was the bombing of Hiroshima necessary?

Answer 1

Yes it was. Our own projections were that over 200,000 US servicemen would have died invading Japan and over 1 million Japanese troops and 4 million Japanese civilians would have also died.

Analysis conducted after the war that compared the Japanese defense plans with the US attack plans indicates that these estimates were at least half what would have really happened.

In effect, the nuclear bombs saved the lives of 10 million Japanese people.

Answer 2

genuinely mandatory? No, international conflict II replaced into ending besides, it fairly is a fable that this ended the conflict. Did it save lives? in all danger, the two American and eastern, regularly occurring weapons kill human beings too. replaced into it a sturdy thought? practically unquestionably, the Soviet Union could have been first onto the eastern mainland, no longer American troops, and not utilizing a eastern renounce. the eastern 'struggling with to the loss of life' factor is likewise a fable. nicely they did no longer did they they surrendered. The A-bomb gave them an excuse to renounce -- the individuals 'cheated' giving them an honourable way out. however the eastern forces 'in no way' renounce in simple terms like the British military 'in no way' retreats. (It makes a tactical withdrawal) It wasn't a criminal offense against humanity. The U.S. has been in charge for some such crimes maximum exceedingly in it fairly is stricken and violent start, yet Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't in comparison with what crimes have been genuinely being committed on the time.

Answer 3

Is killing thousands of civilians, mostly women and children necessary? Is that what you are asking? If so, you're forgetting about the numbers lost to incendiary attacks from March 1945 to July 1945.....

While it's easy to focus on the two nuclear attacks, the majority of the other Japanese cities were oblitereted during the summer of 1945 with far more deaths than Hiroshima & Nagasaki combined.

Fewer people died from the nuclear attacks than who died in the incendiary attacks on Tokyo and other Japanese cities.... In a period of ten days starting March 9, a total of 1,595 sorties delivered 9,373 tons of bombs against Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe destroying 31 square miles of those cities most people think the most destuctive air raid in history was the Atomic Bomb. NOT SO. The Japanese empire was almost totally destroyed by summer 1945.

On March 9-10, 1945, an air raid on Tokyo killed an estimated 100,000 people in a single night of fire.

U.S. warplanes shower the sky with rivulets of fire, and thousands of corpses — many of them women and children — clot Tokyo's main river. Flaming victims plummet in agony from a burning bridge.

At this stage in the war, civilians on both sides were feeling the effect of total war...indiscriminate carpet bombing, V1/V2 attacks, and yes, the nuclear attacks.

Answer 4

Depends on your take on "necessary" The bombs brought an earlier than expected end to the war and saved the lives of thousands of Allied troops as the Japanese simply would not surrender. It also reminds us of the destruction of the bomb and puts a human face to any future posibility of its use, meaning it will only be used as a last resort. It is perhaps a factor as to why they were never used in the cold war, human casualty would of been simply too high on both sides to warrant its use.
EFW I totally agree with your points also.

Answer 5

My father was in the second world war, and was scheduled to be part of Operation Olympus (invasion of mainland Japan). The expected casulties for this invasion were estimated at anywhere between 200,000 and 500,000. The Japanese were not going to surrender, they were arming the civilian population of Japan. The Bushido code was drilled into the Japanese--surrender was considered dishonorable--death fighting preferable. The atom bomb was such a force majure that even the most dyed in the wool military man in Japan understood that with a weapon of that magnitude surrender was the only way to save their people. My dad and a lot of others came home because of those 2 bombs. God bless harry s. for making the hard decision to use them.

Answer 6

Absolutely, if the US had been forced to invade Japan there would have been over a million casualties, at least that's what has been estimated. We had the weapon why not use it. In the end it saved more lives than it killed. More Japanese were killed in the bombing of Tokyo and other major cities than were killed in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The Japanese were of a mind set that they would have fought to the last man, woman and child if there had to be an invasion.

Answer 7

The Japanese were feverishly preparing to defend their homeland. Conservative estimates were that at least 3-million American soliders, sailors, and Marines would become casualties in the final step against Japan...an invasion. The A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved orders of magnitude more lives than they took.

Over the years we've heard over and over again about what an atrocity and evil thing dropping those bombs was. What we *never* hear about is this ==>
Japanese troops slaughtered some 300,000 Chinese in Nanking and raped at least 20,000 Chinese women. Compare those figures to the total casualty counts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki ==>
Hiroshima - 135,000
Nagasaki - 64,000

Answer 8

Yes, unfortunately.

The Japanese citizens were brainwashed to believe that the US soldiers were nothing more than raping and murdering thugs, thus most of the Japanese population was armed (many with clubs and pitchforks) to repel them.

The US losses from an invasion would have been terrible and the Japanese civilian losses would have been even worse than both bombs (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) combined.

Answer 9

It was if you had family members that were set to be on the 1st wave to hit the beaches of Japan where they said US casualties were to exceed 100,000.
A better question is was bombing Pearl Harbor a bad idea?
Duh

Money- Despite all that, is it actually necessary to nuke civilian targets? If anyone did that to a US city, in wartime or peacetime, I guarantee it would not be stood for.

Stood for? Lets say our navy was gone, our airforce was eliminated, and our army is abandoned on various islands with orders to fight till death and commit suicide rather than be taken alive. Then we lost 2 cities to a weapon that had never been seen before. Now explain how we would not stand for it?

Answer 10

Define 'necessary'. If we had not used nuclear weapons on Japan, we would have been forced to invade overland. An invasion would have meant a VAST loss of life on both sides, because without the threat of total annihilation the Japanese would never have surrendered until most of them were dead. So was it 'necessary'? It seemed like the only viable alternative at the time.