Why did the U.S. bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Answer 1

in short because the japanese were ******* the americans doggy-style and the americans couldn't do anything.

Answer 2

There are three reasons for dropping the bombs:

1) To Save Lives:
Estimates at the time projected 1 million American dead to invade Japan and 3 million dead Japanese soldiers (not to mention massive civilian casualties). The bombs were dropped to, in the long run, save lives on both sides.

2) A Demonstration of American Military Power
The first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima to demonstrate the capability to the Japanese government. The second was dropped on Nagasaki because the Japanese did not believe we had more than one such bomb. Why not the capitol of Japan? Because we couldn't destroy the legitimate government of Japan and then ask said government to surrender... leaving less "governmental" targets as the only options.

2) Crippling the Japanese Warmaking Economy.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both largely industrialized cities producing goods towards Japan's warmaking capability. Strategic bombing demands destruction of the enemies capability to support sustained combat operations, so the two cities were both logical targets. Incidently, America dropped leaflets warning of the impending bombing, but no one on the ground believed them enough to evacuate.

Answer 3

The US dropped the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring Japan to the bargaining table to end the war and save the lives of a projected 1 million allied servicemen and many more Japanese soldiers and civilians that would have died if the Allies would have had to invade Japan.

The revenge factor for Pearl Harbor was secondary since the US had already bombed Tokyo (in Doolittle's Raid) years earlier in revenge for Pearl Harbor and was firebombing Japanese cities well before the A-bombs were dropped to destroy Japan's industry. Read "Flyboys" if you want to learn a little more about this.

Answer 4

According to Harry Truman, the reason he ordered the bombings was because he believed more lives would be saved, both American and Japanese, if he used the atomic bomb. Before the bombings, the Japanese were fighting to the last man, never surrendering. They told the women that the Americans were cannibals, so when the Americans landed on an island, the women would throw their babies off cliffs to keep them from being eaten. Schoolchildren were being taught to make weapons, and to fight to the death, even with bamboo sticks and farm implements if necessary. Tokyo had been bombed nearly to the ground, yet Japan continued to fight. Truman knew that every man, woman and child in Japan would die rather than surrender, so he hoped that by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki he would force the Japanese to realize they could not win. In fact, the Japanese generals were still planning on continuing to fight after the bombings, but Emporer Hirohito stepped in, telling them to surrender because he could not stand to see his people continue to suffer.

Truman continued to believe he made the right decision to his dying day. This was the reasoning he gave in his book, Give 'Em Hell, Harry.

Answer 5

The options were weighed, and there were two readily available secret weapons of a yield never before seen. On one end of the table, there was the option to send the troops directly to Japan. In fact, a fleet had been assembled, and the aproximate number of forces in that operation were one million (my grandfather served aboard the USS United States, a cruise ship, turned transport, turned Rocket Ship, for firing rockets along the land leading to the beach head.) The other option was to use the two Atomic Bombs, just freshly developed by the Manhattan Project. After weighing the costs (not just in finances and hard assets, but to the populations, as well), our lraders decided the most cost-effective way to break the enemy, and win the war, was to drop the two weapons.

Answer 6

The answer will probably always be debated by skeptics. I believe that the bombings were for two reasons. First, I think our leaders did believe that we would have to invade Japan at the cost of upwards of 1,000,000 US casualties. Second, I believe that we wanted to demonstrate the power we had harnessed to the world but mostly to Stalin. We wanted an upper hand in continuing talks about the disposition of post-war Europe.

Some people think we didn't need to do it but I don't believe that. It has been shown now that Japanese scientists test detonated an atomic bomb in North Korea just weeks before we dropped ours. Had they been given several months to produce more of them, we might have had more than one million US casualties in the Pacific.

Some people also have argued that it was simple revenge for Pearl Harbor but I don't buy into that theory either. Pearl Harbor had been avenged several times in combat (Coral Sea, Midway, the Truk Lagoon).

Answer 7

The REAL answer is not widly known.
The US ask the Russians to launch a ground invasion of Japan but they didn't have enough equpment, so US US stockpiled enough military equipment in Mongolia for them. Then the Russians began gobbleing up half of Europe and were after a warm water port. So before the Russians got to the stock piles, the US decided to drop the bomb.Another side efffect was that a Chineese rebel called Mao found the stock piles and took over China with them and now we have red china to deal with.

Answer 8

While in the midst of signing a peace agreement, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and at that point the US hadn't really been involved. The Japan forces were much bigger than the American forces and to prove the power of the US, they bombed Japan.

It worked didn't it? Now we're friends (after we helped rebuild Japan).

Answer 9

Because the Jap's attacked Pearl Harbor, thus bringing them into World War 2. We then were obligated to fight the war in two theatres, the Pacific and Europe. We had ground dominance in Europe. And air superiority in the Pacific. Also, we needed a place to test our nuclear arsenal. LOAC allowed us to use our powers against Japan in anyway we wanted. So we did. A-bomb, good bye!

Answer 10

The were the remaining top industrial cities left. In order to 'shut down and cripple Japan to its knees they were the cities left to destroy. The A bomb accomplished this without casualty to any American life.

Answer 11

Roughly because it appeard that Japan would never surrender unconditionally. They wanted to protect the emperor. So we bombed and the surrendered with no conditions.

We had basically already won the war against them.