Why did we bomb Japan after the attack of Pearl Harbor??

Question

Also why did we choose Hiroshima and Nagasaki??

Answer 1

Well, we bombed them (if you're talking about Doolittle's raid) because we wanted to strike back. It would be like having someone punch you in the face, then you just stand there and let them keep punching. Thats just not the way America does things. Never has been, never will be. Doolittle's raid also made a mockery of Japans mythical holy land. Their word for it meant something like "mythical untouchable land" but can't be directly translated. The simple fact that we bombed it proved it wasn't untouchable and shattered their morale.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were industrial centers, used to produce weapons, it was an effort to cripple their production so they couldn't keep attacking. Also we used nukes as a method of intimidation. From what I heard from an unreliable source we said "surrender or we will annihilate you." They refused so we dropped a nuke. we then said "surrender or we will annihilate you.". They refused, so we dropped a second nuke. At this point we were out of nukes, but one more surrender beckon and they gave in ;)

Answer 2

Frankie7 gave the best answer about the "Doolittle Raid" which occurred shortly after the Pearl Harbour bombings. The US attacked Tokyo with B-17s flown off aircraft carriers to give a "Moral Boost" back in the US along with showing the Japanese that the US was willing to attack back.

As for the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that was more of an experiment.
Japan had already notified everyone that they were willing to surrender, but the US went ahead with the bombings.
Hiroshima was chosen because it was a Naval Port, although there were few naval ships in harbour at the time.
Nagasaki was an alternate target. I am unsure of why Nagasaki was even chosen as it did not have a Naval or military compound attached. It is (and was) the largest Catholic Christian city in Japan.

Answer 3

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened years after the sneak attack at Pearl Harbor. There is not necessarily a cause and effect relationship.

At the end of World War II, then President Harry Truman was convinced by his military advisors that invading the home islands of Japan, and conquering the country, would cost more Allied deaths that the entire war in the Pacific had to that point.

Dropping the two nuclear bombs was probably rationalized as a method of demoralizing the enemy to the point that the Japanese would surrender, and thus save thousands and thousands of allied soldier's lives.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both industrial centers that were crucial to the war effort of Japan. They were large enough that the effect of just one weapon was clearly evident. The centers of these cities were devastated, and the destruction continued for miles, but on the outskirts building were still standing. In other words the Japanese could see exactly what destruction was wrought from one bomb.
All factories in the area were destroyed. Tens of thousands of people died in a flash of light. Many thousands more died in the aftermath from radiation sickness.

Japanese scientists and physicists determined that they had been attacked with atom bombs in a matter of just a few days.

In order to save his people from unbelievable horror the Emperor bore the personal loss of face, and surrendered unconditionally.

Answer 4

Japan was an expansionist country that was trying to reign in all of Asia under its control. long before WWII Japan had been at war, particularly with China. They had also fought a war with Russia, and won. And Japan would have marched unopposed but if for one problem--they lacked raw resources; oil, steel, rubber, etc.. They had to import much of what they needed to sustain their hostilities. When Japan began moving towards Vietnam, the US said 'enough' and cut the flow of oil and scrap steel. As Japan looked elsewhere for the raw materials, it realized that the US could pose a threat in the Pacific so, they launched an attack on Pearl Harbor where the US Pacific fleet and specifically, the aircraft carriers were docked. The plan was to knock the carriers out and destroy America's will for hostilities in the Pacific But the plan backfired. The Japanese failed to attack a single carrier (all were out to sea). Most of the ships that were sank in Pearl Harbor were repaired and put back to use. The biggest mistake the Japanese made was to assume Americans had no will to fight. They thought the US would fold--it didn't. Because Japan could not touch American Industry, the US was able to pump out enormous amounts of ships, tanks and equipment to fight a two front war--one in Europe and another in the Pacific. So the bottom line is the Japanese though that by attacking Pearl Harbor, they would be eliminating a possible threat to their expansionist plans==Without the US no one could stop them. But as Admiral Yokomoto stated after attacking the US, "...We've woken a sleeping giant."

