ipl-logo

The Pros And Cons Of Stopping The Atomic Bomb

946 Words4 Pages

When I was a little girl, I remember sitting on the couch with my grandfather, who happened to be a World War II veteran. I always asked Grandpa to tell me stories from when he was in the army and about all the cool places he got to visit. One day, while sitting around the table with my mom, dad, aunts, and grandfather, I learned about a decision that saved millions of lives, even my own grandfather’s life. That day I was introduced to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After that conversation with my grandfather and family, I quickly choose where I stood in the great debate. The United States made the correct choice to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 6, 1945, Operation Centerboard took place, dropping …show more content…

The operation was split into two parts, Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet . Operation Olympic was set to take place in November 1945 (“Operation” 3). It would be comprised of fourteen army divisions, forty destroyers, twenty four battleships, four air force divisions, forty two aircraft carriers, and the entirety of the Pacific division of the British Royal Navy and would invade thirty five beaches along Kyushu, Japan (“Bombings” 4). Operation Coronet would strike in March 1946 in Honshu, with intention to capture Tokyo. Coronet would comprise of a whopping twenty five army divisions and troops from Britain, Canada, Australia, and all over Europe (“Operation” 5). Japan’s plan to combat Operation Downfall was known as Ketsugo, which means decisive in Japanese. The emperor planned to deploy six carriers. Four cruisers, one battleship, three hundred and sixty submarines, four hundred manned torpedoes, and eight hundred suicide speedboats. Sixty five small divisions of troops would be formed, but there was only enough weapons and ammunition to supply to thrity divisions (“Operation” 6). It is easy to see that Japan’s defense is dwarfed compared to the Allies’ …show more content…

They sealed their fate on July 26, 1945, when the Allies issued a final ultimatum, the Potsdam Proclamation. The declaration stated that all citizens of Japan would be safe, no one would enslaved and all citizens would be granted the freedoms of speech, religion,, thought, and be able to produce whatever goods they wanted. Japan still refused to surrender. In response, U.S. planes dropped around sixty three million leaflets into thirty five Japanese cities warning them that they were a bombing target and needed to evacuate. However, Japan warned their citizens that anyone caught with the leaflets would be arrested (“The Decision” 3). Therefore, I believe that Japan had plenty of warning of future catastrophic events, butt hey choose to be ignorant and put their citizens’ lives in

Show More
Related
184 Words | 1 Pages

In the United States, it is often taught that the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the deciding factor for the Japanese to surrender during World War II. However, upon closer inspection that may not be the reason why. For example, by the time both cities were destroyed Japan had already lost dozens of cities to American fire bombs and conventional raids. As a result, the only difference between the cities that were previously burned and Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the type of weapon used. Therefore,the Japanese government was aware and accustomed to loosing cities and large number of civilian lives.

Read More
882 Words | 4 Pages

This document conveys that the Japanese wouldn’t back down after multiple warnings, instead they were getting stronger, and therefore the atomic bombs were justified because they were given fair warnings that they did not take it

Read More
807 Words | 4 Pages

did not always know it all. The solution to war lay under the noses of former Japanese leaders. The United States was unaware of Japan's plan to eventually surrender, proving they did not plan to fight to the end but planned to keep up the illusion. Unfortunately, after the invasion seemed to have no effect, the U.S. strayed from typical warfare and brought out its deadliest weapon. After two nuclear attacks, Japan was not in any shape to go against both the Soviets and Americans and was forced to surrender earlier than planned.

Read More
966 Words | 4 Pages

With limited amounts of oil Japan started seeing problems, in November 1941 Tojo stated, “... Two years from now we will have no petroleum for our military use. Ships will stop moving…” (Doc E). Japan is aware of the decline in petroleum and is starting to get slightly more aggravated at the U.S for causing this situation to fall upon

Read More
617 Words | 3 Pages

The decision that brought death to cover a hundred thousand Japanese…” As you can tell, the U.S already knew the what would happen if they dropped the bomb, but dropped it

