Blog #18 – Rethinking the Atomic Bombs
A lot of second guessing has gone into America’s use of atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, even starting with former general and future president Dwight Eisenhower in 1948 who did not want America to be the first to use nuclear weapons.
According to the previous article in Portrait of America, “The Biggest Decision: Why We Had to Drop the Atomic Bomb” by Robert J. Maddox, the author worked on disspelling some of the myths that have popped up since 1945. The generals may have overestimated the Allied casualties, but the June 8 meeting with Truman stated that General George Marshall estimated that only 31,000 casualties would be inflicted during the invasion of Kyushu (Operation Olympic). What intelligence sources had discovered in the days before Hiroshima, the Japanese Imperial Command had correctly guessed what the Allies were planning and had reinforced Kyushu with over 500,000 (actually over 900,000 but the Allies didn’t know that at the time).
So, logic follows that Truman made the decision to drop the bomb in order to spare more lives, mainly American lives, from a costly invasion.
But did Truman drop the bombs to intimidate the Soviets? The war in Europe was over, and critics have claimed that the U.S. was trying to get the Soviets to either withdraw from Eastern Europe or at least be more open to agreeing with U.S. demands. However, Stalin was given the info about the success of the Trinity test (from spies) and therefore knew about the atomic bomb. Whether or not he felt intimidated was not recorded.
Another sticking point was whether Japan was ready to surrender. According to the Maddox article, Japan had sent peace feelers out through the Soviets but some members of the Japanese government (those with the power) wanted to continue fighting to protect Emperor Hirohito from 
prosecution of war crimes. What role he played has been (and still is) debated, but the military could see the writing on the wall with the prosecutions beginning in Germany after the discovery of the concentration camps. Would the emperor be retained as part of the Allies sticking to unconditional surrender terms? Or, as Truman had mentioned, would they soften on this one sticking point in order to end the war earlier to save hundreds of thousands of lives? The problem with interpreting the signals sent by the Japanese government at this time is that it sent mixed signals depending upon who was being asked. If it was a military officer, he was willing to fight to the end. If it was a politician, some kind of compromise was possible by the summer of 1945.
Furthermore, what would have happened to the Allied prisoners of war captured by the Japanese scattered throughout Asia if the Allies had invaded Japan in November 1945? Chances are, they might have been killed or tortured so they wouldn’t be of any use to an invading Allied army.
Is it possible to judge an historical era from 70 yrs later, especially one so fraught with controversy since the 1994 Smithsonian exhibit? See links below:
http://www.afa.org/media/enolagay/chrono.asp
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/30/us/smithsonian-alters-plans-for-its-exhibit-on-hiroshima-bomb.html
Your job: examine at least 2 of the issues discussed in the blog (things Truman probably had on his mind when weighing the decision to drop the bomb), and use/reference at least two of the documents in the handout I gave you today (Wed. May 11). What would you have advised President Truman do under these circumstances? Why?
Due Thursday, May 12. 250 words.
While I agree that it is very hard to totally judge a decision from an era 70 years in the past, I do think that we can look at evidence and form opinions about what we think should have happened. I think document 3 from the handout demonstrates the kind of war weary attitude President Truman was up against after Germany surrendered in spring, 1945. The document seems to say that anything is worthwhile if it promises to end the war and preserve lives—American lives, that is. I think the issue of revenge probably played a role (consciously or unconsciously) in President Truman’s decision to drop the bomb. The attack on Pearl Harbor had shocked the nation and had dragged us into a war no one was terribly excited to fight. By dropping a new kind of destruction on Japan, we would show the Japanese that we will find revenge. For me, a very powerful piece of evidence against dropping the bomb is document 4, showing that not even the creators of the bomb thought it would be a wise choice to drop on Japan, especially if Japan was not given a chance to surrender first. I can’t imagine the legacy the first atomic bomb drop would have could have escaped President Truman. I would be inclined to think that while ending the war was the top motivation for dropping the bomb, perhaps he also wanted to demonstrate the power American now had to the rest of the world, to deter any more attacks on American soil.
In regards to the Russians, I would have advised to have Truman to drop the bomb, not because it would threaten the Russians, but because even though the war was over in Europe, we were still fighting with Japan. In document 6, Truman said “I wanted to save a half million boys on our side…I never lost any sleep over my decision.” This shows that Truman wanted to end the war, not because he was in fear that the Russian’s would beat him, but because he wanted peace and this was the only way. Truthfully I feel that the Japanese were not going to give up. They would fight till the end. And in the blog, it says that political figures were talking about compromising and the military figures were talking more war. Like you said in class, the military leaders lead the way in war situations in Japan like the prime minister does in Britain, instead of Royalty. So, it was good that America ignored the political figures, because they would have been fighting way more. We had to drop a second bomb, because after the first one was dropped, they still kept fighting. They were intense fighters. In document 3, it outlines the fact that if we had not intervened, a lot more American lives could have been lost. Also in Document 3, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson said that if they had a genuine surrender from the Emperor and his military advisors, they must be in shock, and that would be a huge boost to the American side. I put emphasis on the and military advisors, because they wouldn’t have taken it seriously if it was just from the emperor, considering the military advisors were conducting all of the war deals.
I don’t know if the bombing was justified. In 1945 America was tired, and even with the fall of Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy, Japan was stubbornly continuing to fight. The Japanese soldiers were going to fight to the death, a mentality that the Allies did not share. After years of fighting Japan, the country that forced America into the war, was not giving up. The horrors of war had given some Americans the mentality that (as stated by Le May in Doc. 2) “there are no innocent civilians”. The Japanese, even if they said they wanted to take about peace, couldn’t be trusted! The last time diplomats were in America, the Japanese went and bombed pearl harbor, it would near impossible hard to trust them, it could be said that maybe they brought the bombings on themselves? Considering the atrocities of the Raype of Nap King, Pearl Harbor, and how Allied P.O.W were treated, an American who had been exposed to the Holocaust had little to no sympathy for the Japanese. Even the president said “I never lost any sleep over the decision” (doc.6) I don’t know if it was justified, but I do think that had the Allies invaded casualties would have been high, and it would have meant that the P.O.W’s would have been tortured. The Americans dehumanized the Japanese to make the bombing not seem so bad, but the Japanese had been dehumanizing their prisoners since the beginning, they treated the prisoners worse then they would treat bug they found to be particularly disgusting. I think the best advice for the President to follow would have been from the scientist who wrote doc. 4, the president has to try some diplomacy but if push comes to shove the bomb would be an effective way to end the war.
I was worried about this question coming up and I am very curious as to what my friends and peers will say.
Im willing to bet Truman had a lot on his mind, as any leader of the United States of America would. I doubt however that he was worried about the repercussions, think how you felt when Osama bin Ladin was killed, you were relived and possibly happy? Yes it was murder but it was avenging thousands of people and saving many more lives. Now in no way do I compare that to the atomic bombs that fell on Japan, the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much more severe and larger on scale. I feel President Truman did not use the bomb to unnerve the soviets, I believe his main motive was to get the Japan’s army to surrender. (If the soviets were phased it was just icing on the cake). The documents we received dictated a vast amount of info and the opposing views of whether we should have dropped the bomb or rather we are in the wrong for dropping it . and although I feel like a very sadistic person writing this, I feel that if I were advising presidents 70 years ago I would have encouraged him to drop the bomb. It would have prevented more American deaths. However I feel they could have dropped it on a military area concentrated with soilders instead of civilians. I felt that would have been more humane.
