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The Pros And Cons Of Justifying The Bombing Of Hiroshima

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On August sixth, 1945 president Truman made the critical decision to drop an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and three days later would also decide to drop a nuke on Hiroshima effectively forcing japan to surrender. Truman's decision was justified at the time because, it was seen as the best option at the time, the Japanese were extremely against surrendering, and it in turn prevented the death of millions. The decision to drop the nuclear bomb was the best option at the time because it would force Japan to surrender the quickest and with the least casualties. On April first, 1945 the U.S. launched the attack on Okinawa, which is an island off of Japan, the main goal was to capture the airbase on the island because of its proximity to Japan. The Japanese …show more content…

Japan knew that the US would only settle for an unconditional surrender, so they decided the best course of action would be to not surrender at all. The government also knew that most of the army as well as civilians would have been completely against the idea of surrendering and would have kept fighting even with orders to stop as long as possible. This is in part because of their culture but also because they knew that the US would have wanted the execution of their emperor and that was absolutely not an option as they saw him almost as a divine power. The Japanese also proved extremely resistant in wartime situations by not surrendering. There would be multiple battles that they would fight until the …show more content…

government also concluded that the dropping of the atomic bombs would in turn save millions of future lives, but at the cost of innocent civilian lives. The U.S. knew that the Japanese were almost completely against the idea of an unconditional surrender and would fight at literally any cost. If they had decided to invade mainland Japan millions of lives would have been lost over a span of many years. They knew this because in earlier battles even for small islands hundreds of miles of the cost they fought hard and until the very last man, even going as far as to give official orders not to surrender or be punished, they could only imagine what it would be like on mainland Japan. They would likely also be fighting against civilians as they would take over cities because of how dedicated as a whole country they were to win the war. Truman and the government decided that it would be worth the sacrifice of around 200,000 people to save millions of future

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