Read More
642 Words | 3 Pages

In late July of 1945 at the Potsdam Conference, the Allied leaders gave the Japanese a chance to surrender, and they totally rejected it (Doc. 1). After the American invasion of Iwo Jima, the Japanese defenders felt discouraged and defeated, as well as desperate to do whatever it took to win (Doc. D). So, by dropping the bomb and ending the war quickly, the opportunity for the Japanese to brutally attack the U.S in a desperate scramble to win was eliminated. Although Japan would need to use money to rebuild the destroyed areas, ending the war saved both sides from spending even more trying to clutch the victory, as the United States alone spent over 4 trillion dollars on the war (Harrington, John and Suneson, Grant.). In all, both sides were relieved by dropping the atomic bomb and ending the war more

Read More
712 Words | 3 Pages

Japan also could have surrendered an avoided such strikes. In the end, Japan cannot say it did not have a hand in its cities own

Read More
1481 Words | 6 Pages

The plan of the attack began when Japan was becoming greedy and wanted to begin expanding to different Pacific land. To the Japanese, the attack was only seen as strategy, to secure the Pacific for oil shipments (“Pearl Harbor” International). The operation for the attack was formulated by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Advantage “Military”). Under commands, the Japanese fleets had based themselves 200 miles north of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 at approximately 06:00 am Hawaiian time. For little over the next hour, the Japanese launched the three waves of approximately 360 aircrafts for the attack (“Japan Launches”).

Read More
1895 Words | 8 Pages

However, despite Japan’s losing of its imperial territories and a large portion of its military force, it still had several million soldiers and thousands of planes. In order to achieve victory, it was becoming increasingly clear that a land invasion would be necessary. The proposed plan—codenamed Operation Downfall—was a full-scale, costly invasion of the Japanese mainland that consisted of two parts. The first of these was Operation Torch, an invasion of the southern island of Kyushu scheduled for November 1, 1945. The second was Operation Coronet, the invasion of the main island of Honshu scheduled for spring 1945.

Read More
1523 Words | 7 Pages

This was a complete tragedy for the Japanese empire with so many innocent

Read More
1437 Words | 6 Pages

Also depleting air strength meant the remaining warplanes had to be hoarded to defend Japanese Home Islands. With no available means to defend Iwo Jima, Japan decided to rely on the established defensive equipment in the area and check U.S. by delaying tactics to gain time for defense of the mainland. Japanese Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi was assigned the task of defending Iwo Jima. Knowing he couldn’t win the battle, he aimed at inflicting heavy casualties on American forces to force them to reconsider invasion of Mainland Japan. His strategy was radically different from Japan’s usual strategy of beach defense to face the landings directly.

Read More
852 Words | 4 Pages

Japan had to accept unconditional surrender; if they disagreed with that request, America would drop the bomb. What made the Japanese surrender was the retention of their emperor; anything else couldn’t have forced a Japanese surrender, including the attack of the atomic bomb. As Japan's Prime Minister Suzuki spelled out on June 9, 1945. “Should the Emperor system be abolished, they [the Japanese people] would lose all reason for existence…. [and have] no choice but to go on fighting to the last man” (Butow).

Read More
1008 Words | 5 Pages

(LEE, 2016) Which meant cutting off supplies and reinforcements to any other Japanese unit outside Japan. The Navy was also going to begin bombing on the north end of the island near Tokyo call Honshu and on the south end of the island of Kyushu for a possible invasion. (LEE, 2016) The second option was to support the first by

Read More
615 Words | 3 Pages

They sank four of our eight battleships (Attack on Pearl Harbor). All but one, the Arizona, were later raised and restored (Pearl Harbor). The whole escapade took about two hours (Welcome to the official site of the attack on Pearl Harbor). Japan had executed their strategy with precision and a lot of

Read More
1384 Words | 6 Pages

Shortly before the US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, the United Stated showered the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima with over five million leaflets warning civilians of the impending attack and specifically stating that they need to “read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or friend…” (Leaflet 1) Although the Leaflets were dropped just days before the bombs giving only a short amount of time for people to even consider going anywhere, they were warned. The Japanese people knew this was going to happen, so why didn't they make further accommodations for the people that would be affected? We will never understand that. In addition to being showered with warnings about the bombs, several people took it lightly; thinking that it may just be a scare to get them to surrender.

Read More

More about The Pros And Cons Of Stopping The Atomic Bomb

Related Topics

Open Document