I believe that although Truman was hoping to save more lives, especially American lives, his goal was poorly thought through. The atomic bomb wasn’t a way to end wars or to save lives, it was literally a giant erase marker that wouldn’t even give a chance to the people of these cities to even voice their opinions or change. Although everyone argues that they all were going to kill or torture American soldiers, wiping out 100’s times more people was not worth it. According to the blog, many Japanese politicians were promising negotiations and agreements to quickly occur. I think that from an economic and moral standpoint covert tacticts and negotiations would have been much more intelligent, because killing so many people along with the millions more later from radiation sacrificined innocent lives and millions of dollars and such. Also not only did the atom bomb mass murder an most of a city, it also made it uninhabitable for a long period. I think that Truman didn’t consider the huge possible whiplash effect of Japanese hatred towards the U.S., and that although it ended the war quickly, this would make this the most destructive and researched weapon it the world, as we see today. Also Truman had received numerous letters from the scientists involved (doc 4) that this weapon was much too destructive to be used in resolution warfare, and that this also had the capabilities to destroy entire nations, not just little buildings. Even if people were weary of war (doc. 3), he should have either solicited aid or established requirements for a deal to be developed. Since Japan was very weakened, it would have been in no shape to attack the U.S. I would have advised Truman to attack elsewhere with the spy knowledge they had, although innaccurate, and if that failed, then to force negotiations through embargo and blockades. An added touch would have been to ask help from capable nations.
In my opinion I believe it is very hard to judge whether or not we should or should have not. None of us were living in the time and could have felt the immense pressures. Although saying this, i still do not think it was the right thing to do. I understand the times where hard, and that it was still for American lives but it was not right. For instance as stated by the article #4, it was not a good idea. Also, if the creators did not defend their own work, who would. It also says that we should offer the choice of surrender, and i understand that we offered it twice but how could we have possibly thought the Japanese to understand. Since they had never seen the nuke, they could not even begin to understand the unfathomable amount of damage it could do. So they probably did not take our ultimatum seriously enough. Along with the point that Japan may have been ready for surrender. This may have been completely true! As started in document #3 (the chart with the deaths) we killed 900,000 or so people in one firebombing! We also did not give them any time to decide if they would have wanted to surrender. It is not something that happens in 5 minutes. Also even after we dropped the first nuke, we only gave Japan 3 days. This may have not of been enough time for what actually happened to reach the government. Because you have to remember we destroyed the railroads, wires, and radio stations. So in my opinion the atom bombs, we un-nescacary, and may have been to overall way to extreme.
Truman knew that American lives were the only main priority of the US during the war with Japan, as the Japanese had no conception of failure. The only way that he could spare Americans from a costly invasion was the atomic bomb. If the US was to invade Japan, they would be going up against millions of Japanese who held US troops in the same regards as the devil. Document 3 sums up Truman’s thought fairly well, as the shockwave would carry throughout Japan and make the people realize that the US was the boss of the world. Its like in boxing, you can either tire out your opponent or go for the attack and deliver a major knockout punch that would surely end the fight. Document 5 shows us the flip side to the “saving lives” argument, that maybe Japan was too proud to accept defeat. However, the US wanted to show the world that it could end wars as quickly as they could start them. Showing their ability to cripple a nation with the atomic bomb would cement the head honcho title that the US faintly held to the USSR. Stalin knew that the US had an atomic bomb before it was dropped on Japan, and made no comment about it. However, there is a difference between test explosions and the real impact of a live one. Truman may have wanted to show Stalin that what he had heard about the trinity explosion was not just a big boom, but something that could instantly killed hundreds of thousands. True, the war may have been over, but Truman may have thought that if the bombs were dropped, no one would think twice about attacking the US at any time during the future.
After reading the handout on the decision to drop the bomb in Hiroshima in 1945, I tend to lean more on the idea that America dropped the bomb to show its power. After coming out of the war, they did not want to go through that again and definitely didn’t wanted to lose more american men. By dropping the first nuclear bomb in history they would scare off and their power to other countries. In Document 4, scientists’ wrote the president that they didn’t know what would be the true results therefor they weren’t suggesting it, this made the president appear even more strong. I do believe though that part of the decision to drop the bomb was to save lives in America and Japan but was also a revenge call to Japan for the attach in December 1941 at Pearl Harbor. Its hard to judge decisions taken when it goes way back, but I think we can get the general idea of their thinking. Truman commented after taking his final decision that he never lost any sleep over his decision. I am not sure though that the second bomb was necessary at all especially after all the damage made after the first. In the video The Atomic Cafe we watched in class, a man says they would drop bombs until the Japanese got the message. I find that horrible to say, they killed so many people in simply one bomb, they shouldn’t have considered dropping and killing more.
Obviously, the Soviets were a rising power that needed to be stopped. They were just as bad, if not worse, than Nazi Germany. Truman definitely made the right move in showing the Russians who was boss and trying to intimidate them. But besides imitation of the commies, Truman had to end the war. Seeing as Japan was fully prepared to fight with every man, woman, and child (to the death, I might add), we simply had no other choice. In a way, we sort of forced ourselves into the corner by demanding unconditional surrender—which we later annulled when Japan was finally able to surrender.
Truman perhaps said it best in Document 6, stating that he wanted to “save a half million boys on our side,” The only alternative to dropping the a-bomb was invading Kyushu, which was heavily fortified. The war had to end somehow. One thing was sure; no more American lives were going to be lost. In Document 5, Eisenhower really seems like a wimp, considering he’s a four-star general in the US Army. If he truly loves his country, he would recognize that to save the army he serves for and prevent any future aggression from Japan; the bomb would have to be dropped.
I’m a pacifist. I hate violence in any and all matters. But there are certain trying times when things have to be done. If someone were to come at me, time and time again, trying to kill me and my loved ones, I would have no other option but to teach him a lesson.
I agree with Truman’s decision to drop the bomb. The casualties that would have resulted from a mainland invasion would have been tramendous, especially with the amount of Japanese troops stationed on the main islands. Document 6 states that Truman chose to use the bomb to save the lives of Allied troops. The Portrait article also states that the predictions of the casualites were around 31,000 for the first 3 months of the invasion and probably would have been more because this assumed that there were only 300,000 troops stationed at the target when there were actually closer to 900,000 troops. With the amount of troops that would have been killed due to an invasion, the bomb was seen as an acceptable alternative. The Portrait article also states that Americans might have been unhappy if many American lives were lost due to a decision by Truman not to use the bomb. There is also the issue of whether Truman chose to use the bomb to intimidate the Soviets. There is no question that Truman did not trust the Soviets. If there was a way to end the war before the Soviets entered, Truman would absolutely be willing to go that route. However, I do not necessarily think that not dropping the bomb would have made the Soviets any more agreeable. They would have most likely demanded the exact same terms. Truman simply wanted to win the war without Soviet help, since he did not trust the Soviets. Truman ended up deciding to use the bomb with the support of others. Scientists convinced Truman that the bomb was the best option (Doc. 4) and Great Britian also supported Truman’s decision to use the bomb.
With most events in history, it is easy to look back with all the information we know now and think of a better solution. The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not in that majority. What happened to the people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was absolutely horrible. So many men, women, and children were killed or injured that day, and most of them were civilians. I found Major General LeMay’s statement in Document Two that “there are no innocent civilians” incredibly disturbing. Innocent or not, there is what was done to them was an atrocity and inexcusable. But at the same time, soldiers were still dying in the fighting in the Pacific. Without the swift ending the atomic bombs brought, the war would have dragged on even longer and hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides would have died. The bombs were dropped in the hopes of saving American lives—“I wanted to save a half million boys on our side…I never lost any sleep over my decision.”(Truman, Document Six)—but I think that having an “us or them” approach when it comes to a decision like this isn’t good. Yes, dropping the bombs saved thousands of American lives, but it ended thousands of Japanese lives. We will never know which in the end would have cost more lives, dropping the bombs or invading Japan without them. Next comes the question of whether or not Japan was about to surrender. According to Document Five, it looked like Japan was looking for an excuse to surrender with honor, so the bombs might not have been necessary (though one could argue that dropping the bomb gave them that excuse). At the same time though, the United States was making it hard for them to surrender while keeping their emperor and their form of government, Japan’s only terms. Japan would not forsake their emperor and centuries of tradition for peace. Honestly, I don’t know what I would have advised President Truman to do. While morally I am opposed to dropping the bomb and would fight against it, I know that if the invasion of Japan failed and it was discovered that we had weapons that could have ended it sooner, people would have been really angry, and rightfully so.
