Why did the United States use atomic bombs to end the war in the Pacific?

Question

Why did the United States use atomic bombs to end the war in the Pacific? Were there other possible means for ending the war? What were they and what were their advantages and disadvantages over the atomic bomb?

Answer 1

Japan at that time had been ruled and bred in a society which sort of butchered the meaning of the samauri code by the militarist in power to further it's own gains in the Pacific. As such surrender was not an option, nor did they accept surrender.

In the island hopping campaign of MacArthur, it was noted that Japanese resistance was increased the closer the Americans got to Japan such that in places such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the number of Japanese soldiers captured or surrendered could pretty much be counted on your two hands. (this in contrast to the European theater where the Germans were flocking en masse to the Americans so that they wouldn't be butchered by the Russians, there are stories of individual GIs capturing 100s of Germans all by themselves.) Worse, the Japanese government had instilled a fear campaign such that even civilians where throwing themselves and their babies off cliffs to avoid perceived atrocities which would be lain upon them by the "vicious Americans" Imagine in todays world if the entire Iraqi population turned into a suicide bomber. the Japanese believed that if they made it bloody enough, they could sue for peace on their terms. The Allies would have none of it, accepting nothing but total surrender for them having started a war of aggression.

Short of using the bomb, the plan was to invade the Japanese mainland with over 1 million troops (US alone), with estimates of 25-50+% casualties for the US and 100% casualties for the Japanese. The Japanese would not have surrendered to a land invasion, as most believed that it was glorious to die so long as they took down numerous Americans with them.

From a political stand point, waiting longer, would also involve the Russians, which would have led to a partitioning of Japan much the way Korea was/is (and is still a mess) and Germany (which only recently re-unified in the past decade).

In the end, the decision to use the bomb was the right thing to do - not only for the lives of the American soldier, but for the existence of the Japanese as a nation and race, which otherwise would have been exterminated due to the delusions of their leaders.

In an aside, it should also be remembered (contrary to white anglo saxon American history) that Japan had been at war for much longer than what historians state as the beginning of WWII. They were busy depopulating China since the 1930s. If you want to keep things in perspective it is believed that the Japanese killed about 300,000 unarmed civilians in their conquering of the Chinese capital at Nanking (the Rape of Nanking). This was done in about less than a month or about 10,000 people executed every day. In comparison, this sum was more than civilians killed in occupied France, Netherland, Belgium, etc in the entire duration of their occupation. Also, the number of Chinese killed at Nanking was less than the sum of Japanese who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I would suggest that you read James Bradley's book Flags of our Fathers which discusses this in detail (recently made into a motion picture, although I haven't seen it). In it there are nice details of the interesting things Japanese soldiers did to captured Americans - even medics.

Answer 2

The decision to use atomic weapons was made after much thought. We were faced with an enemy that would never give up. So we dropped the atomic bombs.

Carpet bombing wasn't working. In one night we destroyed 50 square miles of Tokyo when we used fire bombs. You'd think that alone would make them give up.

This alone didn't end the war as believed. It was when we bombed an oil refinery, that lead to an attempted coup, the next day Japan gave up.

Now comes the hard part. Some say a naval blockade would've worked. Basically to starve the country of everything. A naval blockade I feel wouldn't have worked, The Japanese still had planes, and a small navy. This could have drove them to go for broke.

Second was to save lives of all both US and Japanese. the number of lives lost in an invasion was just too high. Our troops would have to face enemy troops and civilians on Japanese soil. You can imagine the fight that would have come.

The third was to keep Japan from being taken over by the Russians.

Answer 3

The United States used the Atomic bomb on Japan for 2 reasons. One reason was to stop the Japanese empire in their tracks, and make away their will to continue fighting. The Japanese were relentless and no matter how bad you were beating them, they would keep on getting to their feet and fighting back. After the atomic bombs were dropped, their defeat was hastened and a peace agreement signed quickly. Another reason for dropping the bomb was as a means of sending a message to the European enemies i.e Germany, Austria Hungry, and Italy. The message was that their fate would be similar if war continued (after seeing the devastation in Japan, Everyone country wouldn't be afraid and look towards a more peaceful solution).

