ipl-logo

Should The United States Have Dropped The Atomic Bomb Essay

1134 Words5 Pages

Should the United States Have Dropped the Atomic Bomb? On August 6, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress, Enola Gay, dropped an experimental bomb called Little Boy on Hiroshima. Three days later, the United States dropped another nuclear bomb on Nagasaki. The effects of these atomic bombs devasted Japan and forced a surrender from them ending World War 2. These atomic bombs, in the eyes of the United States during this time, looked like miracles from God, ending this tragedy of war and saving American citizens. Looking back at this decision in history, was saving ourselves and causing some much harm worth it? Did we need to kill so many innocent people, including children, to be a victor in a one-sided attack? The United States should have never dropped …show more content…

Many Japanese citizens died from these attacks. There was no warning, and Japan lacked enough bomb shelters. "Tokyo only had 18 concentrate air raid shelters. Each could hold 5,000. This meant the that the city could shelter 90,000 people out of a population of 4.3 million citizens." (HIST 123 Atomic Bomb Ethics) These attacks killed many people who did nothing wrong but lived in Japan. The United States lacked empathy for Japanese citizens and violated their life and security rights. "It was characteristic of Marshall that while others were celebrating the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Gen. Groves recalled that "General Marshall expressed his feeling that we should guard against too much gratification over our success because it undoubtedly involved a large number of Japanese casualties." (General George C. Marshall) Our generals thought that these bombs created too many casualties and that we should not find these bombs a successful end to war. It left people homeless and without …show more content…

The United States was worried about the Soviet Union stepping in and helping the fight against Japan; The United States wanted to deal with Japan on its own and not have other nations' opinions conflict with them. President Truman used this as one of his justifications for wanting to end the war so quickly with these bombs. Dropping these bombs, however, set a precedent for nuclear warfare. "Szilard was one of the main authors of the Franck Report in June 1945. This report warned that even if the a-bomb helped save lives in this war, the a-bomb's use could lead to a nuclear arms race and, possibly, a nuclear war that would take far more lives than however many might be saved in the current war." (Leo Szilard) This precedent led to atomic bombs being feared in the

Show More
Related
719 Words | 3 Pages

Strauss added in his recommendation that the bomb, once it would be used, would give other countries ideas about how to end future world conflicts (Doc H). Strauss was saying that if countries have future arguments, one might think it’s okay to bomb another country to end a war. Just like when Truman bombed Japan to end World War 2. After the bomb, countries started to invent different bombs. Thankfully, none of the bombs were ever dropped yet, but countries could now use them if

Read More
179 Words | 1 Pages

President Harry Truman was justified in dropping the atomic bomb since it saved millions of American lives by ending the war as soon as possible, and established the United States as the greatest country in the world. With the bomb, America could “attack those that have hurt [America]” and save many American lives (Truman, Doc A). As part as revenge for Pearl Harbor, America was able to redeem itself against Japan with this bomb. It would make a statement to the world and force an unconditional surrender from Japan, as fast as possible. That would end the war and potentially save millions of young American soldiers.

Read More
345 Words | 2 Pages

Jane Runyon stated that “some civilian leaders even declared the bombs a good thing”. These leaders concluded that if the war continued without the bombs at least a million

Read More
616 Words | 3 Pages

If the U.S. did not use the atomic bomb, the war could have killed more American soldiers because Japanese soldiers fought to the death. “The U.S. had sustained more than 75,000 casualties.” (Historical Background). The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was just retaliation for Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor. The bombing was not really about saving lives.

Read More
602 Words | 3 Pages

Although dropping the bombs was inhumane in many ways, so was the Japanese treatment of the U.S, giving us a good rationale for dropping the

Read More
517 Words | 3 Pages

Moreover, as document 6 indicates through a letter from a soldier who fought in the Pacific, many believed that deploying the bomb saved countless American lives and facilitated an end to World War II. According to various arguments put up by supporters of the bombing, it can be inferred that the usage of atomic bombs was an essential and justified action. The belief is that Japan would have prolonged the war further, potentially costing many more lives. Additionally, the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki made Japan sorry for initiating conflict, and eventually led to

Read More
1322 Words | 6 Pages

The atomic bombs had been developed by the U.S. over the course of World War II under the Manhattan Project. President Harry Truman then decided to use them on Japan in a desperate attempt to end the war. Despite the fact that it saved American lives, the dropping of the atomic bombs on

