Andrew Tull Hiroshima On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the equivalent of 67 million sticks of dynamite on the heavily militarized city of Hiroshima, Japan. Earlier that year, in the month of July, Robert Oppenheimer directed the scientific campaign of creating and testing the bomb. All information about the bomb was top secret. It was so top secret that President Truman was not even told about it until after he took office. The airmen that dropped such a force of destruction did not know much about it either.
Japanese planes were spotted by radar before the attack, but they were assumed to be a flight of American B-17s due in from the West Coast. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. Congress approved his declaration with just one dissenting vote. It was a calm normal day on September 11, 2001 when two commercial jets flew into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners.
Model Essay Student’s Name Section Number Why the Atomic Bombs Saved Japan. The decision to use nuclear weapons to stop the War in the Pacific by President Harry S. Truman in August, 1945 remains controversial to this day. Most of Truman’s critics, the so-called revisionist historians, argue that Japan wanted to surrender and had already been defeated, making the use of atomic bombs unnecessary. They say the bombs were used mainly to demonstrate America’s power to intimidate the Soviet Union. The historians who support Truman, sometimes called the traditionalists, agree that Japan had been defeated but argue that Japan was not ready to surrender and was, in fact, preparing for one last great battle that would have cost millions of lives.
Stalin’s view is supported by Admiral D Leahy, who in his memoirs writes ‘we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages’ This quote holds a substantial amount of weight to my argument due to Admiral D Leahy’s position as Roosevelt and Truman’s chief of staff, it would be expected for a man of such status to hold a view in support of America’s actions. Nevertheless, it is apparent that while Leahy may have condoned the dropping of the bomb to shorten the war, he would make no attempt to justify his country’s and his President’s actions. The moral implications were made apparent on the British mission to Hiroshima. Not only did the bombs claim the lives of over 200,000 civilians, the
Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle’s plan to attack the Japan Empire was to use B-25 aircrafts to drop on Japan and then to land in China were there would be Chinese Aircrafts to help guide and refuel the B-25s to the Chongqing Chinese military base. The aircraft carrier could get away without being destroyed because the B-25s did not come back to land on it. The B-25s were to take off 450 miles away from the coast of Japan. On the morning of April 2 1942 the USS Hornet, left the safety of the United States to bomb Japan. The USS Hornet 71 Officers and 130 Enlisted men were aboard.
The barren island is a strategic location for the American navy and would be the spot of one of the greatest sea battles in which the Americans would force Japan to go on the defensive. The sneak attack prior to Midway at Pearl harbour left Japan as the superior force in the Pacific which helped Japan capture various territories such as Korea, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The victory at the battle of Midway was crucial in turning the tides of the Pacific war and helped pave the way to an American victory. On December 7th, 1941, A Japanese fleet under the command of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto attacked a U.S. Pacific fleet located at Pearl Harbour. The aim of the Japanese navy was to cripple the Pacific fleet of the U.S. by targeting the series of battleships at the southern tip of the island.
The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb Introduction Throughout all of the United States’ wars, the Battle of the Pacific stands out as one of the most gruesome and devastating theaters it ever engaged in. It began on December 7th, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy” (Harry S. Truman, Library) with the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and ended on September 2nd, 1945, with the formal Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri. The strategy in the Pacific consisted of island hopping: moving, one island at a time, closer and closer to the Japanese mainland. Each island would allow a closer staging point, and an air base to launch bombing attacks from. The island of Okinawa was the closest island to the Japanese mainland, and the last island battle.
Japan was preparing for war as it was negotiating peace. In November 1941, an aircraft carrier air strike force secretly set sail toward the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The incident, which shocked the U.S. Pacific Fleet, confirmed that the United States would turn out to be a major trouper in the war. On November 29, the Japan government and the military chief met, and discussed the cause and effect of the war. They decided to attack the pearl harbor.
“It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing” – Dwight Eisenhower Discuss this quote in relation to historian’s views on the United States decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. On August 6th and August 9th 1945, atomic weapons were used as weapons for the first and only time in human history. President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan has since created some of the most controversial debates in history. Historians have been divided since that day, as to whether or not it was necessary to drop the atomic bombs, and what the real reasons for dropping them were. In fact, the debates behind using the atomic bombs against Japan began even before the decision was made.
This was the day that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. They did this without warning and without a formal declaration of war. As a result of this attack, more than 2000 Americans were killed, along with over a thousand being wounded. The attack was meant to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Japanese were planning in Southeast Asia. This led to the U.S. to abandon their support for non-interventionism, declaring war on Japan and entering World War II.