Was The Bombing in Heroshima Justified...?

Question

As WW2 was reaching its end, the Americans dropped a atomic bomb on Japan...2 bombings later, 2 days had passed and Japan surrendered.

They say this was to speed up the end of the war but was it justified...ur answers are much apreciated as I would like your views before I write a paper on it.

As WW2 was reaching its end, the Americans dropped a atomic bomb on Japan...2 bombings later, 2 days had passed and Japan surrendered.

Yet after the two bombing the Atomic Fever struck which killed loadsa people years...decades afterwards...the water was poluted...their eyeballs even melted...people burnt to death...

They say this was to speed up the end of the war but was it justified...ur answers are much apreciated as I would like your views before I write a paper on it.

Answer 1

Well, most of the answers posted so far provide one perspective. Let me point you to this page, which has a nice review of the debate at hand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

You ask whether the bombing at Hiroshima (and presumably Nagasaki) was justified. Lots of folks would say "Yes," and lots of folks would say, "No." Clearly, this is a complex topic you are writing about, and you're probably going to want to check out a book or two from the library. There are many angles from which to approach this topic (military, political, racial, etc.), and if you have difficulty narrowing down your topic, talk to your teacher or a librarian. They will be in the best position to help you tackle this.

Best of luck!

Answer 2

Short answer: Yes.

The Japanese surrendered on Aug 10, 1945. Before the bombs the Japanese high command were committed to fighting a last ditch defense of the Home Islands using everyone - soldiers and civilians - men, women and children as suicide fighters against the Americans. They had already reinforced the defenses of Kyushu (the southernmost Home Island where the American invasion was expected) with 1.4 million soldiers. In the spring and summer of 1945 the Americans had to kill or wound more than 92% of the Japanese forces defending the small island of Okinawa. If they had to fight on Kyushu with the same intensity (there is no reason to assume otherwise) the Japanese casualties caused by an invasion of Kyushu would have been at least 700,000 Japanese soldiers and untold numbers of civilians.

The American plan for ending the war without an atomic weapon called for two invasions: Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu, scheduled for November 1945, and Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu, scheduled for March 1946. If those operation had actually happened the total deaths among the Japanese are beyond calculation. But given the intensity of combat on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the toll exacted by the conventional air raids conducted by the US 20th Air Force, many historians estimate 12 to 20 million Japanese dead. American casualties would have been very high also, perhaps a million dead and wounded. These estimates don’t even take into consideration the very grave possibility of widespread famine in Japan by 1946. The fact that the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagaski lead to the end of the war without the terrible prospect of Olympic and Coronet coming to reality more than justifies the use of those weapons.

Some people will tell you otherwise, saying it was unjustifed. But don't believe them. They either don't know what their talking about, or they are being very intellectually dishonest. The real facts of the case can't be made to fit any other conclusion than what I've already gone over.

Here's some reading:

"Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire"
by Richard B. Frank

"Olympic vs. Ketsu-Go"
by Jack Bauer and Alvin D. Coox

"The Final Months of the War with Japan: Signals Intelligence, Invasion Planning and the A-Bomb Decision"
by Douglas J. MacEachin

Answer 3

Not a history major but a histroy buff esp on this War.

First, there were the fire bombings of Tokyo and other cities. These also killed many people, possibly more than the 2 Bombs.

Second, the only other way this war would end is as the result of an all out invasion of the Japanese homeland Islands. If you have any questions as to how that would have gone, please refer to Iwo Jima ... the Philipines, etc. The Japanese fought to the death and took no prisoners.

Third, the Japanese were (are) a proud, if misguided, race. The civilian population would have become involved in guerilla warfare just as their soldiers did. The war would have laste many months if not years.

Were the bombings justified? As a mother and wife, I find it hard to say ANY killing to be justified. But neither could I say it wasn't considering the odds of the war ending soon by some other means.

