Dropping of the Atomic Bomb in Japan
Essay Preview: Dropping of the Atomic Bomb in Japan
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A flash of light; heat; an explosion; a firestorm; a mushroom cloud of dust and radioactive fall out coming to the ground miles from the point of impact; an electromagnetic pulse; extreme amounts of radiation; complete and utter destruction; death. There is a long list of a lot of not-so-nice things that come with the dropping of an atomic bomb. The atomic bomb is perhaps the most destructive and deadly weapons known to man, only being used in the most extreme of situations. One can wonder how any country can justify the dropping of this type of weapon, especially when you know the magnitude of destruction it will cause, and not to mention the death it can cause to innocent civilians. There are a multitude of things to consider when you face a decision as big as dropping a bomb that will kill hundreds of thousands of people and cause millions of dollars in damage. Eventually, especially in a time of war, there will come a point where keeping such a weapon in storage is no longer an option. On August 6th, 1945, the Truman administration found it necessary to use the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The culminating result was death, destruction, and ultimately, victory on the part of the United States. When you weigh the options and choices that the President had to consider in making his decision, you can see that he made the right one. The United States of America was, indeed, justified in its dropping of the atomic bomb in Japan on August 6th, 1945.
The biggest and most clear reason for dropping the atomic bomb was so that the United States could bring a swift end to the war with Japan. In the works before the dropping of the bomb was a large deployment of American troops to Japan for a massive land invasion. This land invasion would have cost millions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of both American and Japanese lives. “A timely end to the war would mean that no land invasion of Japan is necessaryÐending the war quickly would return soldiers to their homes and allow Americans to begin a life of normality again.” (Document 1). When United States troops heard about possible deployment to Japan and were told to prepare for war, they were scared. They did not want to go to war, they wanted revenge on the Japanese and to defend their country, but not all of them actually wanted to leave their families and go to war. However when the soldiers heard about the bomb and what it did to the Japanese, they knew the war was not going to last that much longer. They were prepared to go to war, but they knew all the proposed hundreds of thousands of deployments would not be necessary. “The killing was all going to be over and peace was actually going to be the state of things.” (Document C). President Truman backed up this idea. “Having found the bombÐ…we have used it to shorten the agony of young Americans.” (Document C). He used the bomb for the main purpose of ending the war and sparing American lives. He did not want a single American man to suffer losing his life and family, or any woman or child losing their father or husband. The President made his decision because of what he felt was the best for the country, so that is what he acted on.
One can argue that dropping this bomb would cause massive amounts of civilian deaths. No one can be exactly sure, but estimations show that between 100,000 and 150,000 people died combined in the bombings of Hiroshima