I don’t know if this is the right decision, but I would have advised Truman to drop the bomb. At the end of the war, Japan was the only nation still stubbornly fighting on the Axis side. One of the reasons Truman dropped the bombs was because he didn’t want to engage the Japanese in a costly war of attrition on their own soil. In document six, Truman stated that he “wanted to save half a million boys on our side…” meaning that Truman and America as a whole were tired. They didn’t want to fight anymore unlike the Japanese with their (in my opinion) somewhat twisted code of honor. In the portrait article, it said that the Japanese wanted to fight to the end. One of my problems with the Japanese idea of honor at the time was that they treacherously attacked Pearl Harbor while sending diplomats simultaneously only to distract the Americans. That seems hypocritical. While the atom bomb is horrible, at that time many Americans valued American lives more than Japanese ones. This sentiment is shown in document two when Major General Curtis LeMay said “there are no innocent (Japanese) civilians”. The decision to drop the atom bombs was a tough one, but I think it was the right decision.
As for the issue of whether or not Japan was willing to surrender or if they planned to keep fighting the war, I believe that Truman saw that their military’s intentions were to continue fighting this war with the Americans until they had finally won. Truman recognized that if he allowed them to continue training troops up to kill Americans, then the lives of many of our citizens would be taken. In document 6, he clearly says that the reason he decided to drop this atomic bomb on Hiroshima was to save the lives of many men and boys in the military who would be killed if we allowed the war to continue. His decision was logical. Document 2 justifies his decision because it shows that he believed a lot of the population helped in preparing Japan to fight us so no one was actually innocent.
Regarding the Soviets, I don’t believe that Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb came from a need to scare the Soviet Union because he seemed to be dealing directly with the issues that Japan was facing us with. He probably knew that the Soviets already knew that they HAD the atomic bomb so that was enough of a threat to them. The Japanese were the primary ones trying to continue the fighting with the U.S.
I would have told Truman to drop the bomb because it did, in the long run, turn out to save a lot of the Americans’ lives rather than letting war drag on.
The first Bomb that we dropped on Japan in Hiroshima caused much damage. With hundreds of thousands of casualties, it’s a surprise that we did it again. Those atomic bombs were obviously very dangerous. Even the scientists in Document 4 were against using the atomic bombs, and they were the ones that created it. I think I agree most with the proposal of the scientists. They say that the atomic bomb should only be used in a situation where the Japanese refuse to surrender after we make known the destruction the bomb can cause. I personally think that we should have let the Japanese know how powerful the atomic bomb was. I believe threatening is a useful tactic that can be used to a great advantage if used correctly. Although it might not have changed much, it wouldn’t have hurt to try. I do have very strong feelings though, about the second bomb dropped. It was completely unnecessary. We had tried the tactic once, and when we saw how much damage it caused, it should have made us rethink about dropping another one. I don’t understand how you could kill innocent people like that, see how much it devastated an area, and then willingly do it again. Some people though, believed there were no innocent victims according to Document 2. I do think it is possible to judge a historical era from 70 years ago. Even though thoughts might have been different back then, basic morality codes couldn’t have changed much. If the scientist were able to see the awful damage it could cause, and huge morality weight it could carry, how come no one else could see the same thing?
I think it’s somewhat unfair for people from our generation to have a strong opinion because although my inclination would be to have avoided dropping the bomb I don’t know how scared I would have been of the Japanese at the time. I am, however, certain that Curtis Le May’s comments in Document 2 are utter rubbish. No one deserves the effects of radiation we read about in the Portrait article. The confidence Truman had about dropping the bomb demonstrated in Document 6 left me a little disconcerted. I suppose he had to look confident no matter what his decision but I would think that he should have put a lot of thought into it.
If I were advising Truman in the early to mid 1940s I probably would have tried a different strategy several times before even considering the bomb. Truman seemed all too sure that bombing Hiroshima was a good idea. I would have tried to deter him from the idea. When considering possible consequences for the United States I feel as though I would have tried to persuade him to consider not beginning nuclear warfare. Although no one else had the Atom bomb people would have gotten insecure and figured out how to build them. If a nuclear war were to start today the whole world could potentially be demolished at our own hands. These things should definitely be considered before you become the first country to use nuclear weaponry. Finally, Dwight Eisenhower has a valid and persuasive point. If someone who is going to be doing the fighting agrees with me that it is unnecessary it makes me feel more certain about my opinion. Again, although I think I would have advised Truman not to drop the bomb, I cannot be sure because I wasn’t affected by the time period.
I think that Harry Truman made a bad decision by dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Although the action helped America it was not the right thing to do. In my opinion dropping something so powerful shouldn’t be our choice. It is one thing to imply that we can do it if you mess with our country but it is another to actually use the weapon. America new the extent of damage from their test sights and should have realized that it is inhumane to use something so powerful, especially since they dropped not one but two within a month of each other. After seeing the aftermath of the Hiroshima explosion they should have thought that it was not our right as humans to decide the fate of so many people, many of them innocent bystanders. Although I feel that it was a horrible thing to do to Japan many people may disagree with me, especially during the 1940s. We were still recovering from Pearl Harbor and I believe we were reacting, not acting of our own accord. There could have been other ways to stop the war like a smaller bomb or maybe even just using one instead of both. If the atom bomb were meant to be used in mainstream warfare America wouldn’t be the only country to ever use an atom bomb. In the long run we may have caused more damage then we prevented but hindsight is 20-20.
I think that I would have advised Truman to drop the bomb, but not on a civilian populated city. Since Truman didn’t want to put more American soldiers in danger. They wanted a quick way to end the war, but also to show off their power to the Soviets. The only other way to end the war was to invade the island that was fortified with over 900,000 troops, an almost 1 to 1 fight. In the handout, it was justified by saying that everyone in Japan had decided to build those planes and munitions, and they were all equally responsible. It also said that the U.S. scientists that created the bomb didn’t know what the results would truly be, so the bomb was just a way for America to flex it’s muscles in a sense, and show the rest of the world what it was capable of. It’s unfortunate that it had to come to this extreme, but I think that were I in command, there wouldn’t be another alternative to defeating Japan. They were dedicated to fight to the death to protect their honor and emperor, and I think that, unfortunately, this show of force was the only way that we could get them to surrender.
I think that if I were in a situation, I would have advised Truman to drop the bomb. Even though we were done with the war in Europe, we were still fighting with Japan, and we wanted to show our power to stop them. Also, other than just showing our power over the Japanese, Truman made the decision to save lives. Even though there were peace feelers out through the Soviets, members of the Japanese government with power wanted to continue fighting. In document 6, Truman says “I wanted to save a half million boys on our side… I never lost any sleep over my decision” regarding his decision. He didn’t drop the bomb just to show our power, but he dropped it because the Japanese wouldn’t be able to go to war anymore and he wanted to end the war. In document 3, the Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson says that “such an effective shock would save many times the number of lives, both American and Japanese, than it would cost”. You can’t just win everything so if you would at least save more lives, then it is better than the other option. Truman not only made the decision to drop the bomb to save lives, but it would have cost a lot of money for an invasion and he wanted to stay away from big funds. They weren’t sure if Japan was ready to surrender or not, and we were out of war in Europe, so we just wanted to get out of war sooner. If you look at the big picture, there would have been thousands that died still if we didn’t drop the bomb, so this was just an easier way to do it, that could have possibly saved lives too.
