After the war was won, why did the USA bomb the people of Hiroshima, and Nagasaki?

Answer 1

Many people were taught that the US had to drop the bombs in order to win the war in Japan, but Japan was actually trying to surrender and the US would not accept the surrender because we wanted to test our new bombs on civilians. The reason we did this is because the USSR was still a threat to the allies and we wanted to show Stalin the destruction that we could do at the push of a button...I know its horrible, but to the gov. the end always justifies the means...

Answer 2

April 30, 1945 Hitler commits suicide in underground bunker.

May 2, 1945 Germany unconditionally surrenders.

Pacific War still ongoing

August 6, 1945 Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima, resulting in an estimated 70,000 person death toll, followed by another 50,000 with in the next several months due to radiation

August 9, 1945 Fat Man dropped on Nagasaki, resulting in 40,000 immediate deaths, and another 40,000 dying from injury and radiation the months that proceeded.

August 15, 1945 Japan surrenders. luckily they gave them a little longer than 3 days, before dropping another huh?

September 2, 1945 Instrument of Surrender signed

3 days doesn't seem like a very reasonable time to survey the destruction, and come to the conclusion to surrender, when considering dropping another WMD, does it?
I would say someone wanted to play with a new toy, while displaying a little bit of braun.

I can see the point in dropping one, but a second so soon seems a little excessive to me.

Answer 3

WWII ended on only a single front at a time. Even as Berlin fell, the war in the Pacific was still raging. At that point, the Japanese empire could still potentially push back. The atomic bomb was dropped at greate cost, but the cost would have been greater had we not dropped it and ended the war with conventional means. Keep in mind also, that the Japanese committed their own human rights violations, in Okinawa they raped villagers and compelled them to commit suicide, handing out hand gernades and telling them that the Americans would torture and murder them and their families if they were captured. Also, they supported a genocidal fascist utopian regime, that alone warrented it's use. They were the nation that brought us kamikaze. They would have continued the war without Hitler's backing, and the American death toll would have been far larger.

Answer 4

The USA as a whole didn't. Truman is the one who gave the order.

What's ironic is that the terms the Japanese offered after that were the same as the ones they offered beforehand, and FDR refused them.

Know what it was though? Revenge. And trying to make a point: Don't mess with the US.

Answer 5

The war was not won ,when the two atom bombs were dropped, Their still was the invasion of the Japanese main land in which even little children were being trained to fight the Americans , many Japanese would have fought to the death, Thousands, or tens of thousands American lives would have been lost in taking the Japanese mainland, The Japanese committed untold atrocities to the lands it occupied, They were by far no angels.
Also the United States wanted to show the Russians the new powerful weapon we had. To stop any ideas they had of territorial expansion.

Answer 6

The war hadnt been won... (delivered in a really dry tone...) We were planning an invasion on the scale of the Normandy landings. The estimated death toll was 1,000,000 people.

Japan had NOT surrendered. The bomb was dropped on Aug 6 & 9, 1945. Japan surrendered on Aug 10.

Were you sleeping in history class???

Answer 7

The idea that the war was won is false. Japan was cornered but still very dangerous as the fierce battle for Okinawa showed. Thousands of Japanese civilians killed themselves as well as 66,000 Japanese soldiers (not to mention some 12,000 sailors, marines and army troops of the USA). We had invaded Japanese soil and the resistance was very tough - the thought of actually invading Japan chilled American leaders to the bone. It had been a long war with millions killed and we had the weapon to end it. And we used it and we ended it. No US troops had to land on Japan under hostile fire.

There is no clear evidence that Japan was anywhere near to surrendering and we are talking unconditional surrender here. The Japanese may have been tossing out feelers for surrender but always with some conditions, some "deals". That's not how we had pledged to end both the war in the Pacific and the war against Hitler. Unconditional surrender. The bombs forced Emperor Hirohito to "accept the unacceptable, endure the unendurable".

And what was the result? Japan became a mighty economic democracy with freedoms it had never had before. MacArthur's running of the occupation was enlightened and wise. (For all his faults, he cannot be faulted on his rebuilding of Japan.)

Look, the simple answer is it ended a long, brutal war against a military regime and a country that nearly worshipped the military. Please note that the cornerstone of Japanese society, the Emperor, was not imprisoned, not harrassed but left on the throne but no longer a diety. Most other conquerors would have killed him.

It was a very brutal weapon but war is war. Look at the outcome peace brought about.

Answer 8

The war wasn't won and it was the only way unfortunately that the Japanese would have surrendered.

They dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and warned them to surrender, the Japanese didn't. Then suddenly came a bomb dropped above in the sky of Nagasaki which was the industrial district (Weapon factories) to pollute the air and make it unliveable.

The Japanese then decided "Oh crap, we should have surrendered" and suddenly gave in.

Answer 9

The allied victory was not complete by August 1945. The Japanese army in China and Manchuria consisted of 1/2-million men and were still fighting and defeating the Chinese one of the allied nations. So the war was not yet "won." The Japanese military leadership refused to acknowledge defeat and the atomic bombs were used to persuade them that continuing the war was futile. Even after the two bombs were dropped there were many in the Japanese military that wanted to continue the war and fight to an honorable extinction.

Answer 10

The war against Germany was won not against Japan. Therefore, WWII was still in effect when we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This prompted Japan to surrender giving us victory.