Answer 4

Most of your poster have it right, except for the numbers. The committee that studied the invasion and the expected results numbered the losses to the Japanese Military at over 90%. This was in part due to the the results from our other island invasions. Most either fought to the death or committed suicide and the fighting was more intense the closer to the mainland we got.
Reason? The Japanese had been brought up to believe that the Emperor was the Incarnate Sun God and that Main Land Japan was Holy Ground.
With that thought in mind the study projected the loss in military to be at least 90% of the remaining troops which would put figures into the 2 to 4 million range.
The next part of the study projected a loss in civilian population in the 4 to 6 million range as the citizens of Japan were expected to defend their homeland also. The Japanese Military were already training the citizens in urban warfare tactics and they were being 'encouraged' to give their lives for the emporer.
Justified? just from the stand point of the Japanese civilians population, YES.
Allied losses were expected to be around 1 million.

Answer 5

It seems justified to me, look at the casualty figures during various battles like Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Okinawa for both sides. Add in factors such as Japanese civilians killing their families and/or committing suicide because of propaganda when the US invaded Okinawa, the exposure of US naval assets to Kamikaze and other suicide attacks and the toll of life on both sides during an invasion would have been ridiculous. Although Japanese infrastructure on the home islands had already been pretty heavily damaged, a true ground invasion would have been devastating.

Take a look some of the campaigns in the Pacific theater to see what had happened previously, ie Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Guadacanal, Tarawa, etc. An actual invasion of Japan would have been far more severe. There's been some dispute about the methodology used to calculate the theoretical casualties, but if you just look at previous campaigns that still gives you a good idea of how deadly it would have been to both the US and Japan if the US had invaded.

Answer 6

Based on what I know about WWII and the workings of the Japanese government and its people...I'd say "Yup".
Hey...no one really wanted to do it. The japanses were literally being turned into human torches with all of the firebombing that was being done but they had the mindset that surrender was not an option.
The landing on Iwo Jima and especially Okinawa showed beyond a doubt that the Japanese had no intention of quitting. So unfortunately the A-Bomb was really a last resort. Hmmm...no results after two days? Drop another. I suspect that the bombs would keep raining down every couple of days until the Japanese either surrendered or the entire island was turned into one big heap of smoldering glass.

Answer 7

Yes, in my opinion, it was justified. It was horrible, but it was justified.

First, most military experts at the time estimated that in invasion of Japan would cost the lives of about 1 million U.S. Soldiers and Marines.

Second, the Japanese army would probably lose virtually all of their soldiers. Very few Japanese soldiers ever surrendered, and that was just on islands that were not their homeland.

Third, there was precedent demonstrated on Iwo Jima and other islands that the Japanese military would persuade and force civilians to commit mass suicide, or even actually shoot civilians to prevent them from falling into the hands of the American military.

Yes, dropping the Atomic Bombs was a horrific decision, but the consequences of that decision pale next to the hell that the Japanese military would have unleashed on both the American military, and their own Japanese citizens.
.

Answer 8

The bombing of Hiroshima saved lives. Thousands of lives, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives and possibly even millions of lives.

Even though Japan's industrial infrastructure was largely destroyed by that time, Japan was already preparing to defend the home islands to the death.

Using the atom bomb to force the Japanese to surrender not only saved American lives but almost certainly saved thousands upon thousands of Japanese lives.

I would never condone or recommend using an atomic weapon now but one has to understand the context of the event. There was already a raging war going on and there was no end in sight.

One has to understand the Japanese mentality as well. Their homeland had NEVER been successfully invaded in their long history and they would NEVER have dreamed of surrender if it wasn't for such extreme measures.

Answer 9

It was known as Operation Downfall (look it up), we were going to invade japan very much like Europe Operation Overlord. But if you have any idea how the Japanese fought it would be a massacre. They fought to the death for small pieces of islands just think how crazy they would be if we stepped foot in their homeland. The atomic bomb saved thousands of Japanese and American soldiers from fighting and ended the war sooner.

Answer 10

it extremely is elementary that dropping the atomic bomb did convey WW2 and all its bloody battles to surprising end. some wartime eastern politicians have reported that without the assaults on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the peacemakers of Japan could never have persuaded the solid protection stress leaders to stop the conflict. Others argue that if america had made it sparkling the Emperor Hirihito would desire to stay on the throne, Japan could have surrendered and the bombs does no longer have been mandatory. some human beings sense that the united statesdid no longer think of no longer straight forward sufficient on the subject of the suffering the bombs could convey.