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki I don�t think were necessary to ending World War II. But then again when we look back on the bombings now we have more information about what both sides were planning and the outcome. I can understand why President Truman would decide to drop the Atomic Bombs. He felt the only way to guarantee the preservation of U.S. Troops was to end the war with as little military involvement as possible (Doc. 6). The U.S. also had no idea what it was like to live through air raids. We had Pearl Harbor but that was one bombing and it mostly affected military and navy troops no civilians. In Japan and Europe the civilians know the direct effects of being in war unlike any knowledge American citizens have. In Document 1 there is a list of multiple air raids in both Europe and Japan. Within the list include causalities of both civilians and military. American Major General Curtis LeMay said that there are no innocent civilians that everyone I a country helped prepare that country for war and that they all deserve to be punished (Doc. 2). That is extremely hypocritical for and U.S. official to be saying when in our own country not everyone supported the war and many people did nothing to help because of that opposition. I think that we could have won the war without using the Atomic Bomb but I think that the country higher government/military officials were eager to see the use of a new powerful technology that only the U.S. had. Many of the Scientist did not fully understand the power the A-bomb would have until after they were finished making it (Doc. 4). We could have probably won the war with just using normal bombs that cause less harm but still get our point across or we could have just used the one A-bomb in Hiroshima. In the few days between the bombings Japan might have even been trying to figure out how to surrender as President Eisenhower said in document 5 �with minimum loss of face�. I think that at the time with all the circumstances the U.S. and President Truman made the right choice. We were under pressure to get the war over with and did what was necessary, I just think that if they knew then what we know now they might have made a different choice.
This question is tough to answer, but that aside, i really do think the I would advise Truman to drop the bomb because i don’t think he was doing it for wrong reasons. I think he dropped the bomb in hopes of getting Japan to surrender not to kill thousands of people and horrify them. I don’t think he did this to purposely tear a country apart, in fact i think he was really trying to prevent that from happening to many countries! Japan was going to take over the world and no one could do anything about it. The US found a way to stop that and we followed through and i don’t think it was wrong to try and prevent something like that from happening. Can you even imagine where we’d be? America was ready to be done with war and this was an out, and I can’t say I blame them. Japan might not have ever given up!! They were so powerful and the bombs really scared them off a bit. In Document 6 Truman says he wanted to save the lives of other people, so I really think his intentions were in the right spot. It doesn’t make the killing of thousands of people justified in anyway but it definitely makes it seem more reasonable. He wasn’t dropping this bomb just to drop it! That would be bad! He was doing it for the welfare of our country and countries we were allies with. So I think it was right of him to drop the bomb.
I would have advised Truman not to drop the atomic bomb on Japan under the then current circumstances. My reasoning behind this is that killing people is wrong and killing innocent civilians. The atom bomb caused so much destruction using it is inexcusable under any circumstances. When I went to Japan one of the cities I visited was Hiroshima. One of the things we did there was go to the museum that was all about the bomb. It was really sad and horrible and I don’t think atom bombs should exist at all ever. Much less be used on people, they only cause negative things to happen. I’m not a fan of negativity. Even though the bomb was a short cut to ending World War Two I wouldn’t have advised Truman to use it. Short cuts aren’t usually good and they usually have a consequence. In the case of Hiroshima the consequence wasn’t worth the World War Two ending. World War Two would have ended eventually and an Atomic Bomb wouldn’t have been necessary. In Document six, Truman said he wanted to save “half a million boys on our side”. My question is what about all the other people who aren’t prepared to die for the war? Like the people of Hiroshima their not soldiers they were just civilians who had very little to do with the war. Everyone’s life is important regardless of who’s “side” their on. I agree with Eisenhower on document five. Bombing Japan was highly unnecessary in ending World War Two.
I think that dropping the bombs as a way to avoid massive troop loss is the most reasonable factor for Truman to consider when deciding whether or not to drop the bombs. According to Stimson in document 3, dropping the bombs saved many times as many lives when both Japanese and American losses are accounted for. As stated in the blog, there were 900,000 Japanese troops stationed in Kyushu. Invading would require a massive amount of troops. Also, since the Japanese were fighting to the death, there would be no chance of forcing a surrender. When Japan beat us back they would regain the strength to retake the Pacific again and possible move further towards the U.S.
The second most important issue, in my opinion, is the problem of Americans that were still in Japan as prisoners of war that would likely face terrible torture and death as a result of a U.S. invasion (torture would be similar to that we later saw in Vietnam). Dropping the bombs saved not only the lives of those fighting but also forced Japan to return our men to their home and to their families. An invasion was essentially signing the death warrants of hundreds upon thousands of men, the most terrible of which would be the couple thousand that were in Japan already as a result of the war. As Truman said in Doc 6, we dropped the bombs so that we could save half a million men from the U.S.
In doc 6 Truman also stated that he has never lost sleep over his decision. This is perhaps the most important factor in the whole debate. In the aftershock of FDR’s death, we needed a leader to pull us from the war. Truman’s confidence in his decision, whether or not the decision was correct, should show that it doesn’t matter whether or not he made the right decision because he had a strong conviction (this is very similar to the way that in a baseball game if an umpire makes a loud, confident call on a close play the team on the short end of the call is less likely to argue).
I personally would have suggested that Truman drop the bombs. I have always been taught that the bombs were an important event in history because of the fact that they ended the war and prevented the possibility of an extension of the war by several hundred thousand deaths and multiple years.
To start this off, I want to say that I agreed with Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I feel that it was a necessary task in order to finish off the axis powers in World War Two.
There were many factors to consider when deciding whether to drop the atomic bomb or not. I feel that the main concern was the likelihood that Japan would, in fact, surrender. The fear that Emperor Hirohito could have been prosecuted as a war criminal serves as a good enough motive to continue fighting until everything, and I mean everything, is lost. However, many of the Japanese wanted to reach a compromise. Obviously, asking three different Japanese people in three different positions of power would give you three different answers.
On a small sidetone, Japanese hate was very prominent in the United States at this time. Had the public known, I feel like they would have had a similar opinion to that of Major General Curtis LeMay, who stated that “there are no innocent civilians”.
Along with ending World War Two, Truman wanted to save his troops from instant, utter destruction. With the invasion of Kyushu, the Allies were looking at enemy numbers of 500,000 troops (later, it was confirmed to be over 900,000). With this strategic move by the Japanese, the only logical decision would be to cripple the nation with an atomic bomb. In Document 6 of the APUSH handout, President Truman said “I wanted to save a half million boys on our side… I never lost any sleep over my decision”.
First of all I do not think it is fair to judge an event 70 years ago. I feel that modern Americans have very different values and ways of thinking than Americans from the past. In reference to whether or not Japan was ready to surrender I feel that Truman made the wrong decision. I think that using a bomb as powerful as described by Document 4, the Scientists petition, in a situation where the justification of using such a powerful weapon is wrong. Also, in the petition the scientists further prove my point that we did not know whether japan could have peacefully surrendered and we could have saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. We will now never know and I think that only a small, minority group would fight for the emperor just because he would be charged for war crimes, if I were them I would be thinking about my family and my life before the emperor. However, this is seventy years ago and people may have felt differently. Like how it was a disgrace not to fight for your country in Japan and I pretty sure it is not like that now. In document six, President Truman said that “I wanted to save a half million boys on our side…I never lost any sleep over my decision.” I think this shows his attitude about dropping the bomb to intimidate the Russians. I feel that this was the wrong way to do that. First, he is hurting Japan not Russia, if Russia was his target. Second, a bomb is a lot more than intimidation, I think it is a cause for war. Then again, it was 70 years ago and I have no clue how the soviets, Japanese and Truman felt or what they discussed before hand.
