Decision to Drop Atomic Bomb on Japan

Many people argue on the decision of United States to launch atomic bombs on Japan during the final weeks of the Second World War, the first bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, resulted in the death of about 135,000. The second dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August, killed at least 50,000 to 6400 people. These actions   brought about the surrender of the Japan and an end to World War II,  With regards to contemporary nuclear issues, one great controversial question of history remains until todaycan the use of the atomic bombs on Japan ever be justified? with the Truman decision to drop the atomic bomb claimed that the total death toll of at least 237,000 civilians was a small price to pay as an alternative to the number of lives lost on both sides had the war keep on.

 

There were 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima before the bomb was dropped; only 28,000 remained after the bombing. Of the city's 200 doctors before the explosion; only 20 were left alive or capable of working. There were 1,780 nurses before-only 150 remained who were able to tend to the sick. According to John Hersey's classic work Hiroshima, the Hiroshima city government had put hundreds of schoolgirls to work clearing fire lanes in the event of incendiary bomb attacks. 

 

Some factors could have contributed to Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb  on Hiroshima and Nagasaki one from the interplay of his temperament and several other factors, including his perspective on the war objectives defined by his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the American public expectations, an assessment of the possibilities of achieving a quick victory by other means, and the complex American relationship with the Soviet Union.

 

From Truman's Perspective; During World War I, Truman commanded a battery of close-support 75mm artillery pieces in France and personally witnessed the human costs of intense front-line combat. After returning home, he became convinced that he probably would have been killed if the war had lasted a few months longer. At least two of his World War I comrades had lost sons in World War II, and Truman had four nephews in uniform. His first-hand experience with warfare clearly influenced his thinking about whether to use the atomic bomb. A second factor in Truman's decision was the legacy of Roosevelt, who had defined the nation's goal in ending the war as the enemy's unconditional surrender, a term coined to reassure the Soviet Union that the Western allies would fight to the end against Germany. It was also an expression of the American temperament; the United States was accustomed to winning wars and dictating the peace.

 

In my perspective, it will be hard to support the invasion and bombing of Japan by the United States because of account of terror story and after effect of the bombs on the two cities. The defender of the bombing opined that several thousands of people have been killed during the war and are not up to the number of people killed by the bomb was not a justification for using atomic bombs on Japan, the after effects of atomic bomb last several years on the cities and its people, it has also cause fight among the world super power in the control of nucler weapons which could destroy the planet in a glance.

 

Dropping the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, after Hiroshima's bomb, was like hitting Pittsburgh after Detroit. The puff of death quickly scurried up the valleys of hilly Nagasaki. Whereas Hiroshima was a plain, these small hills tossed the blast from crest to crest like a basketball.

 

The facts are clear and there is no argument about when and how the bombs were dropped, but when it comes to the reasons behind the decision there are points of view from both the government, and the scientists involved.

 

President Truman took office after the abrupt death of President Roosevelt in 1945.  Shortly after his being sworn in, Truman learned of a top-secret governmental project that was more commonly known as ?The Manhattan Project.  Truman had no previous knowledge that this project even existed, let alone its political and social implications.  In 1939 Einstein and a few other scientists approached President Roosevelt with information regarding the possibility of developing an atomic bomb. One article headline from a newspaper in 1947 said Einstein's Letter prodded F.D.R into Atomic Race Oct 17, 1939.  The article goes on to say foreign born scientists, in this country as refugees from Facism and Nazism, supplied Mr. Roosevelt with much of the information which motivated him in throwing this government into atomic research.  The scientists were later named in the article as Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard, and Einstein's letter stated that experiments by Enrico Fermi and Leo Sziliard led me to expect that uranium could be turned into energy, and that Germany had put an embargo on all exports of uranium from Czech when they invaded (Blackwelder).

 

After the bomb was dropped, the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey sent its Morale division into Japan between the months of October and December to study the effects of the bombing.  Dr. Alexander H. Leighton was one of the research leaders on the project, and later wrote an article in the April 20 - 26th 1947 issue of Science Service, in which he discussed Japan's state prior to the bombing there.  The article    Leighton wrote the article from his eyewitness accounts and first-hand interviews with survivors and other Japanese citizens.  Leighton's findings after his studies came to the conclusion that the dropping of the bomb was unnecessary.  The essence of what I saw and heard was that Japan was on her last legs when the war ended.  Thus there may not be need to use atomics bombs on the civilian and sent the whole nations into the trauma effect of nuclear weapon.

 

 

 

Cite this page