Your Opinion about the decision made to drop the bomb on Japan?

Question

What would be some of your opinion's if you were Harry S Truman (President of the United States) and you had to make the decision of droping the bomb or invading Japan in 1945?

Answer 1

DO IT. just ask any WWII veteran who was on the way to invade Japan. there were numberless lives saved both US and Japanese. there were some of my family who were saved when the bomb was dropped and the Japanese surrendered. if they had been forced to invade there is no doubt in our minds they would have been killed.

Answer 2

I support Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs. He correctly surmised that the Japanese would not surrender without an invasion of the Japanese islands. That invasion would have been incredibly costly for the United States. The possible loss of life would have been in the hundreds of thousands. The decision to drop atomic bombs on two Japanese cities made sense. What was more important to Truman-saving American lives or not setting a precedent for atomic warfare? He chose to save American lives by not invading Japan. The bombs had the same effect that invasion would have, just cost less in blood for the United States.

Answer 3

It's difficult if not impossible to sit back, and make an informed decision about a historical event like the atomic bombings. We have personal bias and are sitting comfortably 60 years later. Never can we hope to truely understand what or how Americans felt at the time. Playing moralist in regards to historical events is a waste of time and does nothing to help us learn from the mistakes of the past, it merely breeds arrogance and judgmentalism which will inevitably spill over into main stream society causing any number of problems.

In reference to your question, Truman was faced with the choice of bombing two Japanese cities, invading Japan, signing a treaty with Japan on Japanese terms, or dropping the bomb on a deserted island to demonstrate its destructive potential.

Dropping one of the atomic bombs on a deserted island posed several problems. Would the Japanese believe the film was authentic, would the bomb work, would you even be able to demonstrate its destruciveness on film. It is likely impossible that you could convince a Japanese envoy to board an enemy ship or airplane for a frist hand view for commen sense reasons.

Presenting a treaty to the Japanese had many inherent problems. First, what would the Japanese want in exchange for peace; China and southeast Asia pherhaps, what about American support against the USSR. No matter hwo the treaty was worded, the creation of such a document would likely have led to later wars with Japan.

The invasion of Japan sounds like a brilliant idea from the perspective of a modern moralist. On the surface it appears to present a means of saving Japanese civilian lives. A further investigation shows flaws with that logic.

Invading Japan would have cost the lives of nearly EVERY Japanese soldier. Americans were expected to take hundreds of thousands of casualties in the campaign. Japanese civilians were told to fight the fight the Americans in whatever way the could, we will never know how many would have died honorably for the Emperor. The shear brutality of the fighting may have forced Americans to use poison gas, likely causing the death of millions of Japanese civilians through inadvertant transport of the poison through air.

Civilians near Japan were often told by Japanese troops that the Americans would rape, murder and eat them and their children. During the invasion of Okinawa, civilians killed themselves rather than face what they thaught were man-like beasts. Would this occur in Japan, who knows.

The final choice left to Truman was using Fat Man and Little Boy on Japanese cities. To avoid decapitating the Japanese government, Tokyo was out of the question, so Hirsoshima and Nahasaki were selected. The bombs would, according to most authorities, kill no more civilians than the fire bombings of Tokyo and Dresden had done.

While the people of Hiroshima had little to no warning, the people of Nagasaki recieved warnings from the Americans begging them to leave the cities. Needless to say Japanese civilians didn't obey this or the other leaflet message, asking them to petition the Emperor for an end to the war.

Personally I don't feel I can give an honest answer to your question. What has happened has happened, it is a terrible tragedy that so many Japanese civilians had died, but you wouldn't be living today if Truman chose something different (butterfly effect). Personally I feel Truman did what he had to do in order to bring a swift end to the war with the fewest possible casualties on boths sides. You can't argue with his success, how many wars have the UK and America fought with Japan since 1945.

Answer 4

not confident truly ,its been defined as an try by technique of a few historians ,you should assert the jap no resign coverage ought to have lost thousands of lives ,yet compared to the jap the front replaced into it any extra horiffic .the casualties from the bomb werent much better than dresden and different cities bombed interior the blitz ,per chance if it hadnt got here about it ought to were dropped in yet another conflict or perhaps Europe in 1945 ,probable the alternative saved many American and allied lives and shortened the suffering of civilians in international locations occupied by technique of the jap ,so identity say it replaced into the right decision

Answer 5

It was necessary to drop the bomb on Japan to end WWII. It was widely known that the Japanese were fierce and fearless fighters. Surrender was not an option, and they would fight to the death. This attitude would have made the invasion of the island of Japan extremely difficult, and cost many American and Allied lives. I believe the estimated cumulative deaths for the Allied forces invading Japan was in the neighborhood of one million. To avoid such a devasting blow, it was the only other alternative, as the Japanese did not believe in surrendering.

Answer 6

Dropping the bomb on civililans? Insane. Those people suffered so badly from radiation poisoning. I've heard allegations that Truman made the decision because his military officials wanted to test the bomb. You got that? TEST the bomb. It wasn't to defeat the Japanese.

The war was nearly over and Japan was all but defeated when they dropped the bomb.

Answer 7

It's a no brainer. The alternative would be to slog our way from island to island on the way to Japan, at the cost of many US lives. Now during wartime the lives of the enemy are worth less than the lives of your fellow countrymen, and you should be willing to trade the former for the latter.

Why was dropping the A-bomb so immoral? Before it was available, we firebombed Dresden and caused more damage and more loss of life. The same for Tokyo. Is it so immoral that ONE (1) bomb did all the damage, as opposed to a few hundred?

Answer 8

It was a cheaper option (both US lives & financially). Although the UK & US already had an agreement with Russia to attack Japan after the peace agreement with Nazi Germany. Japan's fleet did not pose a significant threat to the US and Japan's fighting with China had left the country demoralised and in dire straits - all that plus no real allies.

So you tell us - would you have invaded? Extended the war effort to engineer a surrender? Or drop two devastating nuclear devices that would wipe out two communities and create lasting medical and social problems (not to mention start an arms race that gave us the Cold War)?

Admittedly, hindsight helps.

Answer 9

No sane person could ever argue that the dropping of the bomb was good. However given the problems of the time, and the options available, it was the least bad solution, and one should spare some sympathy for those who had to decide on it. Any other decision would almost certainly have been worse.

Answer 10

Japan were pretty finished off by the time the bomb was dropped. the allies were firebombing the guts out of the country (300000 were killed in the 1945 Tokyo firebombing). The desision was taken to impress Stalin more than anything, maybe if the Yanks hadn't of dropped the bomb then there wouldn't have been the cold war and subsequent arms race.