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Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb
Pros and cons of harry truman nuclear bomb
Pros and cons of harry truman nuclear bomb
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Recommended: Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb
On August 7, 1945 the headline of the front page of the New York Times read: First Atomic Bomb Dropped on Japan; Missile is Equal to 20,000 Tons of TNT: Truman Warns Foe of a “Rain of Ruin.”1 Now the debate between historians on the question of whether Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb was correct or not had begun. There are critics and historians who say that Japan was already beat and that the war could have ended by negotiations. In their opinions because Germany had surrendered, the Imperial Navy was driven from the sea by the Pacific Fleet, Okinawa and Iwo Jima were in our hands and because Japan was cut off from resources from the Indies, they believe Japan was already defeated. Japan’s defeat however was not the issue. It was Japan’s surrender that was so desperately wanted, since every day Japan did not surrender meant the killing contuned.2 It is known through military intelligence reports that even though the Japanese leaders knew that they were defeated they would keep fighting. Japanese soldiers had a code that they fought by. This code forbade surrender. The soldiers were expected to die rather than surrender. When a senior Japanese officer was asked after the war why Japanese troops chose death over surrender he said, “When any man leaves Japan for foreign battlefields, he is not expected to return until the war is over. This is taught to Japanese children, not at school, but from home…”3 This type of Japanese thinking led Truman and the U.S. leaders to the understanding that though Japan was defeated they would continue to fight. Truman and many U.S. officials not only wanted an end to the war, they wanted the unconditional surrender by Japan. To Japan an unconditional surrender would be the same as na... ... middle of paper ... ... those who served or the mothers and fathers of those who served. Endnotes 1. First Atomic Bomb Dropped on Japan: Missile is Equal to 20,000 Tons of TNT: Truman warns Foe of a “Rain of Ruin”, August 7, 1945, 1 2. David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992) 437 3. Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar, Code-Name Downfall (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995) 166 4. Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995) 33 5. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs Volume One: Year of Decisions (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, 1955) 10 6.Alonzo L. Hamby, “Truman and the Bomb,” History Today 45 (1995): 20 7. Robert James Maddox, “The Biggest Decision: Why We Ha to Drop the Atomic Bomb,” American Heritage 46 (1995): 70 8. Truman, 419 9. Allen, 293 10 Hamby, 25 11. Alperovitz, 655
The Revisionists and the orthodox views are different opinions on President Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb. The revisionists believed that Truman’s decision was wrong and there could have been alternatives. They say that the Bomb was unnecessary and it was only used as a “diplomatic tool” and to show the power of th...
“Truman, Harry S.” The Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Columbia: Columbia, 1994. Online. Internet. Available at HTTP: http://www.historychannel.com/. 24 Sept. 2001.
In Prompt and Utter Destruction, J. Samuel Walker provides the reader with an elaborate analysis of President Truman’s decision behind using the atomic bomb in Japan. He provokes the reader to answer the question for himself about whether the use of the bomb was necessary to end the war quickly and without the loss of many American lives. Walker offers historical and political evidence for and against the use of the weapon, making the reader think critically about the issue. He puts the average American into the shoes of the Commander and Chief of the United States of America and forces us to think about the difficulty of Truman’s decision.
... the Japanese were unpredictable. If Harry Truman had not dropped the bombs over Japan it would have only brought on further casualties.
Walker, J. Samuel. Prompt and Utter Destruction Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan, Revised Edition. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2005. Print.
The United States entered WW II immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The U.S. entry was a major turning point in the war because it brought the strongest industrial strength to the Allied side. The Americans helped the Allies to win the war in Europe with the surrender of Germany on May 7, 1945. However, the war in the Pacific continued. The war with Japan at this point consisted primarily of strategic bombings. America had recently completed an atomic bomb and was considering using this weapon of mass destruction for the first time. The goal was to force the “unconditional surrender” of the Japanese. Roosevelt had used the term “unconditional surrender” in a press conference in 1943 and it had since become a central war aim. Truman and his staff (still feeling bound by FDR’s words) demanded unconditional surrender from the Japanese. Consequently on July 26, 1945 Truman issued an ultimatum to Japan. This ultimatum stated that Japan must accept “unconditional surrender” or suffer “utter devastation of the Japanese Homeland”. This surrender included abdication of the throne by their emperor. Japan was not willing to surrender their dynasty and ignored the ultimatum. On August 6th and August 9th, atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively.
