advances in technology and warfare strategy would lead to a considerably larger casualty count. Some of these notable advancements include the airlift, anti-aircraft weaponry, the jet aircraft, and the strategies of naval warfare. Tanks had now evolved into main weapons for land warfare. Some notable advancements in the weapons department are the portable machine gun and the assault rifle. However, the most important advancement is the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb would be used in 1945 to force the Japanese into surrendering.3 Long before the bomb was dropped, Japan was given a list of terms for surrender known as the Potsdam Declaration. Some of these terms were as follows: war against Japan will not end until Japan surrenders. The United States cannot and will not deviate from the terms given to Japan for complete surrender. The Japanese military shall be disarmed and allowed to return home safely with no consequences. The Japanese people will not be enslaved or annihilated. Japan can

The U.S. viewed the bombings as a necessity because Truman gave the Japanese a chance to surrender when he issued the Potsdam Declaration. In his message, Truman

The Japanese saw this as an incredible insult to their ruler, and therefore refused surrender (Lawton). The only reason why America could follow through with the term of “The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction” (“Potsdam Declaration”) was because it had made the terms of the Potsdam Declaration completely disgraceful and unacceptable for Japan. Clive A. Lawton argues “Many Japanese politicians would only agree to surrender if Emperor Hirohito remained on the throne”. Had the U.S. revised its treaty terms in order to keep Hirohito in power and leave at least some of the Japanese military intact, Japan would have likely surrendered quicker and the bombs would not be needed.

Historians like Gar Alperovitz and Martin Sherwin have known for many years, based on declassified U.S. government documents that Japan was going to surrender in 1945 even if the atomic bombs were no dropped and that no invasion would ever have been necessary. Their only condition was that the United States "guaranteed the safety of the Emperor Hirohito", and in the end the Truman administration agreed to this rather than prosecuting him as a war criminal (Sherwin xviii). At the time in the summer of 1945, all the top military and civilian officials of the administration except Secretary of State James Byrnes had already advised Truman to accept the Japanese surrender on this condition. Yet when the Potsdam Declaration was issued in July 1945, Truman and Byrnes removed the condition that would have allowed the emperor to remain in power. As Herwin put it, "for forty years, the American public had been misled about the decision-making process", as indeed most of it still is even today (Sherwin xv). From secret documents declassified over the last thirty years, Alperovitz and Sherwin also proved conclusively that Truman, Byrnes and Winston Churchill regarded the atomic bomb as an instrument of diplomatic coercion to win concessions from the Soviets in Eastern Europe and Asia, and that they dropped it on Japan as a demonstration of resolve that they had the will to use it on Russia. Americans like to see themselves as the "good guys" in history and still regard

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, a professor at University of California-Santa Barbara and author of ‘Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan.’ points out “The atomic bombs’ impact can’t be discounted when discussing Japan’s reasons for surrender. However, the Soviet Union’s entry into the war, and the realization that Japanese forces would have to fight the Soviets in the north and the U.S. in the south, constituted ‘the greater

The Potsdam Declaration are terms and statements that issued the surrender of all Japanese soldiers during World War II. Countries such as the United States, Britain and China agreed upon these terms in hopes Japanese forces will not retaliate. The declaration specified

Bombing has the potential to be viewed as an unjustifiable crime because of its destructiveness, similar to the worldview on the extent of war. This topic related because although the Allies had bombing strikes on the Germans it was necessary in order to win. Americans choice to go to war was necessary in order to win back the dignity and continuity.

Japan was thought to be capable of a bitter fight even to the end of the war so in the spring of 1945 the idea of a nuclear bomb to avoid homeland invasion was the most attractive to some US policy makers. In June of 1945 Japan rejected the early surrender proposal offered and instead chose to fight and have a chance at keeping the Imperial house safe and warrior traditions intact but later on July 26th, 1945 a formal warning called the Postdam Proclamation was issued to Japan. This message stated that Japan’s surrender was necessary and if it failed to happen the Japanese would face “prompt and utter destruction.” No reference was made to the royal house or the emperor’s conditions and the only guidelines for the next Japanese government were

To what extent was the nuclear bombing on Japan necessary to end World War II

Accordig to Ledesma, J. (2017, June 07), the urban war in Marawi defines the finest moment of Muslims and Christians ties and brotherhood in the face of a ruthless aggressor that wrecked the erstwhile pristine and quiet Islamic City in the Philippines. Amidst the burst of deafening gun fires, devastations, stink of unknown corpses and threats of death by execution carried out in the most gruesome and barbaric rituals emerged a kinship among the victims helping each other survive the atrocities of an insane carnage. The Mautes are compelled to mount the assault by foreign terrorists identified with Isis and stimulated by drugs, this according to President Rodrigo Duterte. And here lies another shining moment among Filipinos: that in the