Answer 5

Good question!

To understand this, we have to understand that the problem was oil. Without it, the war could not be fought or won.
The USA was blocking the oil resources for Japan. Japan dropped bombs on Hawaii. It was not a cheap shot. All is fair in love and war. They had taken Taiwan from China; why not Hawaii from the US?

Japan had also brutally invaded Nan-king, killing an incredible amount of innocent civilians. They had a fanaticism and an idea that they had the right to do this. The Japanese were ready to fight to the last person.

At Iwo Jima, there were about 25,000 deaths. This loss influenced the decision to bomb Hiroshima. The Allied powers did not want more Allied deaths- so they fire-bombed Tokyo. The Allied powers had fire-bombed Germany and this worked - Germany surrendered. But after the fire bombing of Tokyo, there was no Japanese surrender. What to do?

There was an idea to invade Japan in November. But to save lives, it was decided to drop the nuclear bomb on Japan.
Where to do it was the problem. Much thought went into where. Hiroshima had the most military activity, so it was chosen first. It is said that the people were warned. But who could be warned about such an awful new weapon that would send the fish floating up dead from the sea and leave people with their skin coming off in sheets? Death from radiation sickness? Women with horrible burns the same as the pattern of their kimonos and dresses?

No one knew the extent of this new weapon. Kyoto was ruled out as a target since it was the heart and cultural soul of Japan. Still no surrender, another bomb where there was military activity. Then finally, surrender.

Keep in mind that the Japanese did not have any halos on their heads. They took women and made them sex slaves for the army and slaughtered innocent people. Some historians say that millions of lives, both Allied and Japanese, were
saved by dropping the nuclear bombs. I only hope the world has learned from this terrible history lesson.


Pray for peace
Ken

Answer 6

There was 3 and a half years between Pearl Harbor and the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You are in luck there are still many people alive who lived through this period of time. talk with a Great Grandparent or older family friend. You could also watch the PBS documentary called "The War" by Ken Burns. You'll have a far better understanding of the state of the world and the mindset of the U.S. after watching. In a nutshell the atomic bomb was originally meant for Germany. They were diligently working on their own bomb and a long range bomber called the "Amerika" to attack New York . Once Germany collapsed we then focused on the Japanese Empire. We lost 30,000 casualties in the invasion of Okinawa, the Japanese 100,000. (My numbers might be off somewhat). The next Island was the main Island of Japan. It was estimated we would lose between 11/2 million to 1/2 million American lives and possibly as many as 7 million Japanese. The Japanese rejected unconditional surrender and tried through the Russian to surrender while retaining their conquered territories. We had firebombed Tokyo with tens of thousands of casualties but to no avail. The Japanese Military trained civilians to fight an insurgent war. It was thought by most U.S. military experts that the Japanese population had been Militarized therefore justifying attacks on civilian targets. Even after the Emperor of Japan decided to surrender a portion of the Military high command staged an ill fated coup. President Truman didn't hesitate to use the atomic bomb in hopes that it would end the war. After the first bomb was dropped they still did not surrender (thats when they approached the Russians) it was with the second dropping that the Emperor was prepared to surrender and the coup occurred. We only had two bombs, the Japaneses did not know that. If they had they probably would have sacrificed millions of their countryman to full fill their goals of empire and exploitation of all of the pacific rim. As a result of the Bomb, the war ended and millions of people are alive today that wouldn't be without this horrible decision that at the time was easily made. Sometimes, I wonder if we had dropped it in Tokyo bay would that have convinced them. But.....

Answer 7

It's amazing how many responses you got to this question! You'd think it was obvious but everyone has their own ideas.

There were two reasons we bombed Japan. One was legitimate and the other not. The bombing of industrial sites to prevent Japan from making more ships, airplanes and bombs was legitimate. That was -defense-. The other reason was to kill a lot of civilians so as to attack the morale of the Japanese people. That is called 'terror bombing' and it is not legitimate, and not allowed under international treaties which we had signed some years before.

