Why Japan?

Question

At the end of World War two, why did the USA drop an Atomic bomb on Japan? did the USA just want to scare the USSR (soviet union)?
How was Japan involved in the war?

Answer 1

Japan was the only country in WW II to attack the US (Pearl Harbor) but it was more than that. Japanese soldiers had a pride about them the same ways samurais did in the past. Where they would rather kill themselves then to surrender. Why do you think it took two bombs for them to surrender. After the first bomb was droped the US once again asked for Japan's surrender. General Tojo of Japan would not, even after seeing such devastating loss. It took the second one to drop for the Emperor of Japan to step up and surrender. But Atomics back then weren't as powerful as people make them to be (like all technology they keep trying to make it better including Atomics, today they can be 100x more devastating). Air raid's throughout Europe during WW II on an individual city would kill more people than an Atomic bomb did in Japan. as far as civilian lives go Japan killed more civilians in each of the countries they imperialized than the atomic bomb did to them. if you don't think what they did was worse then what we did, you should look up Japan's war crime. As a far as scaring USSR, we did not want to because we were allied with them at the time, and Japans involvement in the War was they were allied with the Axis, which was Italy, Germany, and the USSR until they where attacked by Germany.

Answer 2

Japan attacked a number of counties in World War 2 including the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The 2 bombs were dropped so that we did not have to lose up to 1 million lives invading Japan and to keep the USSR from possibly occupying part of Japan.

Answer 3

America had to drop then Atomic bomb on Japan or Invade Japan Home Island. Billions of Americans would had died and Million of japan would had died. Why did we need to scare the soviet they was our friend at the time. Japan was in world war 2 for many different reason Attacking America, Attacking British in China and other part of the British empire. Attacking China and so on.

Answer 4

One of the reasons the USA dropped A Bombs on Japan was because Allied commanders estimated that an invasion of the Japanese home islands would need up to 5,000,000 men. Casualties were expected to be horrendous - much, much greater than on the Normandy beaches. As horrible as the effects of the bombs were it can be argued that dropping them saved a lot of lives - Japanese as well as Allied.

By the time the Bombs were dropped the Soviet Union already knew about the Manhattan Project through espionage. Stalin had already authorized the production of nuclear weapons in the USSR.

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor as part of an overall plan to gain access to strategic resources, namely oil and rubber, in the Pacific region and S. E. Asia.

Answer 5

Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, that is how they were involved in the war.

The United States wasn't involved in WWII until that moment.

The U.S. dropped "the bomb" on Japan (twice) in order to show the might of the U.S. military and force Japan to surrender. Japan refused to surrender after the first bomb, and hence...the second. Although, stories do say Japan was just slow in answering that they were ready to surrender due to internal conflict. The emperor wanted to surrender, but the military didn't.

If the U.S. had not dropped those bombs, it is my belief Japan would have fought to the last man. Whether that meant losing country and people or not.

It was a horrible loss of life and something that should never be repeated. This isn't something Americans, in general, run around and brag about.

Answer 6

Because an invasion of mainland Japan, the only other way to end the war, would have cost millions, no exaggeration, millions of lives.

Read the below article on Okinawa. it's a good indicator of what would have happened during an invasion of Japan. 100,000 Japanese soldiers killed, not wounded-killed, 150,000 Civilians killed, mostly suicides (that's almost double the tally of both A-bombs), and 75,000 American casualties. That was a much smaller island. If mainland Japan were invaded, every able bodied citizen, man, woman and child would have fought to the death. The Japanese simply did not surrender. In the pacific campaign it was not uncommon for all the defending Japanese to be killed. At Tarawa, of the 3,600 Japanese defenders, all but 17 were killed in suicide charges, rather than facing surrender.

It may be difficult to believe, but dropping the bombs actually saved countless millions of lives. I, for one, would not be here. My grandfather fought on Okinawa, and would have been sent to invade Japan. He most certainly would have been killed. Literally millions of others wouldn't be here were it not for those bombs. If you want a demonstration, ask all your friends if they had family that fought in the pacific in WWII before starting their family. Of the people that say yes, take half of them, and imagine if they were never born. That is an extremly conservative estimate of what your life would be like. If you have Japanese friends, imagine if 90% of them did not exist. Still a very conservative estimate.

The muscle we flexed looked good, especially as a deterrent to the Russians, but the dropping of those bombs was much, much more than a scare tactic. The war with Japan was viscious, and while the dropping of those bombs may seem regrettable, becaus it's always regrettable when people are killed, the 80,000 people that were killed actually sent the message that saved the lives of tens of millions of their countrymen, and millions of the allied soldiers. Dropping those bombs served a crucial, albeit controversial role.

Answer 7

Japan was part of the Axis powers. Japan struck Pearl Harbor and basically started America's involvement in the war. The espoused rationale behind the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings was to prevent a long, bloody invasion of Japan. The selection of these targets was centered around military targets and the maximum possible psychological effect.

Answer 8

Japan started WW2. Japan pulled the US into WW2 by bombing Pearl Harbor. The US dropped atomic bombs on Japan to end the war not to scare Russia.

Answer 9

Nuclear weapons were used on Japan and not Germany for two reasons.

1) Japan is neither white nor christian.

2) If the US didn't use them, Japan would have fought US soldiers hand to hand until they reached Tokyo, never surrendering. By that time, the Soviets would have occupied at least Hokkaido, if not more Japanese territory.

Answer 10

First Japan attacked US territory Pearl Harbour in Hawaii and thereafter the battle continued. The U.S. dropped hte atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to stop Japan keep fighting.