this is a debate topic in my history class...was it necessary 4 the US to drop the A-bomb on Japan?

Question

yeah because you know Japan attacked pearl harbor then the US went to war with them and dropped the atomic bomb that killed a whole lot a people including innocent onez.....

Answer 1

Ask any WWII vet and you'll know it was necessary. The casualties for both sides would have been astronomical, many more times those killed by A-Bombs. There were so many Purple Hearts produced for the preparation of the millions of dead and wounded that they are still being used today. The A-bombs broke the will of the Japanese to fight, something slaughtering US troops to save a few 'civilian' lives would not have accomplished. I am thankful that they did so I can here the stories of the greatest generation from my grandfather personally, instead of learning how he died on the beaches of Kyusho to save a few enemy lives.

Answer 2

I'm not reading the other answers...

At the time that the A-bombs were dropped it was seen as the best option for getting the Japaneese to surrender.

We did more actual damage by FIREBOMBING than by use of the A-bombs. The real reason they were effective in getting Japan to surrender was the shock of just one bomb doing so much damage, then our ability to "repeat the trick" which gave the impression that we could keep doing it again and again (which we couldn't at that time)

An invasion of the Japaneese homeland would have been brutal to both sides. Casualty estimates in the vicinity of 1 million US soldiers and double or more Japaneese soldiers plus several million civilians due to effects of continued bombing and artillary shelling.

We can't go back and "undrop" the bombs and find out if we would have gone through with an invasion. Indications are that we would have had to and that in effect dropping the A-bombs saved several million lives.

So... yes, we needed to do it.

It must be remembered that the Japaneese people lived under a completely different ideology then compared to now. Also the ideology of America has changed in the past 60 years. We can't judge what was done 60 years ago by today's standards. We can only try to understand what was done, and hopefully learn from mistakes of the past and thus avoid repeating them.

We learned the devastating power of the A-bomb. We demonstrated it to the world. And because of that, the world has gone 60 years without another being used.

Apparently, mankind did learn. At least Japan, China the NATO allied countries and Soviet countries did... because we've had plenty of opportunity to use more and we haven't.

What we should fear is some country or group that didn't learn getting hold of a nuclear weapon... and using it. Iran has specificly stated that if they get one, Israel will receive it special delivery.

Answer 3

It's true we lost the moral high ground after use of the nukes on Japan, but looking at what Truman faced in 1945, i probably would've done the same thing. To compare the moral depravity of state sponsored genocide where the death ovens at Aushwitz/Birkenau were topping out at 2,600 per day or 80,000 killed per month and the aerial bombardment of civilians is looking at different scales.

The "Final Solution" was the policy of only one country during the last century, and it wasn't the U.S. My beef is with the multi-national business cartels that allowed it to happen, the top being IG Farben (now BASF, Bayer, among others).

Not only did they finance Adolf, they supplied him with Zyclon B for use in the death camps. The American side of the company was not tried at Nuremburg, although they were just as culpable, go figure.
The fire bombing of Dresden by the 8th Air Force and RAF Bomber Command, caused the destruction of 15 square kms including 14,000 homes, 72 schools, 22 hospitals, 18 churches, etc. with a conservative estimate of around 30,000 civilians killed. At the time, the Germans used it as propaganda to advocate against following the Geneva conventions and to attack people's perception of the Allies claim to absolute moral superiority. The military claimed the railroad center was a military target, which it was, altho it was up and running a week later. Feb 1945 was only 3 months away from May 1945 (end of the Euopean war), the outcome of the war was not in doubt, so why bomb a 'cultural' medieval city of 600,000?

The firebombing of Dresden and nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes, genocide should also include civilian victims of aerial bombardment. Even after saying this, i still don't think the Allies were close to the moral depravity of the Nazis and their wholesale holocaust of the Euopean Jews.

The bombing of civilians is a great tragedy, none can deny. It is not so much this or the other means of making war that is immoral or inhumane. What is immoral is war itself.

Answer 4

No, it was not necessary. The Bomb was not in retailation for the Pearl harbor attacks, at least not directly. the Direct Response was the Doolittle Raid.

the Bomb didn't need to be dropped. The US military had Operation Olympic in the works to invade japan. That would have worked. However, it is estimated that the Bomb Saved both US and Japanese lives because of the high cost that would have resulted from operation Olympic. Virtually all of Japan was involved in the war in some way, and every able bodied person was trained to fight. The US forces would have overwhelmed them due to the poor arming (many only had staffs made of bamboo) but many, many more would have died.

