Was It Necessary?
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On August 6th 1945, the first Atomic Bomb, “Little Boy,” was dropped on Hiroshima. Three days later on August 9th 1945, the second atomic bomb, “Fat Man,” was dropped on Nagasaki. Approximately 240,000 civilians, mostly women and children, lost there lives on these two days. The decision to use the Atomic Bomb against Japan was a poor one considering the damage, the devastation, and the amount of people left dead, injured, or suffering the loss of a family member or a friend. The pain and destruction that affected thousands was all for the sake of quickly ending the ongoing war.
The main reason the United States began the building of the atomic bomb was to beat the Germans in the “Atomic Race.” Since Germany was no longer in the war, the U.S. had no reason to use the bomb on Japan. When Hiroshima was bombed, the target was supposed to be the military base, but the bomb was dropped directly in the middle of the city, so that the full extent of the damage of the Atomic bomb could be seen. After killing thousands of innocent women and children in Hiroshima, I believe the U.S. had no reason to drop another bomb on Nagasaki. They had already seen the extent of the damage done to Hiroshima, and Japan was ready to surrender.
President Truman was under a lot of pressure when he made his decision to drop the bomb. His military advisors, who thought that an invasion of Japan would be too costly, were a great pressure on him to drop the bomb. They had put over 2 billion dollars into the Manhattan Project, and it would have been a waste of money if the bomb would not have been dropped. Also, since President Truman was up for re-election, he was under pressure to please the public, and sending Americans to fight in Japan would have been an unpopular decision. I also believe that the U.S. wanted revenge on Japan for the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Truman argued that dropping the bomb saved many American lives.