Did the U.S. make the right decision to use the A-Bomb on Japan?

Question

Did it actually save lives by ending the war quickly, or was there a better option?

Answer 1

Using Nuclear Weapons was the best Option
Nuke them = ~250,000 enemy dead
Invade them = >500,000 Friendlies dead + >1,000,000 enemy dead.

Answer 2

It ended World War 2 in the Pacific in one week. It did not cost a single American life. It spared one million estimated casualties from the possible invasion of the main islands of Japan. Yes it was the correct decision. If I had been Truman I would have done it.

Answer 3

Since hindsight is always 20/20, nobody will ever know for sure.

IMO, yes. At the time we believed that the war would only be won through a long, bloody invasion of the Japanese homeland which if done conventionally would have resulted in much higher casualty counts.

Answer 4

The Atomic bombs stopped what would become a bloodbath invasion of the Lapanese Homeland where even school girls were told to fight with Punji sticks... btw , The Americans responsibility in the war was to end AMERICAN suffering and reduce AMERICAN casualities..the japanese people were technically the responsibility of the Emperor, who knew the end was coming...

Answer 5

The option was not the United States to make.. When President Truman told the Japanese to surrender, their response was to fight on..Their choice not the United States.. President Truman, ordered the first A-bomb dropped.. Again he approached the Japanese leaders to surrender, their response was to fight on.. Their choice not the United States!! After the second A-bomb was dropped,Japan unconditionally surrendered.. The other option,would have been to continue the slaughter across Japan with thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of peoples, including the United States fighting forces,plus possible years of continued fighting, and continued astronomical cost to continue the war.. All in all no war is good but a positive conclusion to the war was concluded..

Answer 6

A large part of the invasion plan called for a pre-invasion bombartment that would include chemical agents such as Lewisite among other blister agents. This would have resulted with hugh traits of Japan, a nation that is heavily depended on farming, being left uninhabitable to this very day.

It was the right decision then and it remains the correct decision today no matter how many would like to rewrite history...

Answer 7

Yes. He made the right decision. Any invasion of Japan would have resulted in the deaths of millions of japanese and thousands of US troops. In the end, using the nuke ended the war with far less casualties then the alternative.

Answer 8

There was a better option but we didn't know about it! The Japanese had asked Russia to tell America that they were ready to talk peace, twice they went to the Russians to request that Russia pass the message along to us. The Russians did not do so. We felt that we had no recourse but to use the weapon to preserve more American troop lives. The bombs did far more damage than we had expected but it did end the war far sooner than we had expected. I have seen the pictures of the aftermath & was horrified, as were most Americans. Why do you think we have not used those weapons again when we well could have done so! We had them before the Russians or the Chinese but did not use them.

Answer 9

At the time it was the best option and it saved untold American Military Life's, simply by ending the war.

Answer 10

Yes it was the right decision
No there wasn't another option that would have saved any more lives.
More people were killed by the Allied fire bombing of Japan that by the Atomic warheads.

Answer 11

Yep.
Considering the president had just learned about the Manhattan project he made a great snap decision and saved many American and Japanese lives.