Was The Atomic Bomb Justified Dbq Essay

Blood. Screams. Pain. Death. The unimaginable is happening all around you. People who you knew, laughed with, cried with: they are all around you, fighting, injured, dying. This is the pure tragedy that millions of American soldiers were faced with during many wars, especially during the brutality of World War II. The United States had the opportunity and technology to end this horrible struggle. They had the technology of the atomic bomb. Two atomic bombs were detonated on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki three days apart. The atomic bomb was a military necessity due to the effect of Japanese cruelty, the opportunity of technology, and the necessity to preserve the union. To begin, one of the ways the bomb was justified was through the

First, many lives of American soldiers were saved. One unique perspective of this is from Professor Paul Fussell, who without the bombs would have had to invade Tokyo, and would most likely have died. As Paul Fussell said in response to hearing the news of the bombs, ”We were going to live. We were going to grow to adulthood after all”(Doc. H). As you can see, soldiers would have had to unnecessarily die for the cause even if the U.S. had the power to end the war. Second, after the bombs were dropped President Truman made a statement to further support the necessity to preserve the union. Truman said, “We have used it to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans”(Doc. I). Clearly displayed here, you can see that Truman was so determined to preserve America, he was willing to introduce a new weapon in order to save the country and all the young patriots in it. Finally, dropping the bombs was able to save many more American lives than it took. Colonel Tibbits was the pilot of the Enola Gay, and he very clearly believed that they preserved America. As Tibbets said, “I have been convinced that we saved more lives than we took”(Doc. L). Shown here is the attitude that Tibbets clearly thought that saving lives was most important and that he did the right thing. According to The Atlantic, “General MacArthur's staff anticipated about 50,000 American casualties…”(Compton). This states that 50,000 American lives were saved in dropping the atomic bomb instead of sending out all those United states men and women to go off and be killed or injured, therefore clearly showing how dropping the atomic bomb saved the union. All in all, the job of the U.S. in that time was to preserve themselves, which they clearly achieved in dropping the