I think that the Japanese weren’t going to stop fighting until the U.S. ended the war by dropping the atomic bomb on them. Unfortunately, it was the only way Truman wanted to conclude World War 2. After reading the documents, I don’t necessarily think that Truman did it to show the Soviets we had power, I think he truly wanted to save the American’s lives by ending the war. According to document 7, if the war had continued with the Kyushu landing, an estimate number of 20,000 or more would have been killed. The atomic bombs had ended the Second World War and had saved many American lives. The Japanese weren’t going to give up or surrender; therefore something had to be done. We couldn’t continue fighting forever as a number of people had already been killed. According to Document 6, Truman’s decision to drop the bomb was to save half a million people in the U.S. His decision was made, and nothing could have changed his mind. The blog states that the Japanese military officers were willing to fight to the end while Japanese politicians were willing to agree to a compromise. If we had waited to compromise and continued fighting, thousands of more Americans would have been killed. The Japanese military would have continued fighting until they would have won. According to document 3, the way to get the Japanese to surrender was to scare them. Since Japan didn’t know how to build an atomic bomb, they immediately surrendered and World War 2 had come to an end, saving a number of American lives.
I don’t think it is possible to judge a historical era from 70 years later because none of us were there at the time, so we don’t know what it felt like to be in the middle of war and all the tensions and decisions that came with it. Nonetheless, I think the atomic bomb wasn’t justified because it was cruel and unusual punishment and inhumane. The effects of what it did to the city alone should be enough to give anyone goose bumps, not to mention what it did to the victims; according to the portrait reading, a girl’s face literally peeled off! According to Doc. 1, we already killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese, and if all the casualties were totaled up, I’m sure that number will reach the millions. On March 9, 1945 we killed 100,000 people in one night AND left one million homeless. What if a country dropped 2 atomic bombs on us? Doc. 4 states that the scientists who created the bomb didn’t even feel comfortable with detonating it. If the creators of the bomb had second thoughts about using it because they realized just how powerful it was, how can we justify using it when the scientists warned us not to. How would we feel? How would we recover from such a major setback? In regard to the Soviet issue, I don’t think that the bomb was meant to get the Soviets to withdraw from Eastern Europe. I think the main purpose of the bomb was to force Japan to surrender unconditionally. But, if the Soviets happened to withdraw, then that would be an added bonus. In regard to whether Japan was ready to surrender or not, I don’t think they were because they said that they would rather fight to the death than surrender. Also, considering the fact that the Japanese politicians barely had any say in the matter, and the military officers wanted to fight to the end, Japan was going to continue to fight to the death. Advice I would give to Truman so that we wouldn’t have to resort to the bomb would be to find another method to get Japan to surrender. Maybe we could’ve told all the countries that trade with Japan to put a trade embargo so that Japan’s supplies would eventually dwindle and they would have to surrender. It’s probably not a realistic idea, but it’s just a thought. I would also tell him that if he absolutely had to because all else failed and Japan still wouldn’t surrender, use the atomic bomb as the very last resort.
Although I don’t think that it’s possible for me, being an American and living so many years after this terrible event, to make an accurate and unbiased judgement on whether or not the nuclear bombing of Japan was justified, I tend to lean toward the side that disapproves of the bombing. The main reason that I don’t think Truman should have taken this course of action is because I think that the bombing of Japan demonstrated a gross disregard for the lives of the people of foreign nations. The second reason I disapprove is because I think that the primary reason that Truman made the decision was to demonstrate American power to the Soviets, and ending the war was a close secondary priority. However, one could make the argument that the primary reason for the bombings was to end the war, and as Document 2 seems to show, although it is more a testament of opinion than fact, the whole population of Japan was party to the terrible crimes of war committed during World War 2, so unfortunately all Japanese had to be treated like potential threats and the country had to be thoroughly destroyed in order to, in the words of FDR, create a “quarantine of the aggressor nations”. In spite of this, however, I believe that Truman could have ended the war by working harder to reach an agreement with Japanese politicians instead of trying to force a surrender from the military and he could have instead used a large, unpopulated area to flex American muscle at the Soviets.
President Truman didn’t really have many attractive options available to him at the time to stop both Japan’s and Europe’s destructive dictators. Though Germany was probably the more alarming menace, Japan was closer to home, and therefore a top priority in terms of detonation. No one can solely blame Truman for this swiftly ruinous action, even though his was the final opinion; maybe he didn’t get a sufficient number of contradictory views. I personally think he should have spoken with Eisenhower, because he’d clearly thought through just what would happen if America were to drop an atomic bomb. According to Document 5, Eisenhower was having second thoughts about unleashing such a weapon of mass devastation at all, let alone on the unsuspecting Japanese, who were on the verge of defeat. Another party whose position he could have considered was the brilliant but underappreciated scientists – since these prodigies actually created this monster of an armament, they could enlighten Truman on the finer points of the damage. As stated in Document 4, the scientists warned against the cataclysmic ends that a nuclear bomb could cause if the weapon wasn’t expressly used in a last-resort type of situation. Though they conceded that the reason for the invention of this weapon was to be used in self-defense against Japan’s supposed atomic bomb, they also stressed the complications that came with releasing an armament of this caliber out into the world. These scientists wanted Truman to realize the impact his decision would have on Japan, the rules of warfare in the future, and his own country once he’d relinquished the hold on the secret of the atom bomb. No one really knows if the Japanese would have fully surrendered if they’d been given the ultimatum of being bombed worse than the world had yet seen, since they were never properly warned. America should have done a bit more rigorous testing to ensure that their estimates would be as close to reality as possible; instead, they killed a significantly greater amount of Japanese than was strictly necessary. In addition to that, Japan probably would have surrendered if they’d known the terrible extent of the damaging aftermath inflicted on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman, as he makes clear in Document 6, is only concerned with the welfare of his citizens, and cares nothing for the suffering of Japan.
I think that there are many reasons that we should and should not have dropped the bomb. One of the biggest reasons we should have was the amount of lives that dropping the bomb would save. Because the Japanese found out about Operation Olympic, the plan to invade the island of Kyushu, they increased the number of Japanese soldiers on the island. When we found out about that we thought there was ½ a million soldiers there was actually closer to one million. Either way the odds were turned against America. Also, President Truman had his mind made up on this subject he didn’t want to put so many soldiers in danger for what would pretty much be a death sentence. (Doc 7)Another way that not invading Kyushu saved lives was that when we did it the Japanese may have killed all Americans in POW camps. For this fact alone I would advise President Truman to drop the bombs. On the other hand Japan may have been ready to surrender before the dropping of the bombs. The blog says that there were people who wanted to keep fighting to protect the emperor, but Dwight Eisenhower, a future president, believed that dropping the bomb was pointless because Japan was ready to give up.(Doc 5) He also believed that dropping the bomb was for show, and he thought it was not a good idea. He didn’t want America to be the first to use nuclear warfare. With this being considered I think that I would still have advised the dropping of the bombs.
Dropping the bombs was a bad idea in my opinion. It is hard to say what exactly Truman was going through when he had to make that decision, but he probably took many things into consideration like how many lives would be lost who would be affected by it all after the bomb was dropped. Truman did decide in favor of the United States and he seemed confident in his decision especially in his comment in Document 6 which states “I wanted to save a half million boys on our side…I never lost any sleep over my decision.” Seem people did disagree with him like Eisenhower in Document 5 which shows how wrong and pointless Eisenhower saw dropping the bomb would be. Truman did have a lot to think about though; he would either have to risk the lives of American soldiers or destroy many Japanese, including innocent civilians. Another issue that Truman probably looked at was the aftermath of the bombing. The bomb wasn’t just going to affect Japan, but the entire world. This was the first weapon used that could cause so much damage and people all across the globe would be frightened by that. That also brought up the thought of what other countries would think of the United States after the bomb was dropped. If I were to have advised President Truman at that time, I would have tried to convince him not to do it and come up with some other, more peaceful way to finish the conflict with Japan. I would have tried to show him how many innocent lives would be lost and the situations the bomb would cause after it was dropped. I would have tried to convince Truman there were alternative options to ending the war.