One could argue that an advantage of using the "a" bomb would be that more lives wouldn't be lost - Ironic when you consider the lives that were lost due to the bomb.

The disadvantages of using the bomb are numerous: Lots of lives were lost, Japan's cities were in rubbles, made most other powerful countries to want to have such technology thereby controlling international affairs, Brought about the cold war and arms race between the U.S and the Souviet Union (Russia), e.t.c

Answer 4

The US believed - not without reason - that a full scale invasion on the Japanese homeland would result in massive loss of life. Many of the dead would have been American. The bomb was seem - rightly as it transpired - as a way of bringing the Japanese to an immediate surrender.
Not using the bomb would have meant relying on conventional weapons - but these, in the form of incendiary bombs, were wreaking mass slaughter anyway. The Japanese army would probably have fought even more fiercely for the homeland than they did for the Pacific Islands - but there is a school of thought that holds that Japanese morale would have collapsed and ended the war as a result of the strategic bombing campaign. That is possible, but the evidence for it being likely is scant. Basically, the bomb took many lives - but saved even more, and can, reluctantly, be seen as the least evil available in that place at that time.

Answer 5

Truman the president at the time felt if the united states were to invade japan to end the war there would be many casualties for both sides. Also with the destructive power of the atomic bombs he felt the japanese would surrender to prevent more death. I believe the first bomb took out 70,000 people and the second 30,000. I also read the bomb would scare the russians so they would not start a war with the u.s.... the cold war happened soon after the ending of WW2

Answer 6

The only other possible means of ending WWII in the Pacific Theatre would have been a full scale ground invasion of Japan, which would have been a very long and protracted affair resulting in an enormous loss of life for the U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines fighting in this arena. President Truman painstakingly weighed the pros and cons of both before deciding on the dropping of two atomic bombs, one on Hiroshima and the other on Nagasaki.

The obvious tragedy in this final solution, was the enormous loss of civilian life inflicted on innocent Japanese men, women and children. The painful suffering of those surviving the blasts is unspeakable. Just look at some photos of those suffering from the effects of radiation and severe burning to their unprotected flesh. It is so horrendous(the aftermath and suffering) that words cannot describe it justly.

Answer 7

The atomic bomb was used to expedite the end of WW II and reduce the number of potential American causalities that would have happened if an invasion of Japan was undertaken. It has been suggested (after-the-fact) that perhaps an alternative would have been dropping the bomb in Tokyo harbor to show the potential damage they faced while killing a significantly fewer number of people, especially non-combatants. Remember even after the first bomb Japan did not surrender, it took a second.

Answer 8

At Yalta, the Soviets had agreed to attack Japan 3 months after Germany surrendered, which at the time was something we really wanted. But after the bomb was successfully tested, it was in our interest to end the war quickly, ideally before the Soviet attack, but at any rate as soon as possible after that. Also, we had no way of knowing the extent of the Soviet involvement.
As it turned out, Stalin built up a massive force and was hoping to take Hokkaido (at the very least) for himself.

Given the scale of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, a US invasion of Japan would likely never have been necessary. After all, we were horrified at the prospect of 500,000 casualties, and to Stalin such casualties were of no consequence. What the bombs did do, however, is spare Japan the kind of partition and occupation that Germany suffered.

Answer 9

That is an excellent question. Supposedly the US felt that the war could be brought to a close quicker, with less loss of life over a long term, if this was done. But one would have to ask, would we have been willing to do this to the Germans if the war had dragged on in Europe? I doubt it, and there is a case for racism in the decision to snuff out thousands of innocent lives in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I have often wondered how the Japanese ever forgave us for this.

To read more about this decision, go to the link...

Answer 10

Truman used the bomb soley to protect the lives of American servicemen and women who would have otherwise been killed in the land invasion of Japan itself. The Japanese were fanatical about many things, their emperor etc., but the homeland was the most sacred.It was estimated by the high echelon of the then U.S. military that up to 1 million American lives would be lost to invade and conquer Japan at the time, so Truman was told of the bomb that had been developed under Roosevelt (before he died) and therefore, Truman decided to use it. I do not believe they fully understood the consequences at the time or the magnitude of the devastation.