"Nobody actually wants to cause the destruction we caused, but it was through a necessity rather than a wanton type of destruction. It was something that had to be done…” was said by Sergeant Robert H. Shumard, the assistant flight engineer of the Enola Gay. Shumard dropped the bomb Little Boy, so he was able to see the damage done to the city of Hiroshima. When he says this, he is meaning that they did not want to destroy the city or cause the deaths of so many innocent people, they thought it was something that had to be done in ending the war. President Truman was not in office for very long before he had to make a huge decision for the nation. Japan was losing yet they were not willing to surrender so he had to decide the best way to end the war quickly with the least amount of casualties. He decided to drop the atomic bomb and we still talk about this important decision today. Although the atomic bomb caused major destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, President Truman thought it was a military necessity to end world war II and justified by the fact that the bomb forced Japan to surrender, it ended the war quickly, and it saved thousands of lives. First of all, Japan was unwilling to surrender so this meant that the war could have continued for numerous months. They showed no indication of surrender and if the fighting would have continued …show more content…
If the fighting would have continued many more American and Japanese lives would have been lost. “... I cannot believe that, without the atomic bomb, the surrender would have come without a great deal more of costly struggle and bloodshed.”(57) is said in “If the Atomic Bomb had not been used” and means that without the bomb many people would have continued to die. More people died in a regular bombing than in an Atomic bombing during World War II so this proves that the atomic bomb really did save thousands of