Answer 5

No !!!
The Americans often compare their criminal ( using A-bombs to Japanese innocent people ) and the Pearl Harbour ... but
You ,the Americans had to learn REAL history of the Pearl Harbour ...
At this time the majorities of Americans were against the war to Japan ... then the government tried to change the people's opinion ... try to change people's mind against Japan ... the US government had known the Japan planed to attack Pearl Harbour ... then they pushed the Japanese to attack it ... the Japan gave the declaration of war to the US government but they did ignore till Japan attacked Pearl Haber, for they wanted to use this the propaganda against Japan ....
Well it works ...

It is just like the Iraqi war ... the US government used 911 for attacking Iraq ... and now everyone knows they are LIAR !!!!

Answer 6

ABSOLUTELY!!! And if you asked my father, who lost his brother fighting in France or that guy's grandfather, they would tell you exactly the same thing.

The people who are second guessing this action, aren't thinking like people who had been through five years of hell. Imagine your street. Every single house on the block had a star in the window, and most of them would have been gold stars, meaning someone had lost a father, brother, husband, son in the war.

The war was over in Europe and, as you may have seen on the HBO show "Band of Brothers," those soldiers were already training for the invasion of Japan. It's estimated that one million more additional lives of US soldiers would have died if we had to invade the mainland. You can see how hard it was to fight the Japanese in movies out now like "Flags of our Fathers" or "Letter from Iwo Jima." One seen in the second film, shows the commander of the Island telling his troops that they were not going home. That everyone of them must be prepared to fight to the death. American soldiers captured something like 5 out of more than three hundred thousand Japanese.

Now imagine what would happen if we invade the Mainland of Japan? Civilians, old men, women, children, were told that they, too, were to fight to the death with whatever they had available like rakes. Imagine the brutal deaths they would have suffered as well. Do not make civilians of Japan out to be innocents when they supported the war effort by making the arms that allowed the Japanese to attack so many. True, they may have believed what they were told and what they were told wasn't necessarily the truth, but they were all for it, much like many German citizens turned on the Jews during the Holocaust. Moreover, the government and its citizenry were warned that the bomb would be dropped if they did not surrender. Not only did they refuse and allow the first bomb to be dropped, but they refused after that and insisted that the second one be dropped as well.

Too, remember that they didn't really know the destructive power of the A bomb. They knew that it's power was like that of thousands of conventional bombs, but they didn't know much of anything about radiation or radiation sickness and they really didn't know just how horrible it would be.

In war, the mentality is either them or us. Naturally, we wanted it to be them particularly since they caused the problem in the first place. Sorry this is so long, but I feel very passionately about this as you can tell.

Answer 7

Depends on how you define necessary. An amphibious invasion by 2 million+ allied troops could have taken Japan, but at the cost of many, many times the number of dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Remember, even after Hiroshima the military did not want to surrender. It took nagasaki too and EVEN THEN took the Emperor personally stepping in. All this crap about they were ready to surrender is crap.

I'm not condoning the use of nuclear weapons, I'm just saying that like any other weapon it is how it is used that determines it's necessity.

Answer 8

It was drop the bomb or allow the war to continue to spiral out of control or I guess we could have waited for Congress to decide they had the power to tell the troops to come home like now.
You would be learning a different history now though. The Japanese viewpoint.

A lot of people were going to die either way the bomb just confined the area & people involved.

Answer 9

YES! What most people didn't know is that not only we would have lost thousands of men. We would have to kill EVERY JAPANESE PERSON in the whole nation of Japan!!!! The country was high on the ideas of Bushido and will die before their will ever call it quiets. They were given guides on how to kill US and British Soldiers and one thing they were going to do was throw their babies with TNT in their bundles under are TANKS!!! Also the Japanese also had developed Jet fighters and bombers. If we even try to invade we would lose even more from the sinking of are warships and troop transports. If we didn't drop the bombs the only people that would live in Japan would be westerners, not one Japanese would be left but the P.O.W.S! The Died in the two cities died as Saviors for the Japanese and save them from their death and the deaths of Millions of Soldiers

Also I forget to say that we killed a lot more people in the Firebombing of Tokyo. Hell the British killed more people in Dresden Germany
and most died from the LACK OF O2 most people in the A-bombing killed instantly.

Answer 10

i am japanese and whent to hiroshima's memorial musium, where they displayed all sorts of things from human tissues from radiated ppl. It was to test the bomb in real scale city, they did send reserchers after ward to check what happend, when tokyo was already burning there was no need of extra kill. but it is most unlikely that japanese would surrender that fast, they would fight month or 2 longer if the bomb was not dropped. also keep in your mind, soviet union had promised in yalta conference that they would declare war on japan 3month after germany surrenders.
meaning opening already week japan an second front.....