If I could advise Truman what to do, I would tell him he had to drop the bombs. This is for several varying reasons. The first reason is that I believe the Japanese would never have surrendered. The entire country was completely devoted to the war effort, and protection of the emperor. I think that every man women and child capable of wielding a weapon would have, if they were called upon by their country to do so. To the Japanese surrender was worse than death, and this is shown in kamikaze airplanes. Another reason I think it was something that had to be done is because we had no idea the power and affect it had. Now that we know what these weapons can do, we are a lot less likely to use one. There was nothing to stop us from launching nukes at Russia, except we knew the devastating power they had, and the Russians could nuke us back. Another reason we should have dropped them is because of the potential American lives being saved. Like I mentioned earlier the Japanese were probably not going to surrender. If we would launch an attack on mainland Japan the potential for American losses was incredible. The intended target was defended by (estimate) nearly 900,000 soldiers willing to fight to the death. For these reasons I would advise Truman to drop the bombs on Japan.
The atomic bombs we dropped on Japan will always be very controversial topic. Although we dropped them 70 years ago there is still debate on what was the right choice. Was forcing them to surrender by bombing them right? Or was threatening them first the right choice? Either would be very hard decisions after deciding we would use the atomic bomb for the war effort. I think that it was awful that it happened but I don’t know what could have happened if we didn’t end the war and make them surrender. Truman argued that we could save lives from being lost in battle if we just ended the war as soon as possible. It turned out ok for the US but we left so many people at the time killed, injured and sick and now present generations are affected by the aftermath. Curtis LeMay was very pro-bombing. (Doc 2) He believed that all the Japanese people were in on the war effort so it was justified to kill them because they took part in it. I have a hard time believing that every man, woman and child was involved. However, knowing that the Japanese rarely if ever surrender, it seems that something as drastic as an atomic bomb might have been necessary. Scientists petitioned the president saying that the atomic bomb was just a “new mean of destruction” (Doc 4). They did not support the use of the bomb right away. The scientists suggested that we threaten Japan and see if they surrender before completely destroying civilizations with the new atomic bomb.
The bomb wasn’t justified. I don’t care that it would have saved half a million American lives; we didn’t have to attack Kyushu. In fact, we didn’t have to attack at all. Japan was willing to fight to the death. They had hope. I don’t know about anyone else but I think there was a little Azula next to Truman saying that we should take away the Earth Kingdom’s precious little hope. We acted like the Fire Nation! Instead of attacking their actual army, we bombed a city full of civilians. Sure, the Japanese weren’t playing so nice when they distracted us and went in for Pearl Harbor, but at least they attacked a fort. I see it as an analogy of our army as a big, sort of buff kid and Japan’s as a scrawny, desperate, and determined kid. We get tired of taking hits from Japan so we pull out his best friend who is utterly defenseless and start ruthlessly beating him up instead. Not only that, but it affected future generations and the radiation killed a lot of animals and wildlife. The people of Hiroshima’s descendents shouldn’t have to pay for the actions of a generation before them to this massive extent. America could have modified its unconditional surrender and negotiated a little. The Japanese used it as a distraction before, but we could at least tell them about the atom bomb, like the scientists said in the document, and given them some sort of warning at the very least. I would have advised Truman not to drop it.
Whether this was also a way to intimidate Soviet Russia is tied in with the fact that it’s very difficult, maybe even inaccurate, to completely judge the decision of the bomb. The conflicting sides of whether the Japanese were willing to surrender before the bomb or not shows contradictions in America’s intelligence. So as I write this entire blog, I’m merely guessing at some of the circumstances. From what I can gather, it seems that the fact that USSR would be scared was just another reason to drop it, not the main one, but like a little side dish. Insert awkward concluding sentence here.
While it is hard to make judgments about a decision made 70 years ago, I think Truman made the right decision dropping the bomb. The Japanese government was sending mixed signals and the United States wasn’t completely sure they were going to surrender. Maybe they were going to plan something huge against us, you never know. Dropping the bomb showed them how powerful the United States was and that we would take them down if they tried anything else (Document 3). Truman’s decision also saved many American lives that would have been lost during an invasion. During a war, we should be concerned with saving our own people, not the people we’re fighting against. I understand where Truman was coming from when he said “I wanted to save half a million boys on our side…I never lost any sleep over my decision” (Document 6). Japan was ready to fight if we invaded Kyushu, so I think the decision to drop the bomb was very smart. It showed Japan that we were clearly stronger and better without losing American soldiers. As Document 2 shows, the bomb wasn’t even killing innocent people; Japan’s whole population including men, women, and children were involved in helping make airplanes and munitions to fight. The bomb helped to end the war and save American lives, so I don’t see anything wrong with it. I’m not in favor of killing people, but that’s what happens during war is and in that particular situation, it seems to me that it was the best solution.
I think that a huge issue with what had done is the fact that we could have and probably did have prisoners in Japan in 1945. The government probably knew it as well but I guess didn’t feel like it was “necessary” to care. You can see the ignorance of the United States by looking at Document 2 which if from Major General Curtis Lemay. The Major General said that there are no innocent civilians, and that the entire population got into the act and worked to make airplanes or munitions, including men, women, and children. I find this to be the biggest bunch of bologna because you can just assume that ever person that is Asian/Japanese is against us just because we are in a war with Japan. It’s called racism. When people ask if Truman was doing this to intimidate the Soviet, I don’t believe he was. I think that we was trying to win the war with Japan. If Truman was truly trying to intimidate the Soviets, he could have drop one of the atomic bombs, or another one on the Soviets. People argue this by saying that we didn’t what to kill innocent civilians, but what’s the difference between the Japanese civilians and the Soviet civilians? Also, stated in Document 6, it says that Truman wanted to save a half million boys on our side… I never lost any sleep over my decision. This is the most irrational thing that I could hear the president say because he is being hypocritical here. He says he was debating the atomic bomb dropping because it would kill innocent civilians but then he goes on to say that he only wants to save our boys…
I think that morally, killing is wrong no matter which way you look at it. I do have one exception to killing (despite what I just said about it) and that is war. I also think that, like killing Osama, the threat being destroyed has less of an effect on the target, than if the target were to attack us. This relates to document six which is about Truman’s final decisions to bomb Japan which was to save half of a million boys from the U.S. That is war. I also think that in a time of war, when everyone we are fighting against is an enemy, they clearly deserve to die—to protect America (document 2). I, on the other hand don’t necessarily agree with that, even though I do understand it. I think that the bigger way to win a battle is not with big strong weapons but big strong words. So my thinking is like the pen is mightier than the sword. I think that document 5 was talking about this as well. So my decision of course is that yes, we should have completely destroyed japan and that we were in the right to do so to protect this great country of ours—even though some believe that (like in doc. 5) Japan was already defeated. On the morally correct part of brain, I do think that there are other ways to get somewhere than blowing people up. I wish that there was less violence (even though it’s pretty cool) and more solving of problems the way mom’s teach their children to.
Blog #18
Braxton Allred
5/12/11
Wickersham 3rd hr
In my opinion, I don’t think that I have the right or the real knowledge to tell President Truman on what to do regarding the releasing of the atomic bombs. There were so many possible outcomes depending on what he chose that either way people would have criticized his decision. In the end, I believe that it comes down to strategy and moral/ ethical consequences. Concerning the moral or ethic al part of the decision, Truman had to make himself the judge of who’s life were more important to the world, Although he obviously didn’t have to think much or was affected at all by his decision ( at least according to document 6), that’s not something I would like to judge on. In my eyes, a life is a life and no one here, no matter how much power they have, should get to decide wither we live or die (that’s God’s decision), but one had to be made, and understandably he choose our side to save. Now regarding the strategic par t of the argument, according the article 7, if we had continued on attacking Kyushu, we would have lost anywhere between 20,000- 46,000 lives. Now, according to the notes we took in class the other day, the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki lost 100,000 + lives, and the effects of the bomb lingered for many years afterwards. So by choosing to bomb Japan, he in effect saved a maximum of 46,000 American lives, a respectable sum, and with the Japanese military leaders refusing to accept failure, maybe it was necessary to send a big message to the world that we now have the means to cause a incredible amount of destruction, and were not afraid to so. Like mentioned in document 4 in the notes, the use of something of this magnitude would change the outcome and future of wars and conflicts in the future, and only someone like the president should be able to decide what’s best for this nation and in effect, the future world.
