why did the US drop the bomb on Nagasaki? wasn't Hiroshima enough?

Answer 1

A very cowardly act for our president to commit and it was genocide i believe. At least those brave japanese fighters had honor and never targeted cities with innocent woman and children in it like we did.they caught us with our pants down in Pearl Harbor and it was a military target not a whole F****** city.We took the easy way out and i think it was very cowardly and wrong to ever drop a bomb not even targeting military targets but whole cities.Im ashamed of what we did to Japan in the past.

Answer 2

Depends on the reason why they did it. According to what the US said, they did it because the Japanese would have fought so hard for the homeland that more than likely it would cost millions of American lives to defeat Japan. Which is questionable because Japan had been trying for some time to surrender by attaining a mediation with the US through the Soviet Union (the Soviet Union being the middleground between Japanese and American interests during the talks). However, there were quite a few Japanese who were still ready and willing to fight; so while it is questionable if this is the reason America dropped the bomb it is still a possibility.

The more likely reason the bomb was dropped was an attempt to scare the Soviets. At the end of the war, it was easy to see that Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and China would not be major players in world politics for some time. All had taken too much damage to their political and economic infrastructures to be a factor anymore. But the Soviet Union and America would most certainly come out on top as the leading countries in the world. And they were at odds with each other on a political and philosphical level. It was assumed the two would almost certainly go to war in the near future.

What it is believed then is that America was displaying the atom bomb's power to scare the Soviets off from attacking them. And maybe even scaring the Soviets into giving up all world power and leaving America the sole superpower. Two bombs could show the devastation America was capable of dropping on the Soviets, so they used them on the Japanese. One may have been enough, but it was assumed the Soviets didn't know how long it would take to make another, and that they may attack if they believed it took a while.

So dropping two showed the Americans could make them relatively quickly and therefore the Soviets should avoid attacking them. So the two bombs, while probably unnecessary, were dropped because America was trying to play a strong hand in the global "poker game" that had emerged after WWII.

Answer 3

The US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima to save millions of lives, which it probably did, believe it or not. At the time, the US was more concerned with the servicemen who would be slaughtered if they had to invade the Japanese mainland, but it undoubtedly saved Japanese lives in the process.

They Japanese people were taught to fight to the death with anything they had available since there were not enough weapons for even the soldiers at this point let alone civilians. So even young children would be fighting the Americans with rakes or shovels--and they would have fought until either they won, which was, at that point, impossible, or until they were killed. On Okinawa, for example, tens of thousands of civilians jumped to their deaths rather than be captured by the "evil Americans" that would do unspeakable things to them.

The bombs were NOT a surprise. Leaflets had been dropped weeks in advance to warn the Japanese that if they did not surrender, a terrible bomb, the likes of which they had never seen, would be dropped on them. Yet the Japanese government told them that it was just propaganda and that they were still winning the war even though it has been lost for at least a year by this time. They refused to surrender, even after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Again, leaflets were dropped telling the Japanese that another bomb would be dropped on Nagasaki if they did not surrender. It was only after that bomb that they did surrender since we warned the government that if they did not, we would continue to drop these bombs.

You have to remember that you are looking at the event from a perspective of 60 years in the future. We wanted an end to the war, which we had been fighting for almost five years. EVERY house on the block at stars in the window, indicating that someone was fighting and more than half had gold stars, indicating that at least one member had died fighting the war. EVERYONE knew someone who had died fighting. EVERYONE.

Further, although the US knew it was a powerful weapon, we did not know just how destructive it could be or the long lasting effects of the radiation. It was brand new technology. And it's important to note that if they Japanese or the Nazis, who's scientists were developing it before they were "smuggled" out of Germany, has developed the bomb first, they would have used it to a much greater extent.


zioneq apparently knows little about the Japanese actions during their conquests in China or Korea, for example, if he thinks for a moment that those "brave Japanese soldiers didn't target women and children." How about the Rape of Shanghai?

Answer 4

No, I think the plan was to totally stall the Japanese aggression and they wanted to be sure the Japanese could not rise up and keep fighting: hence more than one bomb being dropped. The Japanese were tenacious and they sat in so many remote areas and were holding out so they had to chop of the head of the supplies, etc. The Japanese war machine was amazing but it had to be severed from the shoulders.

So, the Japanese turned their cleverness to business and we all know what happened after that because we all drive Japanese cars now as they are the best

Answer 5

Nope. The Japanese blew off the first attack as, it is the only A-bomb America has. We can still continue the fight. After dropping the second and finding out we had 2 more in the works. They knew they could not hold on to thier efforts. So, they surrendered.

Thanks

Answer 6

The Japanese leaders during that time didn't want to surrender to the U.S. after they dropped the bomb on hiroshima. They( the Japeanese leaders) believe that surrendering would be not honorable.

Answer 7

Apparently Hiroshima was not enough which is why Nagasaki got one too.

Answer 8

They didn't surrender at the first so we dropped a second. Don't give me BULL SHlT about the civilians dieing, many, many more would have died if we did not drop the bombs. And possibly millions of American lives too.

Answer 9

Why did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor? They stepped into the theater of war, they got an answer. If a snake bites you, make sure it's dead so it doesn't strike again.

Answer 10

Obviously not, but they did surrender after the second one dropped!