When Harry Truman the American president heard of the bombing he said, "This is the greatest thing in history". But even now people are still dying of the effects of the Atomic Bomb. These effects are so awful it is necessary to ask the question "Why did they drop the bomb?" when the war was so nearly over. The Americans had pushed Japan out of all the land they had occupied in the Pacific region. In Europe Hitler was defeated. So why did the Americans drop the bomb.
-The Americans believed Japan would never surrender. If the bomb had not been dropped thousands of American lifes could have been lost in an invasion of Japan.
-The Bomb had cost a lot of money to develop and the Americans wanted to use it. The bomb cost $200 million. It would have been difficult to justify not using after such as vast financial investment.
-The Japanese had been very cruel to prisoners of War. Some Americans thought they deserved to be taught a lesson.
-It was used to show the USA's military superiority to the USSR.
The Japanese believed the Emperor to be a God.
The U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Russia declared war against Japan.
Japan, because of its military, still refused to surrender.
Japanese peace advocates, fearing the imminent destruction of the Emperor, prevailed upon the Emperor to break with tradition and make government policy by calling for peace now. The Emperor did so.
As the result of the Emperor's call for surrender, the entire Japanese cabinet, including the military, agreed to surrender. The cabinet saw that this would allow the Emperor to be retained.
Even Japan's doves would have fought to the death had they not felt the Emperor would be spared. They saw "unconditional surrender" as a threat to the Emperor.
President Truman had been advised of the importance of the Emperor to the Japanese.
Japan was seeking Russia's help to end the war in July 1945. The U.S. was aware of this at the time thru intercepted Japanese cables. But the U.S. did not keep up with this change in Japan's position.
The U.S. chose military methods of ending the war rather than diplomatic methods. The desire for revenge helped make military methods more attractive.
Was it necessary to use the atomic bomb on Japan to end the war without an invasion of the Japanese mainland?
1) Offer retention of the Emperor for a quick surrender
2) Threaten Russian invasion and atomic destruction as the alternative.
3) None of these key incentives to surrender were used prior to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
4) Had the above method failed, and had the Russian invasion failed to bring surrender soon, the atomic bombs were still available - but as a last resort.
5) After the atomic bombings, Japan was allowed to retain their Emperor, anyway. So what's the difference?
I feel that a couple things could have been done to aviod the bomb. By dropping the bomb we hurried the Cold War when Russia boosted thier bomb research and devolpment and we also killed 80,000 people in the blink of an eye. I feel that this should have been thought about more carfully however, in the time of a crisis or War, I don't know how realistic or effctive thinking about it for a couple months really is. Things move to fast to make long decisions. War is an act of decisions and in order to be successful you must overcome the bad ones. Hiroshima and Nagasaki might not have been the best decisions the United States has ever made but in reality, the war was ended quick and that was the major goal. I don't know what to believe because as I have shown, there are good arguments presented by both sides. The fact that we dropped the bomb is a decision that we will have to live with forever and because it ended the war, I believe that it was the best decision for the time.