I think it’s wrong to kill people any way you look at it. At the same time, I can’t really judge President Truman’s decisions because I wasn’t there and I don’t know the seriousness or the panic of the situation. Probably it took a lot to decide to kill all those people and the President was under a lot of pressure. On the other hand, some people thought that it was okay to drop the bomb. General Curtis LeMay said, in Document 2, that there were no innocent people in Japan, including the women and children, and that they all deserved to die. This shows his complete ignorance about the situation. There are some kids who probably didn’t even know about what their parents were doing and they died anyway. That’s not fair to them and they were completely innocent. I saw how Truman actually felt bad. In document six you see how Truman felt remorse about throwing the bombs. But the way he saw it, he wanted to save the American boys instead of the Japanese boys. The pros and cons of the situation were weighed and Truman obviously decided that it was better to end it all right now and just drop a bomb instead of going through maybe more years of war. I’m not sure about showing off to the Soviets. If that’s true and showing off was part of the plan all along, than its really despicable of the government to sacrifice people in a macho game of who’s bigger/stronger. I think maybe they should have tried to peacefully resolve the problem first and then I guess if there was no other way, it might have been sort of acceptable to drop the bomb. But not really.
Seeing that times have most definitely changed in the last 70 years, it is pretty hard to judge the choices made during that time. Honestly, I would have told Truman not to drop any bombs. This is entirely biased, since I’m not one for violence in regards to solving problems. While I don’t think the Japanese wouldn’t have surrendered any sooner without the bombs, I think it could have been solved a little better than just dropping a bomb on them. I completely agree with Eisenhower’s statement in Document 5. That dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary. I think that Japan would have surrendered under different circumstances. It may have taken a little longer, but if not the first bomb, then definitely the second bomb should have been spared. As said in the document, the bombs weren’t necessary in aiding American welfare. Naturally, I would disagree with Henry Stinson’s decision to use the atomic bomb (document 3). I don’t think his reasons (that the bobs were necessary in extracting a genuine surrender) were viable. As previously stated, I think Japan eventually would’ve surrendered if we tried more skillful approaches to it. I also think it was very childish that part of the reason we did it was to intimidate Russia. If we’re going to fight them, why not just fight them? IO think America handled that in a very roundabout way, and I don’t think it was very professional. All in all, I would have told Truman that the dropping of the bombs was not needed.
I, personally, don’t agree with the Hiroshima bombing at all although I am opposed to violence especially when it hurt so many people. The bomb absolutely destroyed Japan and even if they didn’t know how much damage the bomb would actually do, they still shouldn’t have done it. They should have had found an alternative to bombing Japan or at least tried to warn them as scientists said in Document 4. I think I would have advised Truman to think more about his options, rather than just going ahead and dropping it. Perhaps he should have thought about his options more and sought to it that neither he nor America would regret the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombings. Now in regards to why he did it, trying to save American lives or intimidating the Soviet Union, something makes me think it was the former because I don’t understand why it would be necessary for them to intimidate the Soviet Union when the war in Europe was already over. In Document 2, there is a quote from Le May stating that everyone was the enemy, men, women, and children, that no one was innocent. This makes me think that they never really cared too much about the lives of the people in Japan and were just trying to protect America. I don’t agree with any of this in the slightest and I would advise Truman to think over his morals before he sticks his big toe into these important matters. I think he seriously needed to think over a few things before he goes and destroys two different Japanese cities and thousands of lives in a matter of moments.
Even if the Japanese government heads weren’t ready to surrender due to their fears of the Emperor being punished for the war, we had no right to nuke Hiroshima. I’m never going to agree that it was the ‘rational decision’ to wipe out over 100,000 people who were either fighting to protect their country or were simply innocent people living in the city. This shouldn’t even be an option, or if it is a final resort. In 1945 the Japanese were willing to fight until they died to protect their honor or their emperor from being forced to the same fate as many of the Nazi’s after their surrender. We could have allowed the emperor to escape scot-free from everything thing he did, fought and lost 100s of thousands of more men of both japanese and american origin, demonstrated the nuke peacefully and hope they surrender (which probably wouldn’t have worked because they didn’t surrender after Hiroshima)or they just nuke ’em and kill again over 100,000 people. I vote letting the emperor escaping without punishment, hes just one man and isn’t worth the families that were killed during and after the nuke struck. Document 2 shows the mentality of america at the time was the opposite saying “There are no innocent civilians” simply because they did the same thing that we did here. All they did was help their country to fight in a war against the people that they were told were the enemies. If even after we let their escape they were still going to fight until the end, we’d of been a lot better off nuking their base of a million people on Kyushu who had a large amount to do with fighting us rather than innocents who had little to nothing to do with the war. This is still terrible, but if we were determined that the only thing we can do is win the war and they were still fighting until the end there aren’t a lot of other options. After the nukes were dropped Truman states “I wanted to save a half million boys on our side… I never lost any sleep over my decision” Doc 6. This shows Truman backs up his decision, but there had to be other motives or he would of just nuked the island. So the only other reason is to show the power of the nuke destroying two major cities. He was probably intimidating not only the soviets, but the entire world.
I have no idea what I would have advised President Truman to do under these circumstances. I can see both sides of the argument, but I think that at this point in time I would have advised him not to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. It’s just morally so wrong that no amount of argument makes it seem justifiable. I understand that dropping the bomb may have saved American lives, but it cost thousands of Japanese lives including civilians. Unlike Le May in Document 2, I believe that civilians are quite innocent and shouldn’t be harmed for any reason. Children especially don’t deserve to be killed brutally for something that they know little about. Like the Scientist’s petition in Document 4, I think that we should have either warned them that we had this kind of power and weren’t afraid to use it, or bombed an army base, aircraft carrier or a remote area instead. I believe that the politicians might have been close to surrender and a demonstration of the atomic bomb could have been enough to push them over the edge. Dropping a bomb just to intimidate the Soviets seems like a pretty ridiculous idea. Killing tens of thousands of people just to make a dictator a little mad? Seems like a little too much to me. I can see the point though in wanting unconditional surrender from the Japanese and something extreme was likely the only way to go about doing that. But the moral stakes just seem to high to ignore. This is why I would probably tell President Truman not to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.
In the situation that President Harry Truman was faced with, I would have advised him to follow a very similar plan to the one he eventually followed through with. When the decision arose whether to use an atomic bomb on Japan, the United States had recently captured Okinawa in a bloodbath that lasted much longer than expected. Japanese soldiers were willing to fight to the death, as Japanese tradition held surrender as extremely dishonorable. Aware of the strong Japanese will to fight, the United States was faced with an extremely difficult invasion of the home islands. Another issue was the United States’ insistence on unconditional surrender. The harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles had greatly contributed to the outbreak of World War II, and the United States wanted to avoid making the same mistake. The Japanese people also maintained a strong faith to their emperor, and they were willing to fight to prevent him from losing his throne and being tried for the horrific acts that Japan carried out against its enemies. Some historians argue that the Japanese were preparing to surrender in summer 1945, but based on their tradition, it is unlikely that they would surrender without a fight. President Truman was aware that the Japanese would fiercely defend their homeland, leading to high death tolls on each side. As Harry Truman stated in Document 6, “I wanted to save a half million boys on our side…” Japan had strongly reinforced itself with millions of soldiers, not to mention civilians. Given Japanese culture, many civilians might have been willing to join in the war effort, either fighting or producing military supplies, as Major General Curtis LeMay referenced in Document 2. Essentially, I agree with Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson on the matter, as his opinion was referenced in Document 3. He argued for delivering a “shock” to Japan that would force them to surrender and prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides. Millions of people would have died in an invasion of Japan, but this was prevented by the large sacrifice of several hundred thousand Japanese civilian deaths. In the end, in a time of war especially, American lives are more important than the enemies’ lives to United States leaders, and that is what they traded. The only change I would’ve made is that I would’ve used the atomic bomb on a remote area of Japan to demonstrate the massive power that the United States held with it. If Japan still refused to surrender – which it likely wouldn’t have done – I would take the unfortunate step of bombing Japanese cities.
