Was America justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Given those holding to the propaganda line I am compelled to assert a definite no! Months before the Japanese had been fielding inquiries for a neutral party to help in negotiating terms for surrender with the main problem being the status of the Emperor. This for those who may have more naive concepts on this question is no small problem because the last civil war in Japan henged on the restoration of the Meiji compounded by a want of isolationism. Two weeks before the drop the Russians had declared an intent to join the Allies against Japan so even the cop out notion that it would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives is false speculation. Most importantly given the situation why couldn't the States call a short term cease fire to demonstrate the bomb on a mutually agreed un-populated island. America has a very vendictive personality. One answer I read calls the attack on Pearl Harbour dasterdly, which is a popuplar enough claim but doesn't that make Washington's attack on Valley Ford even more so. Pearl Harbour was a Militay Base and Americans had been sending support against Japans expansions at a time in which it refused to maintain diplomacy with her. America under Doolittle also bombed Tokyo earlier in the war, not as any part of a real stratergy but to demonstrate just how spiteful and vendictive it could be! About !00 years before the war Japan considering the West to be ill mannered barbarians and so attempted to isolate itself as it had for nearly 200 years. The West answered with the Black Ships of Admiral Perry forcing their want and Japan into it's counter modernization. A modernization that saw Europe attempting to colonize as much of Asia and Africa as they could get their hands on and logically Japan began staking out a piece of Asia for Asians! The methods may have been doubious but the cause in WW2 was clear, and only by understanding this full lesson can we really comprehend even the most basic sense of human nature. In that, America is no angle!
Why America Should Have Dropped The Atomic Bomb On Hiroshima And Nagasaki. Would Like Help.?
Hello, I'm doing a debate in my U.S. History Class tomorrow about whether or not America should have dropped the Atomic Bomb on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I am of the opinion that it was the right decision, and so far, the reasons I have come up with are the following: -A land invasion of Japan would have cost more lives, both American and Japanese, than the casualties inflicted due to the bombs. So in the end the atomic bomb not only saved lives, but lives on both sides. -Hiroshima and Nagasaki were two fairly populated cities, the reason for dropping them there, aside from destroying their factories, was because the U.S. only had two bombs available for use, so the U.S. wanted to give the idea that they had even more available to drop on other cities and put fear into the Japanese that if they did not surrender quickly, the entire country would face the same catastrophic force as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. -The third reason was that trust between the Soviets and the West was eroding fast, and tensions between the two were rising, by using the Atomic Bomb, The U.S. had made a show of force which let the U.S.S.R. know, that they had a weapon so powerful and overwhelming, that starting a conflict with the U.S. would be senseless Unfortunately, that's all I've come up with, are there any more reasons why the Atomic Bomb was a good idea?
What did American citizens think about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the summer of 1945?
The above answers are very good. I can give a few extras:Gallup polling asked America about the bomb, most people said drop 20–30 more. NO sympathy for Japan. None.I worked with a guy in the Merchant Marine, his ship was in Antwerp when Hitler was firing V-2 rockets at that city. When the war was over, his ship was ordered to the Pacific. Going through the Panama Canal he heard of the bomb. He broke down crying because he really did not think he would have survived Operation Downfall.President Truman’s letter to the (today) National Council of Churches on the bomb:August 11, 1945 My dear Mr. Cavert:I appreciated very much your telegram of August ninth.Nobody is more disturbed over the use of Atomic bombs than I am but I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them.When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true.Sincerely yours,HARRY S. TRUMANMr. Samuel McCrea Cavert General Secretary Federal Council of The Churches of Christ in America New York City, New YorkSource: Michael B. Stoff et al., ed., The Manhattan Project: a documentary introduction to the Atomic Age (Philadelphia: Temple University Press: 1991), p. 162.
How did the American men feel about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
I don't think there was a consensus about the bomb. Everyone was glad the war was over, but if you read newspapers from the time there was mixed feelings about what the atom did and what it meant for the future.
What is Japan’s revenge for America dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Your question shows an absolutely astonishing ignorance of history! It is hard to believe that in this day and age of instant information anyone who is even a little literate would ask such a profoundly ignorant question!The atomic bombs were the revenge of the United States (US) for what Japan did! Back in the 1930's, the Japanese were expanding into China, killing millions of Chinese civilians. In the rape of Nanking, they said you could smell the rotting bodies for miles before you got to the city. The US did not approve of the actions of the Japanese government and finally imposed a trade embargo on them cutting off their supplies of steel and oil. Instead of stopping the atrocities, they decided to double down. On December 7, 1941, they attacked the US, and England without warning or a declaration of war. In fact, they were in peace negotiations with us! The unprovoked attack killed 2,000 Americans, sank a good part of the American Pacific fleet, and united the US in a hatred of the Japanese. We did not start the war, nor did we want a war. The US was firmly isolationist and wanted no part of any war, in the Pacific or in Europe where one had been raging. So, to get to your question, the Japanese had demonstrated a determination to fight unparalleled in warfare. They simply didn't surrender. Faced with overwhelming forces and absolutely no chance of winning a battle, they still fought to the death or committed suicide. It was recognized that simply showing an overwhelming force would not affect their position. We had lost tens of thousands of men fighting the Germans and the Japanese and we were war weary. It was estimated that the invasion of the Japanese homeland, called Operation Downfall, would result in close to 1,000,000 American casualties and 10 to 20 times as many Japanese. We wanted to save as many American lives as possible so dropping the atomic bomb seemed like the best, quickest method for ending the war.There is a Japanese saying that "showing no mercy is the greatest mercy." The atomic bombs killed far fewer people than the fire bombings did, but finally brought the Japanese government to its senses. The atomic bombs were the revenge of the US on the Japanese for what they did.
