The Pros And Cons Of Atomic Bombing

On the morning of August 6, 1945 a US B-29 superfortress bomber aircraft left the island of Tinian and took off to Hiroshima, Japan carrying an atomic bomb called “Little Boy”. When Little Boy exploded it instantly killed 80,000 people. 60,000 more died the following weeks due to nuclear radiation (“Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” 1). On August 9, 1954 a US B-29 superfortress bomber aircraft left the island of Tinian and took off to Nagasaki, Japan carrying an atomic bomb called “Fat Man”. When Fat Man exploded it instantly killed 60,000 people. 20,000 more died from nuclear radiation (“Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki” 1). Many believe that these bombings were unnecessary since Japan was close to surrendering seeing that they had no allies,

Former President Truman believed the bombings were necessary for Japan to surrender. Before the bombings it seemed as though the Japanese army was prepared to fight till death ( Nichols 1). The bombing turned out to be a success and on August 15, 1945 Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender in a radio broadcast. The surrender agreement or treaty was signed on September 2, 1945 (“Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” 1). There were many reasons why former President Truman launched the atomic bomb on Japan. Three key reasons why former President Truman launched the atomic bomb on Japan are because Japan viciously surprised attack Pearl Harbor, he genuinely thought this was the only way to end the war, and he wanted to prevent the lives of more troops from being lost in an ongoing

Japan was showing no sign of backing down. Truman wanted to guarantee the surrender of Japan. He also wanted to end the war before the Soviet Union entered Japan because he knew Joseph Stalin was not interested in a peaceful ending ( Nichols 2 ). He knew an invasion like the one in Germany where the Nazi armies were crushed between the U.S. and British forces and the Soviet troops was not going to occur in Japan (Nichols 1). Truman had no choice but to allow the bomb dropping since Japan refused to surrender on July 28, 1945 (“Potsdam and the Final Decision to use the Bomb” 6 ). The first bombing in Hiroshima failed to elicit immediate Japanese surrender even though it caused the most damage and took more lives than Fat Man (“Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” 1). During Truman’s speech of informing the American public that the US had dropped an entirely new type of bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, he warned that if Japan still refused to surrender unconditionally they would continue to attack and leave them with equally devastating results (“Potsdam and the Final Decision to use the Bomb” 6). Japan still refused to surrender and the second bombing in Nagasaki occured. This bombing resulted finally in the unconditional surrender that Truman anticipated (“Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki” 1). He felt that this surrender would only have result from the atomic bombs. “