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Manhattan Project Facts

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On December 7, 1941 Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii out of nowhere. The U.S. had no warning and suffered heavy casualties as a result. This event forced the U.S. to retaliate by joining the Allies during the Second World War. As the years went on and the fighting continued, around August, 1945, it was clear Japan was out of the picture and had lost. Although they did not want to admit defeat, Japan was going to do one of two things: surrender or fight to the last man. Unfortunately for them, they never surrendered. Japan chose to fight. Midway through July, President Harry Truman was told of the success of The Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was an atomic research program that began in 1941. The goal of the project …show more content…

After Truman was notified of its success, it was up to him to decide if the nuclear bomb would be used against Japan. The President wrote ,”It is an awful responsibility that has come to us.” and awful it was indeed. President Truman had four options when it came to ending the war: option one was to continue to conventionally bomb Japanese cities; two was to conduct a full-scale invasion of Japan; three was to demonstrate the bomb to Japan in an attempt to scare them into submission; or option four, which was to drop the bomb onto an inhabited city in Japan. As you can see, none of these options were necessarily easy to choose. All of them had consequences. Again, the first option was to continue conventional bombing of Japan’s cities. The U.S. had been bombing Japan since 1942. Between April of 1944 to August of 1945, an estimation of around 333,000 Japanese citizens were killed, and 473,000 more people were wounded. Truman provided his opinion on the matter: “Despite their heavy losses at Okinawa and the firebombing of Tokyo, the Japanese refused to surrender. The saturation bombing of Japan took much fiercer tolls and wrought far and away more havoc than the atomic bomb. Far and away. The firebombing of Tokyo …show more content…

It was the first time in all of history that something like that had happened. The second bomb was later dropped on Nagasaki on August 9. Around 80,000 people, including civilians, died from the initial blasts. Approximately 35,000 were injured, and after that year, 60,000 more died from the effects of nuclear fallout. On, August 14, 1945, Japan surrendered and the deadliest conflict to ever happen in human history had finally ended. Truman’s Opinion on His Decision President Truman never took responsibility from dropping the bombs, and he did not apologize for it either. After the second bomb was dropped, a Protestant clergyman by the name of Samuel McCrea Cavert asked the President to, “..stop the devastation against Japan’s people.” Truman’s reply was, “When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast.” meaning Japan was too uncivilized and cruel in warfare, that he had to put an end to it. Truman was the only leader in history to drop not one bomb, but two, on an opposing country. Every President after Truman has had the same power to drop one, but not one of them has used that power since

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