Why did America drop 2 atomic bombs on Japan? Wouldn’t 1 bomb have had the same affect?
The second Atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan because the Japanese Government failed to rapidly call a halt to the war. There was an element in the government that wanted to fight on, until every square milimeter of the nation was in ruins and the last man, woman and child was destoryed.The Americans knew this as well as they knew that the Japanese might well have considered the Atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima only an anomoly. Dropping the second bomb insured that the Japanese would believe that the Americans would continue to bomb them with Atom bombs, until the country was a burned-out cinder of nothing. Fortunately, the Japanese did not call the American’s bluff, as they had no more Atom bombs after Nagasaki.The Americans wanted to avoid invading Japan as estimates of casualties were at the one MILLION level! The invasion would have forced every Japanese into the conflict and the casualties and destruction would have been far worse than those suffered from the Atom bombs.Additonally, your British friends were in the process of planning a D-Day style invasion of Singapore and Malaysia which would have produced very heavy casualties with both British and Japanese forces. When Major Sweeney’s airplane “Bock’s Car” dropped the second Atom bomb, the rapid surrender of all Japanese forces, eliminated the need for a British invasion of Malaysia and Singapore. Hundreds of thousands of people lived accordingly.After the second bomb was dropped, the Japanese government rapidly accepted unconditional surrender and ended the war. As horrendous as was the Atom Bombs detonated over the skies of Japan, an unquestionable numbers of human lives were saved by negating the need to invade Japan proper and fight a protracted war, which may well have taken five years to complete!The Atom Bombs used against Japan, ended the war!
What is the nickname of the american plane that dropped the atomic bomb on the japenese city of hiroshima?
The Enola Gay rendezvoused with the observation planes over Iwo Jima at 0605. Little Boy was armed at 0730. At 0741 Tibbets began the climb to the drop altitude above 30,000 feet. The Enola Gay came within sight of the Empire, as bombing crews called it, at about 0750 as it approached the southern tip of Shikoku Island. The weather plane over the primary target radioed good conditions at 0830 and Tibbets announced that Hiroshima would be their destination. At 0909 Hiroshima came into view. At 0913.30 the bombadier, Thomas Ferebee, took control of plane in preparation for release. At 0914.17 the Aioi Bridge appeared in the Norden bombsight cross-hairs and Ferebee initiated the automatic release sequence. At 0915.17 Little Boy dropped away. The fall to the burst altitude of 600 meters lasted 43 seconds, at that moment Little Boy had a vertical velocity of 335 meters/second, just a bit faster than sound. As soon as the bomb was released Tibbets took control and the Enola Gay began its escape maneuver. Eleven and a half miles from the detonation point and nearly a minute after the explosion the plane was rocked by the shock wave travelling directly out from the fireball, and then several seconds later it was struck by a second weaker shock reflected from the ground. Aside from the sighting of a single fighter, the flight back from the mission was uneventful. The mushroom cloud, which had climbed to 40,000 feet, was visible from the plane for almost an hour and a half, finally being lost from sight at 1041, 363 miles from Hiroshima. At 1458, after a textbook perfect mission lasting 12 hours and 13 minutes, the Enola Gay landed at Tinian Island.
What factors led to the American decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
the Battle of Okinawa had shown how fanatically the Japanese military and civilian population would defend their own territory. in the 3-month battle, up to 107,000 Japanese soldiers were killed, 20,000 committed suicide, and between 10-30% of the civilian population were killed. the US lost nearly 19,000 men killed and 36,000 wounded (twice the totals of the battles of Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima combined). Operation Downfall, the planned conventional invasion of Japan (southern Kyushu and the Kanto Plain near Tokyo) in the spring of 1946, was projected to cost up to 267,000 Allied troops killed/ 1,000,000 wounded, and up to 4,000,000 Japanese civilians killed. 500,000 Purple Heart medals were minted ready to be issued to wounded troops. thanks to the use of atomic bombs, they were not needed. today, 120,000 are still in stock and being issued to wounded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. despite the 300,000 who were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was far less than what would've been killed if the atomic bombs hadn't been dropped.