Before Hiroshima and Nagasaki there were massive firebombings of Tokyo. Tokyo was a city built mostly of wood. We hit it with massive doses of incendiary bombs which caused huge firestorms and killed as many as 100,000 people. That was terror bombing, a textbook example.

Then comes Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hiroshima was the largest city that hadn't been previously bombed by us. It was chosen largely for that reason, so we could assess the damage done by the nuclear weapon, the first one used in a war. Yes, there was a small military post there, and defense industries, but they were small potatoes. Also they were on the outskirts of the city but the bomb was targeted to the center of the city, with the objective being to kill as many civilians as possible.

The American govt. put out lots of reasons for destroying Hiroshima, just as the Bush administration has had many reasons for invading Iraq, and in both cases most of the reasons are pretexts. We were told it was to avoid an invasion of Japan which would have cost as many as a million American lives, but Japan was already suing for peace. We were told it was the only way to get an -unconditional- surrender, but then we let them keep their emperor, which was all they wanted.

Its been speculated that we really dropped the bomb to show the Soviet Union who was boss. People were worried the USSR would march in and take over Japan and other nations in the far east, as they did in Eastern Europe. It's also been speculated that President Truman wasn't told of the danger of lingering nuclear fallout, he was just told that it was a big huge bomb that would wipe out a city and kill a lot more people instantaneously from radiation.

Nagasaki, btw, was the center of Christianity in Japan. Nagasaki is made of two valleys separated by a range of hills, that come down to a common harbor. The bomb was misplaced so it did most of the damage to one valley and the other was hardly touched.

Answer 8

When I first saw this question I thought you were talking about the Doolittle raid of April 1942. That was more a morale builder than anything else. It did almost no damage to Japan's ability to wage war. Lt. Colonel James Doolittle was a full General by the end of the war.

The August 6 and August 9 1945 bombs were intended to get Japan to surrender before the invasion of their country. The casualty estimates were running at 500,000 Allied dead and over 1 million Japanese dead. These were based on the resistance put up by the Japanese soldiers and civilians at Saipan and Okinawa.

There were numerous targets selected, all had been spared bombing prior to this to make a demonstration of how powerful the "gadget" was. Both missions were preceeded by other B-29s with weather observers on board. When the targets were evaluated, the planes carrying the bombs set their course for those targets.

The overall command of the project was under General Curtis E. LeMay, later commander of the Strategic Air Command. The guys who dropped the Nagasaki bomb said that they had been ordered to do a "visual" drop instead of a "radar" drop. This required them to be able to see their target before they released the bomb, but the cloud cover over Nagasaki was pretty thick when they got there. They were under orders, and the device was armed, so they wanted to get rid of it, so they decided to do a radar drop, against orders. They ended up dropping it in a place where there was a low ridge between the town and the site, and this ridge shielded part of the town from the flash. When they flew back to Tinian, they were all worried about what kind of trouble they'd be in for failing to carry out orders, and they had been flying around trying to find a clear visual target so long they were running out of gas, so they had to land somewhere else, which they did. Who was there at the base when they arrived but General Doolittle, who wasn't known as the "teddy bear" kind of General, but they explained it all to him and he said it was ok, they'd done their duty and adapted to the conditions at hand.

Answer 9

We bombed Japan as demonstration of our power to destroy any of her cities we wanted at will. This was to persuade the the military and civilian leaders to surrender or face extinction from afar without us even having to invade the big islands and risk horrible losses. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because they had not previously been seriously bombed by conventional explosives, unlike most other major cities such as Tokyo. We wanted to see and demonstrate exactly what damage would be caused by the A-bomb itself.

Answer 10

To quickly end the war rather than a long, expensive, and bloody full scale invasion of the Japanese main islands. That would be more disastrous than Pearl Harbor. The timely development of the atomic bomb eliminated the need for another D-Day.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were populous strategic industrial centers crucial for the Japanese war machine.