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.
“Ending the War Against Japan: Science, Morality and the Atomic Bomb” Summary The author of this essay gives three different options to end World War II. Option one states that the United States should make peace with japan. The United States knows that japan is very close to surrendering but has not surrendered because they are afraid that we will put their emperor on trail as a war criminal. The Japanese feel that the emperor is a descendent from the gods and they will do everything to protect him. If the United States is clear that they do not want to make him a criminal but instead a national symbol then maybe the Japanese might agree and surrender.
The decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had many influential factors effecting the decision. There certainly was the possibility of success for an invasion, but the decision not to invade far outweighed the decision to invade. Conventional bombing and Blockade were considered in the effort to force Japan into surrender. But, the fact that the Japanese military were controlling the Government and were in a state of mind of absolute refusal to surrender, meant that this was not a reasonable option. Political factors were greatly influential of Truman’s final decision to drop the bomb and the threat of Russian military who were soon to advance in the region had its impact.
Korechika Anami, the Army Minister of Japan during World War Two, was adamant that Japanese soldiers must never surrender. Even after the U.S. fire-bombed Japanese cities, Japan still did not surrender. The Japanese had suicide bombers that would throw themselves under tanks to honor the Japanese emperor. The main result of such a sense of honor, the event that led to the decision of the U.S. to drop the bomb, was when Japan's Prime Minister Suzuki Kantaro refused the U.S. Potsdam Declaration's requirement that Japanese armed forces must surrender unconditionally. August 6, 1945 is a day that implanted images of buildings aflame, millions of shards of glass, and vanishing human beings into the minds of those who remember or attempt to
My opinion on this argument is that there should be no civillians killed by bombs unless it was accidental. When there is total war, no rules, no mercy. They did not care, all they cared about was ending the war and coming up with a victory. If strategic bombing was used in modern times, nobody would allow it and start a whole new war. War now does not allow any civillian casualites.
Japan was sending peace messages to the USSR. Japan was still confused about whether to surrender, offer peace or fight it out. The times in Japan were getting tough as America had blockaded most of their supplies; they were purely fighting for love for their emperor. There are three main arguments for dropping the bomb. The first reason is very simple; the bomb would keep the USSR out of Asia, or warn the USSR not to build their nuclear weapons.
They stated that the United States only used the atomic bomb to show its power to the USSR. It was not a question of saving lives; it was about showing our power to the world. The affirmative side also argued that although the Japanese population was extremely loyal to their emperor and would have sacrificed themselves to protect him, the United States could have used a conditional surrender by allowing them to keep their emperor as a symbolic leader. The Japanese population would have been satisfied because they would get to keep their emperor, and the war would have ended without any lives being lost. However, if violence was absolutely necessary, the United States should have continued bombing Japan with conventional bombs and proceeded to invade Japan.
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.
There are many statements and arguments that suggest that the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima was necessary to end World War II. Such as the Japanese were not surrendering, they still had fighting power as they had sunk U.S. Naval Ship Indianapolis only two days before the bombing Many of this argument can be counted as the only reason the Japanese weren’t surrendering is because they didn’t want to give up there emperor to the “unconditional surrender”, they practically had nothing left. They were sending their battleships and pilots out on suicide missions as they were desperate. Necessity of the bomb lies with the amount of people that would have been killed in a land invasion, although it was vastly exaggerated.
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.