Why Harry Truman Dropped The Atomic Bomb On Hiroshima

In the brutal and deadly Pacific Theater of World War ll, President Truman had to make a crucial decision on whether or not to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. Some believe that Truman’s actions to drop the atomic bomb were unethical and inhumane; however, Truman was justified in his decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan due to the fact that they are our enemy, saving American lives is the first priority, and the atomic bomb will ultimately prevent Russia from gaining control of Asia.

On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. To this day there is controversy on whether the U.S. should have risked the lives of hundreds of thousands of people to win the second world war. The U.S. Should have considered other options before dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. There were many alternative actions that could have taken place instead of dropping the bomb, but President Truman decided that using it was the best way to get the Japanese to surrender. If he would have chosen differently, the world would be a different place today.

President Truman must have kept in mind the personal political implications of his decision to drop the bomb. With polls showing that Americans overwhelmingly supported the "unconditional surrender" of Japan and with his knowing the strong anti-Japanese sentiments of the American people, I must have felt that I had little political risk in dropping an atomic bomb on Japan."(Harry Truman) President Truman must have also considered his difficulty in explaining to American voters why the government spent two billion dollars to develop a superior weapon if he personally decided not to deploy it, especially if the war had dragged on with additional American casualties. Here is an entry from Truman's diary, "I have to decide Japanese strategy - shall we invade Japan proper or shall we bomb and blockade? That is my hardest decision to date. But I'll make it when I have all the facts."(Ferrell)

The bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima killed millions of people and destroyed a city. Although that happened, Japan attacked the United States first at Pearl Harbor. The United States made the right choice when they dropped the atomic bomb because they ended the war, Japan wasn’t going to surrender without it, and the United States really didn’t have another choice. Japan would not have surrendered as easily if the U.S did not drop the atomic bomb.

This thought brings me to my next motive of why Truman might have dropped the bomb. I do not think Truman was unaware of the lasting effects of the atom bomb, but by the time these facts were presented to him, piled upon facts about the actual bomb and the projects supporting them, it was to late to change his decision. He needed to save face for America (which brings me to the next motive of pressure) even if it public opinion was not his main concern. Truman did not want to look soft upon the Japanese, something further consideration and negation of the plan to bomb would have caused in some officials eye's. Also, Truman and much of the rest of the nation did not like seeing the U.S. as moral failures like many other nations. Who knows what the reaction to the President's decision would have been like if he had decided to let an invasion with hundreds and thousands of our men involved take place.

Why President Truman Decided to Drop Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki At 02:45 August 6th 1945, the B-29 Superfortress the Enola Gay took off from the specially lengthened North Field on the Island of Tinian in the Marianas. The plane piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets was 7 tons. At 0815 hours the bomb doors of the B-29 opened and flying at approximately 32,000 ft the uranium based atom bomb code-named “Little Boy” was unleashed upon the city of Hiroshima. Over 70,000 men women and children were killed by blast alone.

If I had been in his shoes, I would hope I would have had the courage to make the same decision. No one wants to see innocent people die, especially civilians. Sometimes, you have to outweigh all of your options and even though these options were not good at all. Truman definitely chose the lesser of two evils which saved countless lives. You can never please everyone. Somebody will always have something to say whether it is positive or negative. I understand that this is what makes the world go around, people having their own opinions. I could not imagine the pressure Truman was facing, knowing all of the lives which are at stake. Many people say Truman was wrong for using the atomic bomb. My question to them would be, is it better to send our young men in on a ground invasion and lose maybe a million or more of our men, or drop a bomb and save our men? We did not start the war, but we sure finished it. We did not ask to fight in this war. We tried staying out of it, but we were dragged into it. September 11, 2001, we were attacked when terrorists flew planes into the twin towers in New York City. Instantly, America is at war. The difference this time, we are not fighting a country, but a group of terrorists who were extremely difficult to find. If it had been a country like Japan, then I would have hoped that we could the bombed them the same way we bombed Japan. But you can’t bomb a group of people who are all over the world. I support Truman’s decision in using the bomb. If we have to use this type of force again in order of saving many of our men and women, then that would be the lesser of two

“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

To what extent was Harry Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?

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

Whenever a country is in a war, they always want to use any advantage to be victorious and that’s what America did. The atomic bomb should be perceived as a military weapon and not a weapon to kill civilians. This was evident when Truman chose his target spot for where the atomic bomb should dropped. He said in Excerpts from Memoirs: Years of Decisions, “In deciding to use the bomb I wanted to make sure that it would be used as a weapon of war in in the manner prescribed by the laws of war. That mean I wanted it drop on a military target. I had told Stimson that the bomb should be dropped as nearly as possible upon a war production center of prime military importance” (Blumberg et al. 105-106). It is clear that Truman’s intentions were to win

The atomic bomb that was intended for Japan is what President Truman meant by this saying, “This is the greatest thing in history” (Reece, 197). It was not a great thing, because of how serious it was, but it did make a huge impact on the world after it was introduced. Listening to what parents say is what every child typically has to do. Not only relating to the story, but if people take time to think about it, the president or person in charge will take action when they find it necessary. Many people are left without being heard and are forced to just go along with the plan. In this case the child was listening to his fathers plan about bombing Japan. As American citizens, there is not much someone can say

The decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the hardest decision for President Truman to make. He had the power right there in his hands to end the war but he would have to unleash the most powerful weapon known to man, at this time. Everyone was very tired of fighting but the Japanese would not give up so Truman decided to drop it. Even though we told Japan that if they did not surrender we would completely demolish some of their cities, they did not listen and they did not surrender. Maybe they did not think about what kind of weapons we would use because

President Truman has to make one of the hardest decisions of all time. He had to decide whether it was better to use a weapon of mass destruction, or let the war end on its own. Ultimately, his decisions to use the atomic bomb and end the war was the correct and most ethical decision. This decision was an ethical one because America gave the Japanese ample warning, it saved countless America lives, and it was payback for Pearl Harbor.

President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the direct cause for the end of World War II in the Pacific. The United States felt it was necessary to drop the atomic bombs on these two cities or it would suffer more casualties. Not only could the lives of many soldiers have been taken, but possibly the lives of many innocent Americans. The United States will always try to avoid the loss of American civilians at all costs, even if that means taking lives of another countries innocent civilians.