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Why Was It Necessary To Drop Two Bombs On Japan?

Decent Essays

On August 6, 1945, while fighting World War II, the United States did something no other country had done before. They dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan; however, if one bomb was not enough to prove to the world that they had created such a massive destroyer of man-kind and everything within its range, they dropped a second bomb on August 9, 1945 over the city of Nagasaki. Was it truly necessary to drop two bombs over Japan to make them surrender? What did it prove to the rest of the world? In 1930, Japan realized it needed to expand its territory due to a limited number of resources on the island due to its overpopulation. So, in 1931, they invaded Manchuria, China, ultimately creating a war between them. The United …show more content…

more backing and hopefully lessen the blow to the Japanese. Truman did not want to wait nor did he want to risk anymore American lives against a country that had clearly dug their heels in to be defeated rather than surrender. Therefore, on August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, instantly killing over 70,000 Japanese citizens. Still the Japanese would not surrender and the U.S. dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki, ultimately killing an additional 80,000 citizens. It was not until five days later that the Japanese finally surrendered unconditionally. However, with only three days in between the first two bombs it was apparent that the Japanese were not going to surrender so quickly. The Soviets quickly invaded after the first bombing and this could have contributed to Japans surrender, not the two atomic bombings. What did the dropping of two atomic bombs really solve or gain? It did end the war, but many Americans, military advisors, and allies believed that Japan was close to surrendering. They only had a military and over 10,000 aircraft left with no means to rebuild since the U.S. had turned off all oil supplies to them and heavily destroyed their industrial cities. Continued air bombings along with a German invasion would have sped up their inevitable

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