ipl-logo

How Did President Truman's Decision To Use The Atomic Bomb

1673 Words7 Pages

The United States joined WWII after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. After, losing countless American lives, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Harry Truman had to step into power and make the executive decisions. Truman would end up making a decision that would end up saving thousands of American soldiers and would introduce to the world the most powerful weapon it has ever built. At the end of the second World War, President Harry Truman made the decision to launch the Atomic Bomb, ultimately beginning the modern nuclear age. The battles at Okinawa and Iwo Jima would cause many American soldiers to lose their lives and President Truman had to make a decision on whether or not to send American soldiers to invade the coasts of Japan and try to seize their country that way or, the United States would test out a prototype weapon that they had been secretly creating for months. Truman chose to go with the latter option and the bomb codenamed “Little Boy” would be dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. The bomb …show more content…

The plane became the first aircraft to ever drop an Atomic Bomb. But, the Enola Gay had to be almost perfect with the execution of the drop or it would have gone down. “If he fails to cover enough ground, Enola Gay will be destroyed by shockwaves.” (O’Reilly 191) But, the bomb couldn’t be loaded onto the plane like any normal bomb due to its abnormal size. “ Due to its size, it cannot fit beneath the B-29’s fuselage for loading like normal bombs.”(O’Reilly 180) The pilot of the plane had much more to worry about than just getting the bomb to its destination, he also had to be well trained and briefed on the mission beforehand to insure that the mission would be a success and that he knew the risk he was taking when delivering such a mighty blow to the Japanese

Open Document