I think that since the soviets were a power that rivals the regime of Nazi Germanmy. I think that Truman made the right decision about dropping the bomb in order to show the soviets our power. And i still believe that these atom bombs were crucial in ending the war. The sovietws under Stalin’s command killed about 200 billion. No wait, incoming, 20 million of his own people adn this is greater numbers but maybe not terror over the holocaust. Stalin was a dangerous power slahc cookie and we needed to mess his ego up.
Even though Japan had no idea what kind of damage would be done by these bopmbs, it led to there surrender after they were dropped. The bomb also prevented the invasion of kushyu which had millions of soldier. in doc6 Truman stated that he was saving half a million of the us soldiers and this was not possible since the Japanese would not stop fighting. Doc 5 is like an opposite of what needed to be done. Eishenhower was talkin all high and mighty about how bombs were bad and i was like QUE? We needed to e3nd the war without losing any more lives in effort to a war that we could end. We saved roughly 50,000 lives by dropping this nuke. But i do think that maybe more pacifist actions could have been taken. We could have tested a nuke off the coast of one of the isalnds in hope that japan would surrender sonner. All in all nukes are american go america.
I think it was ridiculous of Truman to drop the atomic bomb. From World War I to World War II, our international policies changed for the worse. We forgot about the perks of being isolationist and consequences of being internationalists. We killed the majority of innocent civilians in order to tame the minority of power hungry animals that lurked within Japan. Truman knew how the oublic would react when they found out how many casualties there were-so he covered it up, changed some numbers, and went on happily with his life. He was trying to hide us from the truth; that internationalism solves nothing. Whether his reason was to intimidate the Soviets or to save American lives, taking MORE lives wasn’t the way to go about it. We could’ve just built up our defenses and stayed out of wars that were indirectly concerning us. Fighting violence with more violence just equals even more violence. But violence times 0 violence will ALWAYS equal 0 violence. Its simple math that Truman failed to realize. We had been through enough in the past 15 years and this burden pn all American’s shoulders from one man’s decisions wasn’t what we needed. These wars are nothing but a battle of testosterone. Each leader wanted to see how could be bigger, better, stronger and America caved in and fell for Europe’s taunts and name calls. The atomic bomb was unnecessary and a disgrace to America’s history.
I think that truman made the right decison, but on the wrong person. Odviously the soviets where a threat, not as much with Japan. So I dont see how droping a bomb on innocent people is right when your trying to just intimidate someone else. It’s like if your fighting someone and you beat the crap out of a scrawny kid that can’t defend to indimidate the person your fighting. But I do see how droping the bomb did break up the axis though, with Japan being the second largest power in that group of Allies. Also I know for a fact that people in Hiroshima where warnded about what going to happen, so completely blame us for the casualties isn’t completely fair. Japan also was a threat, but not to the point where we needed to nuke one of thier main cities, with the US being the most powerful country in the world I think we could of held our own and not had to have killed innocent people. In doc 5 Eisenhower stated that the bombing was completely unecessary and he feel into a depression. He said the atom bomb was no longer mandatory for saving American lives, and Japan was possibley about to surrender. In document 6 truman said that he never lost sleep over saving a half a millin boys, but in a document 7 the estimate casualties would have been 26,000, so I feel that we could have invaded Japan instead of killing more people then we had to.
Given the circumstances at hand with Harry Truman at the end of world war 2, I would consider Truman’s decision to be a wise one. It was not one that anyone would wish to come to, but for the sake of the future of finishing the fight against the fight-to-the death Japanese, dropping the bombs was the only viable way to prevent further damage and conflict. The alternatives to the first, and hopefully only, nuclear war in mankind’s history were either a much bloodier allied invasion of Kyushu, and victory in that was not likely, let alone assured. The second option was to surrender to the Japanese, for whichgod only knows what the consequences would be. The decision is further supported with a conclusion anyone in their right mind would come to given the circumstances, and embodied in document 6– “I wanted to save a half million boys on our side…I never lost any sleep over my decision.”
Also, Japan was not ready to surrender. they would have conventionally fought until their country was a parking lot. Henry Stimson outlines this in Document 3, citing extreme circumstances for the Imperial Army to ever surrender.
In regards to the “intimidating the soviets”, I would have to disagree. This is typical Soviet mentality of the era, and this mentality would eventually begin the Cold War. The soviet union was paranoid, and for good reason considering that about once every 45 seconds, someone decides to try and take over Russia. Although it could have seemed suspicious with the timing of the Manhattan project’s disclosure, I think Truman’s sole motive was to sacrifice relatively few to save many more.
I think that Truman made the right choice when he dropped the bomb. Sure, it killed thousands of innocent Japanese civilians, but as most Japanese were so involved in the war effort, I think that General McLay may have been right, if not very, very harsh in saying that there are no innocent Japanese civilians. I also think that he was correct in dropping the bombs to save American lives, as when there are over 900,000 enemies at your planned attack location, I’d imagine that just attacking head-on wouldn’t work, and he said that he didn’t lose any sleep over the decision, as it saved so many American lives. Also, I think using it as a demonstration to the Soviets, though they already knew about it, was a good idea for the most part, as they had been breaking down our trust for a little while. So overall, I think I would have dropped the bomb. However, I think he could have shown off to everyone before attacking the Japanese, such as dropping it on a desert showing a video of the explosion to the world.
If I was President Truman, I would personally advise him to drop the bomb on Japan. It probably seems kind of harsh, but I only say that because I feel that Japan is a very determined country, and they weren’t going to stop any time soon. I feel Japan was going to do any and every thing to remain dominant, although I feel that it was a terrible thing to kill and injure so many people, I feel that it was needed in order for Japan to surrender. It really though saved more American lives. It’s really to make such a big decision like that when people are adding their own opinions to things (document four, with scientists stating how destructive it is or document two wit being no such things of victims who are innocent or document six, with the fact that he wanted to save allied troops and save so many lives). I do believe that there were better options at the time, but now 70 years, I do believe it was the right choice for Truman. I’m sure if Truman had better options that would save lives and still be as powerful as the bombings, I’m sure he would have taken that route but I don’t think there was none, I feel the choice was fine. I think the first bomb in Hiroshima did justice, considering the bomb made us out like big bullies, but I don’t really think the second bomb in Nagasaki was right. Beyond a tough decision…but the right one!!! I’m gonna stop typing now because I’m starting to feel like I’m rambling just to get 250 words in so yea… That is all
Truman had no other choice than to drop the bomb, it’s as simple as that. Obviously you hate to see any member of the human race die, and my heart goes out to every casualty that came as a side effect to the bomb droppings, but this just had to happen. Whether it was us or them, one side was going to make a move. There was no way around casualties, so Truman had to make sure that they weren’t American, as he stated well in document 6. Our country’s back was against a wall—Soviet Russia was flexing their muscles, and Japan was ready to fight us. We needed to act, and I believe this was the only choice Truman had. Document 3 is further evidence that Truman made the right decision. Secretary of War Henry Stinson said that, “such an effective shock would save many times the number of lives, both American and Japanese, than it would cost”. This reiterates what I was saying—civilian casualties to either side were inevitable. Truman had to put his emotions towards killing many innocent people aside and put his country’s best interest first. To me, I don’t think that our main motive was to rustle Russia’s feathers when we dropped the bomb, but I do think it ended up being icing on the cake. Ending the war was essential, and we did just that, and I think that was the main problem that we needed solving, and Truman acted accordingly—and, in my opinion, correctly.
PS in my defense it only says “due thursday” not “due thursday before class starts” 🙂 ….if that doesn’t work, then my dog ate it?
GO WINGS!