Read More
687 Words | 3 Pages

First of all, in the case of the Americans the bomb was compared to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Truman says in a press release, “We have used it against those who attacked without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have abandoned the pretense of obeying international laws of warfare” (Doc I). Second, the bombing of Pearl Harbor was an uncalled for action that was against the “laws of international warfare” and was rectified by the atomic bomb. The soldiers in Europe were extremely relieved that they would not have to invade, which would be a fatal battle where our soldiers would be shot at constantly and have bombs flying around them while they were rushing the beaches of Japan (Doc H). This bomb avoided the invasion of Japan which would have ended in an estimated 1.7 to 4 million casualties for the Allied powers (OI ladailypost.com).

Read More
696 Words | 3 Pages

The US was, like the rest of the world, soldiering on towards end of a dark period of human that had seen the single most costly conflict in history, and they chose to adopt a stance that seemed to limit the amount of casualties in the war, by significantly shortening it with the use of atomic weapons. It was certainly a reasonable view for the USA to take, since they had suffered the cost of more than 418,000 lives, both military and civilian. To the top rank of the US military the 135,000 death toll was worth it to prevent the “many thousands of American troops [that] would be killed in invading Japan” – a view attributed to the president himself. This was a grave consequence taken seriously by the US. Ordering the deployment of the atomic bombs was an hateful act, but once they were certainly justified in

Read More
918 Words | 4 Pages

JFK once said, " Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind." In 1939 Albert Einstein had written the US president of the potential to build a nuclear weapon. The US entrance into the war on December 7th of 1941 led to the president creating the Manhattan Project in 1942 where the atomic bomb was developed. On August 6th of 1945 US president Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima using the atomic bomb, 3 days later he ordered a second bomb to be dropped in Nagasaki. The US was justified in using the atomic bomb to end WWII because, America's technology was their greatest achievement, during the time of war death is inevitable, and Japan ignored all warnings given by America.

Read More
1761 Words | 8 Pages

The United States knew that Japan was suffering and nearing its end in the war. In a conference in Potsdam, Truman and Germany demanded that Japan agree to an unconditional surrender but no negotiations were made. After the bombings on the 6th and 9th of August and the Soviets engaging in war with Japan on the 9th, they surrendered unconditionally. Despite having previous knowledge that Japan was looking to negotiate surrender, Truman still authorized the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, costing hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. Document C, a study conducted by the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, aimed to understand the effect of allied bombing in WWII, especially the effects of the bombing of

Read More
681 Words | 3 Pages

was right in dropping the bomb is because if we didn’t, then we had the possibility of losing supplies. If we were to fight on the front then we would have to supply our men with weapons, food, and clothing, making it hard to keep supplies in stock for the people back home. Paul Fussell states, “The people who preferred invasion to A-Bombing seemed to have no intention of proceeding to the Japanese front themselves”. This quote shows that people didn’t want to fight on the front so it would be a waste of our supplies that we could use for something else. And one of the most important reasons of why we would’ve run out of supplies is because trade was slow and not many countries wanted to trade so we wouldn’t have sufficient supplies.

Read More
852 Words | 4 Pages

In the twentieth century, the United States dropped two atomic bombs, which were the most powerful weapons at that time, on Japan. It happened on August 6 and August 9, 1945. The atomic bombs killed 226,000 Japanese and ended the war. However, America should not have dropped the atomic bombs for two reasons. First, it was not necessary to drop the bomb to win the war militarily or to get the Japanese to surrender.

Read More
581 Words | 3 Pages

President Truman and his associates believed that if they dropped the bomb they would receive surrender from Japan. Thus, saving millions of American lives, and ending the war. Nevertheless, by saving American lives they would sacrifice thousands of Japanese civilians. They had other idea to have Japan to surrender, but were willing to take the one that would have the most consequences. They were thinking too much about the US instead of creating actually peace within the nations.

Read More
934 Words | 4 Pages

I think the United States should have not dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the atomic bombs was too expensive and it was not really worth it, they wiped out two entire cities, and Japan was planning on surrendering. The atomic bomb they used on Nagasaki cost 2 billion

Read More

More about Should The United States Have Dropped The Atomic Bomb Essay

Related Topics

Open Document