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.
Discuss the decision made to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. By August 1945 the Second World War was as its final stages. Only one last victory was need for the Allies in order to win the war, a victory over Japan. Ending the war with Japan during World War 2 was both difficult and problematic for the Americans. The decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had many influential factors effecting the decision.
And was the reason behind the decision to drop the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki purely to ‘save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans’? “We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.” One of the biggest arguments in the debate on the necessity of dropping the atomic bombs is the argument that it saved American lives, which would have otherwise been lost in the proposed alternative: a land invasion of Japan. It was necessary to ‘completely destroy Japan’s power to make war’, and the best way to do this, to save American lives, was to drop the bombs. “Operation
The atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945, brought World War II to a close. However, it is debated as to whether or not these bombings were absolutely necessary in order to force Japan into surrender. Japan experienced many victories after the bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941, yet it was both the American desire to avenge Pearl Harbour; the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, Japanese unwillingness to accept unconditional surrender – and Allied refusal to discuss alternative surrender terms; and the desire to end the war whilst also saving numerous American lives, that ultimately led to the use of atomic weaponry. Several alternative methods had been considered by the Allies, and these methods have been discussed by historians in regards to their possible effectiveness at concluding the war, and as such whether the use of atomic bombs was inevitable. Rather than employing the atomic bombs, the Allies could have continued with incendiary bombings, planned an invasion of the home islands, and employed the strength of the USSR in order to force Japan into surrender.
Option two is that the United States should drop an atomic bomb on a deserted island so that the whole world can see what power we have. If the Japanese see what the atomic bomb can do then maybe they will surrender so that we don’t drop an atomic bomb on them. If they don’t surrender then we will drop an atomic bomb on Japanese civilians and we will not feel guilty because we warned them and they still continued to fight. With this option we hope to scare japan into surrendering and change the post war world we will be entering. Some risks with this option is that the atomic bomb has only been tested once before and if the demonstration does not do what we hope it will do then japan will continue to fight and the United States will lose stature
What in your opinion was the short term significance of the use of atomic weapons in 1945? (25) It would be simplistic to argue that the end of the war in the Pacific was the most important short term significance of the use of atomic bombs in 1945 against Japan. While the use of Little Boy prompted the Japanese Emperor’s ‘ordered surrender’ , and claimed the lives of thousands of Japanese civilians, it is my opinion that the bomb sparked the onset of the Cold War. As Eisenhower said ‘Before the atom bomb was used, I would have said, yes, I was sure we could keep the peace with Russia’. , highlighting that he believed without the use of atomic weapons, the Cold War was not an inevitability.
The bombing of Hiroshima was necessary to end the war as it would save many lives as suggests in source A “should adopt a position that rather than throw to this bomb we should have sacrificed a million American and a quarter of a million British live”. The use of the weapon was not justified because it would have saved American lives the statement in
The main reason I think the negative side won the debate is because the atomic bombs saved lives through preventing the invasion and conventional bombing of Japan. Also, by not allowing a conditional surrender, the United States helped Japan keep a stable society with their emperor without ruining national identity. An additional bonus to the success of the bombs was that the atomic bombs also asserted the United States as the dominant hegemonic power in the world. During the debate, the affirmative side argued that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not necessary to end the war because the United States used the bombs only to assert its global hegemonic dominance, and there were alternative options to ending the war such as negotiating with Japan to establish a conditional surrender, which Japan wanted, and using conventional bombs to invade Japan if the surrender failed. They stated that the United States only used the atomic bomb to show its power to the USSR.
An invasion of Japan could have caused tens of thousands of Allied casualties, while the bombs could be carried over and dropped by planes. Since Japan is an island nation, in order to invade it, the Allies would have to storm the beaches. When troops are all running in the same direction from one point, like from the beaches onto the land, they are basically running into the line of fire with no protection. In regards to a diplomatic solution to end the war, Arthur Compton, the co-creator of the atomic bomb said that “Though the possibility of a demonstration that would [end that war and] not destroy human lives was attractive, no one could suggest a way in which it could be made so convincing that it would be likely to stop the war.” (Alperovitz
Global Essay The main focus of the United States when it dropped the atomic bombs on Japan was to force Japans unconditional surrender in order to save American lives. Many documents in government history support that this was the main focus. In 1947 Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson had in his memoirs that he believed that the Japanese would fight to the death and very end. This meant putting more American lives at risk in the war. Although the U.S. would’ve defeated Japan in the war eventually, the bombs made it so that they would surrender quicker so lives would be saved.