Imagine a society where everyone has a different opinion about dropping an atomic bomb to country that they are fighting with. What is an atomic bomb? An atomic bomb is a bomb which derives its destructive power from the rapid release of nuclear energy by fission of heavy atomic nuclei, causing damage through heat, blast, and radioactivity. The atomic bomb is a tremendously questionable topic. Nonetheless, these literary selections give comprehension on the decision about dropping the atomic bomb for military purposes. For example, the “Speech to the Association of Los Alamos Scientists” by Robert Oppenheimer, argues that we should have drop the atomic bomb, “A Petition to the President of the United States” by 70 scientists, asks President
The United States of America’s use of the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has spurred much debate concerning the necessity, effectiveness, and morality of the decision since August 1945. After assessing a range of arguments about the importance of the atomic bomb in the termination of the Second World War, it can be concluded that the use of the atomic bomb served as the predominant factor in the end of the Second World War, as its use lowered the morale, industrial resources, and military strength of Japan. The Allied decision to use the atomic bomb not only caused irreparable physical damage on two major Japanese cities, but its use also minimized the Japanese will to continue fighting. These two factors along
Maddox, Robert. “The Biggest Decision: Why We Had to Drop the Atomic Bomb.” Taking Sides: Clashing View in United States History. Ed. Larry Madaras & James SoRelle. 15th ed. New York, NY. 2012. 280-288.
Suri, J. (2012). Anxieties of empire and the Truman administration. A Companion to Harry S. Truman: Blackwell Publishing.
One of the most argued topics today, the end of World War II and the dropping of the atomic bombs still rings in the American ear. Recent studies by historians have argued that point that the United States really did not make the right choice when they chose to drop the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Also with the release of once classified documents, we can see that the United States ...
The initial terms of surrender were laid out in the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, 1945, in which the United States, Great Britain, and China all participated. But unlike post World War II Germany, which was split into four quadrants among the Allies, the occupation of Japan was solely and American endeavor. This document was by no means tame. Military occupation would see to it that its measure would be properly carried out. Justice would be served to those "who deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest," Disarmament of the military, reparations as the Allies saw fit, and the "remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people" were also to be enacted. At the head of this revolution, as spelled out in Potsdam, was Douglas MacArthur.
However, it was not the case, the Soviets acknowledged the atomic bomb and wanted to create as many as possible so they could yield the control not only in the Pacific, but in the Eastern Europe. In the words of former US senator from South Carolina, James F. Byrnes, claimed “the bomb provided a unique opportunity to check Soviet control of Eastern Europe and Asia in the postwar years, and he very much wanted to delay or avert the entry of the Soviet Union into the war with Japan” (59). In the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, all the Allied countries, except the Soviets, stood together in preparing for the end of the World War 2. President Truman, learning of the success of the Manhattan project, and understanding that he must make a choice whether to drop the atomic bomb or not turned out to be the most difficult decision to make in his life. They came up with a decision to make Japan “unconditional surrender” (59) but they were afraid the Japan would not step down and refused to give up their fight.
(McInnis, 1945) Though the public did not know this, the allies, in fact, did. Through spies, they had learned that both Japan's foreign minister, Shigenori Togo and Emperor Hirohito both supported an end to the war (Grant, 1998). Even if they believed such reports to be false or inaccurate, the leaders of the United States also knew Japan's situation to be hopeless. Their casualties in defending the doomed island of Okinawa were a staggering 110,000 and the naval blockade which the allies had enforced whittled trade down to almost nothing.
On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped the world’s first atomic bomb over Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. On August 15th, the Japan announced unconditional surrender in World War II. To this day historians still discuss why the U.S. decided to use the atomic bombs. Orthodox historians argue that the decision to drop the bombs was a military one designed purely to defeat the Japanese. Revisionist historians argue that the bombs were not needed to defeat Japan; the bombs were meant to shape the peace by intimidating the Soviets. After analyzing the documents in The Manhattan Project it has become clear that the U.S. used the bombs during WWII not only to defeat the Japanese, but also to intimidate the Soviet Union