Twenty years after Harry Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb, scholars and citizens subscribed to the original version of the story: the President acted to avoid the invasion of Japan and lose anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 American lives. Then in 1965, Gar Alperovitz published a the book “Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam”. He argues that the dropping of the atomic bomb “was not needed to end the war or to save lives” but was a message to the Soviet Union. Fifty years after the atomic bomb was dropped, Alperovitz said that the final answer to why the atomic bomb was dropped is “neither essential nor possible”. He also said,”What is important is whether, when the bomb was used, the President and his top advisers understood that it wa not required to avoid a long and costly invasion, as they later claimed and as most Americans still believe.” Alperovitz believes that if the bomb was not used, Japan might still have been made to surrender before the first American landing on the island of Kyushu.…
The only military use of atomic weapons has been on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and almost certainly brought a prompt conclusion to WW2. However, the question of whether it was necessary is still hotly debated 70 years after the event. The answer is no it wasn’t necessary, although it is not as simple as you may think because if I had just been a soldier fighting in New Guinea or if I was a POW starving on the Thai-Burma railway [1] then answer is yes it was necessary. Necessary can have various meanings though such as indispensable or requisite, but also mean acting from need. The question becomes very problematic or ambiguous if one uses both meanings as again we get a yes and no.…
In Europe, the war with Germany was over but Japan was still fighting. So the U.S could concreted on the war with Japan. The U.S had atomic bombs ready and a decision had to be made; should they sent ground forces to invade Japan or should they bomb Japan. So on August 1945 the U.S decided to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and this created some controversy. Some people though it was a good idea to bomb Japan, while others say that 200,000 innocent people were killed. I believe that bombing the two cities was the right decision because it did save the lives of many U.S soldiers and it ended World War II.…
The United States decided to use atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. This bombing created devastation and death that the world had never seen before. The use of the atomic bombs has been a topic of intense debate for years following the bombing. Several reasons for such outcry pertaining to the use of the atomic bomb were the moral dilemmas behind the bombing, the mass destruction caused by the bombing, the horrible physical and emotional effects on the citizens of Japan, and strained relations between America and Japan.…
Wars have occurred for various different reasons all around the world, each nation involved using their best means of defensive and offensive attacks. Weaponry has been updated as time went on, leading us from arrows and bows to powerful guns. In the 1940s during World War II, however, one weapon in particular left a huge impact. The United States’ decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II was not justified due to the fact that it was ethically wrong, an excessive use of force, and unnecessary.…
Many Americans argued that the use of the atomic bomb could cause problems with our allies and enemies. If the bomb got in the wrong hands, people would be at danger. This is similar to how Kim Jong-un is consistently threatening the United States with an atomic bomb attack. One could argue that the use of the atomic bomb was a way for the United States to intimidate the Soviet Union, and show how powerful we are. However, it is clear that the United States bombed Hiroshima, to make them…
Since the end of World War two there have been debates about whether or not the U.S. should have dropped the atomic bomb or not. Many people argue that America had already won the war and that the bombs were uncalled for, but is this true (Doc K)? The U.S. made the right decision in dropping the atomic bomb because it led America to a victory, it ended the war quickly, and it saved more lives then it took.…
In 1945 Harry S. Truman decided to use the atomic bomb not only once, but twice to finish World War Two. The first bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima August, 6th killed upwards to around 80,000 people and the second bomb dropped on Nagasaki August, 14th killed 40,000 people. The controversy of the atomic bomb is because of the amount of innocent people that were killed in Japan. Nobody will ever know the outcome of the war if we never dropped the bomb, but we do know that the war was ended because of it. Over 100,000 people lost their lives because of these bombs, but how many lives would have been lost if we never dropped them? That is the other question that can never be answered, but based…
In the final year of World War Two, the Allies prepared for what was anticipated to be a very costly and devastating invasion of the Japanese mainland. This was preceded by a U.S. firebombing campaign that destroyed 67 Japanese cities and the Battle of Okinawa, wherein almost 100,000 civilians died. Having developed the world’s first nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project, the US Government made the decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in combat on the town of Hiroshima. Three days later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Combined, the bombs killed almost 150,000 people immediately, and they are attributed to more than 170,000 more…
During the Cold War, Americans lived in a society where the tension between the Soviet Union was at its peak in history. It was a time when the hatred against communism and the idea of nationalism were growing exponentially. Meanwhile, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested for the accusations of helping the Soviets create the atomic bomb, which was the United States’ only advantage over the Soviets. Their arrest eventually led to the first ever execution of espionage in United States history. However, the justification of their execution is still being debated to this day. Did the Rosenbergs deserve such a harsh sentence or was it a misjudgment driven by the fear of communism? The political and social aspects of society certainly directed…
There was a flash of light so powerful it could be called a sun. An explosion so powerful it turned sand into glass. A sound so loud that it was heard 100 miles away. The world’s first atomic bomb had just exploded. The Manhattan Project was the code name for the United States nuclear development project. It was lead by Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The program was hurried along after the United States government saw the importance and possibilities of the atomic bomb.…
The use of the atomic bomb remains controversial to this day. There are academics and policy makers of the time that still disagree on the whether it was justifiable to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They debate if it truly was in the interest of ending the war sooner and with less loss of life. Several issues played together to help form the opinion that Truman acted for more nefarious purposes. Domestic as well as international politics is said to have played a role in the decision of Truman to go ahead with the use of the atomic bomb . Would the Japanese have been willing to surrender without the dropping of the bomb? Some experts believe that because Japanese representatives were talking to the Russians about being…
August 14, 1945 Japan finally surrendered to the Allied forces. By this time, there were over one hundred thousand Japanese deaths due to either immediate obliteration, wounds, or radiation infection months after the bombing (“The Decision to Drop the Bomb.”). The final death count for the whole war was 35 million people, including soldiers, Jews, and Russians (Kagan).…
The alternative hypotheses in this case is dropping an atomic bomb against your enemies will end war and save lives. The null hypothesis was ending war and saving lives had nothing to do with the reason why the atomic bomb was dropped. It was dropped on the sole propose of showing the world that it would be willing to use nuclear weapons against its enemies. Finding the data on how many times we used bombs on enemies and non-enemies can test both hypotheses. After that we will take a look at the out comes of the conflict to see if they escalated and the amount of fatality occurred.…
When you think of World War ll, what comes to your mind? Concentration camps, millions of dead soldiers and innocent people, or country turning against country? We like to forget about this terrible war which lasted from 1939-1945 and all the horrific consequences it had on the world. But do you ever take the time to think about how this war really ended? It obviously had to have taken a very powerful army or leader, but that wasn’t the case. What really caused this national turmoil to come to an end was the dropping of the most deadly weapon known to mankind: the atomic bomb.…