Use of the Atomic Bomb

There apparently is a lot of controversy for many people whether the use of the atomic bomb was necessary in order to gain success in the War. There was is no correct answer to the question because it is mainly opinionated, but here are a few examples persuasive opinions I found based on what I said before;

There is some evidence that suggests that the atomic bomb was not necessary to secure Japan's surrender. If the bomb was truly developed to end the war as soon as possible, why wasn't the future existence of the position of the Emperor guaranteed? This appears contradictory, since his position was maintained after the war. Why wasn't the Soviet Union's intent made clearer? Nevertheless, “On August 6 an American B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima without warning, devastating the city and killing as many as 80,000 people” (Sigal, 2). From a humanitarian point of view if the use of the atomic bomb could have been avoided Hiroshima was a great tragedy. There is some support for this speculation. The United States’ Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that "in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated” (Alperovitz, 645). In spite of this statement, however, if one carefully examines this survey, one realizes it did not accurately reflect Japan’s willingness to surrender.

http://www.johnwcooper.com/papers/atomicbombtruman.htm#tro

But with the anti-establishment mentality of the 1960s came a new cadre of revisionist historians who began casting the decision to nuke Japan in the context of racism against the Japanese and political opportunism as a show of force to the Soviets. Consequently, for 40 years revisionists have used the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to flog America's conscience.

For years critics of the decision have asserted that the use of nuclear weapons was unnecessary because Japan was so weakened militarily that they realized their situation was hopeless. The revisionists argue that Japan was seeking to negotiate a surrender prior to the bombings. But information from top secret intelligence documents by the U.S. code breaking operation called "Magic" and the British operation called "Ultra" that was declassified in the mid-1990s disclosed a decidedly different situation.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1459018/posts

As a result of the naked futility of their position, the Japanese had approached the Russians, seeking their help in brokering a peace to end the War. The U.S. had long before broken the Japanese codes and knew that these negotiations were under way, knew that the Japanese had for months been trying to find a way to surrender.

Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, reflected this reality when he wrote, "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace.the atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman, said the same thing: "The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender."

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0806-25.htm

Wasn't Hiroshima Necessary to Show the World the A-Bomb's Power?

Some people felt it would be important to A-Bomb a city, rather than an uninhabited area, to impress upon the world the awesome power of the atomic bomb. The idea was, if nations could be impressed enough with the bomb's might, they would be more likely to agree not to use atomic bombs. This was an honorable goal, but we can be thankful that this approach was not applied to germ warfare, chemical warfare, or some other form of mass torture.

Anyone who has read the descriptions written by those present at the Trinity atomic bomb test of July 16, 1945 will have no doubt that even this desert area test did an outstanding job of showing the A-Bomb's power. Truman and Churchill, who were not at the Trinity test, were thoroughly convinced of the new weapon's might upon hearing these descriptions. And better demonstrations of the bomb's power could have been devised (see, for example, Lewis Strauss in my link What kind of people would question the atomic bombing of Japan).

I was never able to find the link for the Lewis Strauss.

http://www.doug-long.com/rambling.htm

Why did the United States bomb Japan in August 1945? Was Japan a threat? Or more disturbingly, was the U.S. just testing out their power? In 1945, most people in the

United States thought that it was absolutely necessary to bomb Japan. The citizens of the United States thought that the bombings put an end to the Pacific War, and saved countless lives (Frank, 2005). At the time of the bombing, 50 million people had already died in WWII (Kingsbury, 2005). On the other hand, some critics state that Japan's situation in 1945 was already "catastrophically hopeless," and prior to the bombing, Japanese leaders were preparing to surrender in the summer of 1945(Frank, 2005). It has even been suggested that the United States had decoded Japan's messages, and were aware of the impending surrender when they dropped the bomb, thus making the horrors unleashed on Hiroshima completely unnecessary. Lastly, and most disturbingly, it has been proposed that the bomb may have been dropped because of President Truman's desire to intimidate the USSR (Frank, 2005).

http://lynzy.hubpages.com/hub/Hiroshima_Bombing_Affects

Those are some examples of opinions authors/or bloggers wrote about the bomb.

Here some facts:

The death toll estimates from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki vary. The number of deaths from the actual bombing of Hiroshima varies from 70,000 deaths⁴ to 100,000⁵ deaths. The blast from the atomic bomb burned 4.4 square miles¹⁰destroying or damaging almost all of the city's 76,000 structures.⁵ For Nagasaki, the number of deaths totaled 39,000 people.¹⁰ By 1950, the deaths attributed to the atomic bombings were 200,000^{5 and 6} in Hiroshima and 140,000⁷ in Nagasaki (not counting the many wounded and residual injuries). Although these deaths and casualties were tragic, they were the deaths of the enemy. Not one American life was lost in the two atomic bombings.

http://www.signalalpha.com/Atomic_Bomb.html

In August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Hiroshima bomb, using the code name "Little Boy," had a force of 13,000 tons (11,791 metric tons), or 13 kilotons, of TNT. Its element base was uranium-235. The Nagasaki bomb, using the code name "Fat Man," had a force of 22,000 tons (19,954 metric tons), or 22 kilotons, of TNT. Its element base was plutonium.

http://www.enotes.com/topics/atomic-bomb

According to Young and Edwards (2005), after the bombings, any humans that survived the initial blast were suffering from radiation exposure. Forty-five percent of 280,000 people who survived the exposure were still alive, sixty years later, and become part of the largest study ever to be conducted for the long-term effects of radiation poisoning. The study resulted in many upsetting findings. One of the most significant is that exposure to radiation increases the long-term risks of cancer, and that

the risk lasts a lifetime. Unborn children exposed to radiation on average grow to be smaller and less intelligent than their peers, and their risk of developing leukemia peaked

after ten years (Yong& Edwards, 2005). Many of the women that were pregnant at the time of the bombing gave birth to children with congenital malformations that were attributed to the radiation (Ohara, 2005).

The number of physical symptoms that survivors experienced following the bombings was significant. According to the Journal of the Hiroshima Medical Association in 1967, common reported symptoms were: Amnesic condition, emotional intolerance, dizziness, having a heavy head or constant headache, insomnia, disturbances of metabolism and nutrition, just to name a few. Also peoples had cases of liver dysfunction, cardiovascular disorder, endocrinological diseases that were a direct result of the bombings.

http://lynzy.hubpages.com/hub/Hiroshima_Bombing_Affects