...on dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because they had every right to drop the bomb on them because the Japanese dropped the bomb on Pearl Harbor which made the United States get into the war in the first place. The United States dropped the bomb on Hiroshima on August 6th 1945 and Nagasaki got the bomb dropped on them on August 9th 1945 which killed over 129,000 people when World War 2 was about to end in 1945. After the bombings were all done the Japanese had finally issued its surrender to the allies which was a good thing because if the Japanese would not have surrendered to the allies there probably would have been more bombings on the cities of Japan so it is a good thing that the Japanese surrendered to the...
Words: 590 - Pages: 3
...The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: History's Great Miscalculation On August 6, 1945, a new step in technological warfare was taken when the first atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The impact of the bomb alone killed at least 66,000 people.1 This was an event that would not soon be forgotten in history. The Americans, who knew the devastating effects of their new weapon, still chose to use it rather than an alternative means to peace. Many people still argue whether or not it was necessary when Japanese surrender was considered to be a matter of time. Historians also dispute whether the campaign was a morally justified objective. This phrase alone brings up many interesting questions. Can killing thousands of innocent people ever be considered "justified"? Considering these circumstances, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not militarily or morally justified. In 1939 Franklin Roosevelt, the President of the United States received a verysignificant letter from the famous physicist, Albert Einstein.2 Contained in this letter were details concerning the importance of nuclear research with regards to gaining the upper hand in the war. Roosevelt agreed and approved $6,000 in initial funding. Many scientists began realizing the importance of nuclear fission and in 1940 The National Defense Research Committee was formed. This group's purpose was to oversee research and provide more funding. Many of the world's best physicists...
Words: 2278 - Pages: 10
...On August 6, 1945, the United States of America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. For years, there have been feuds relating to the justification of the bombing. Was the U.S justified? The United States was justified due to the unprovoked attack and bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, which occurred three years prior to the bombing of Hiroshima, it was necessary to stop the war because it saved thousands of American lives. Until then, the fight had never been on United States soil. Innocent men, women and children did not have to worry about being killed on their land until the infamous day: December 7, 1941, the attack of Pearl Harbor. On that day, the Japanese took to the skies with 423 planes, arriving in Pearl Harbor, killing a total of 2,403 and wounding 1178. Hitting 18 U.S ships, it crippled the U.S naval fleet in one day. Little known to the people, the bombing also destroyed 180 fighter jets used in the U.S Air Force. This was an unjustified, barbaric act and dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was justified. The United States was justified in dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima due to the unwarned attack on civilians and docked naval ships at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. For example, the bomb displayed the power the U.S wielded when they dropped it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It showed other countries that the United States had weapons, and would use them. This especially threatened the Soviet Union, our current ally, and emerging enemy. The day after the Pearl...
Words: 1047 - Pages: 5
...Hiroshima and Nagasaki Takesha McCaleb Mr. Spitler Was the Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary to end the war? As I did my research on this topic I found out that some found it necessary while others didn’t. During the course of this research paper I will be discussing why the atomic bomb was dropped. The effects right after the bomb was dropped for the Japanese and Americans also the after effects such as genetic effects. I will also touch on how Americans feel about the bomb more than fifty years later and what lessons were learned throughout all of this. Hiroshima was founded in 1589, on the coast of the Seto Inland Sea, and became a major urban centre during the Meiji period. The city is located on the broad, flat delta of the Ota River, which has 7 channel outlets dividing the city into six islands which project into Hiroshima Bay. The city is almost entirely flat and only slightly above sea level; to the northwest and northeast of the city, some hills rise to 700 feet. Hiroshima was founded by Mori Motonari as his capital. About a half century later, after the Battle of Sekigahara, his grandson and the leader of the West Army Mori Terumoto lost the battle. Finally Asano was appointed the daimyo of this area and Hiroshima served as the capital of Hiroshima Han during the Edo period. After the Han was abolished the city became the capital of Hiroshima prefecture. During the First Sino-Japanese War, Hiroshima emerged as a major supply and...
Words: 2195 - Pages: 9
...American History The United States is justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because Japan attacked the U.S first, the U.S warned Japan, and it ended the war in the Pacific Ocean. During World War II, Japan had already bombed Pearl Harbor resulting to the death of over 2,000 American soldiers. By this time the United States had not yet provoked Japan in any way to have been bombed by them. Although you should not repay evil with evil, the U.S was forced with the difficult decision of either bombing Japan and killing a few thousand, or not and opening the door for possible attacks on the United States and more killing innocent people and putting the country in danger. Before the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they dropped several leaflets in the cities warning the civilian people to evacuate the island because there was going to be an air raid. The Japanese ignored the warnings and decided to stay on the islands even though they knew the risks of not evacuating. This justifies the United States decision to bomb Japan, because the United States gave enough fair warning before blowing up two islands and taking the lives of innocent people, the Japanese are the ones who ignored the warning and remained put. Dropping atomic bombs on the two islands ended World War II in the Pacific Ocean. Japanese soldiers were ordered and forced to fight to the absolute death and would not give up the fight until their enemies surrendered. The United...
Words: 390 - Pages: 2
...Atomic Bomb Debate During the final stages of World War Two in 1945 the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. For six months, the United States had made use of intense strategic fire-bombing of 67 Japanese cities. Together with the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, the United States called for a surrender of Japan in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945. The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum. By executive order of President Harry S. Truman, the U.S. dropped the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945, followed by the detonation of "Fat Man" over Nagasaki on August 9. I don’t think that they should have dropped the second one due to the fact, the Japanese wanted to surrender after the first bomb dropped. The United Sates was the first to use such a deadly weapon. It was immoral to drop the second one. It harmed several innocent civilians. Hiroshima was the primary target of the first nuclear bombing mission with Kokura and Nagasaki being alternative targets. About an hour before the bombing, Japanese early warning radar detected the approach of some American aircraft headed for the southern part of Japan. An alert was given and radio broadcasting stopped in many cities, among them Hiroshima. To conserve fuel and aircraft, the Japanese had decided not to intercept small formations. The normal...
Words: 438 - Pages: 2
...Hiroshima: The Bombing that Blasted Away the Truth For the United States, World War II was a very costly war that seemed as if it would not end. For the United States to end their assault on Japan during World War II, a nuclear bomb was dropped in Japan to force them to surrender. On August 6th, 1945, the U.S. military dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima killing over 150,000 people and (along with the later bombing of Nagasaki) effectively caused the Japanese to surrender. This tactic is highly polarized in the international community; on one side, it is considered to be justified and the only action for the United States to take, and on the other side, it is considered to be a barbaric act of terrorism perpetrated by the U.S. military. In the essay, Hiroshima by John Berger, the author correctly argues that the bombings were terroristic acts that are fundamentally evil; however, he is incorrect that they are unjustifiable. To diagnose whether the bombings were acts of terrorism, one must be able to understand the definition and criteria of one such act. A commonly accepted definition of terrorism is an act that includes the premeditated use of violence by an organized group against non-combatants to achieve political ends. Berger’s argument includes all the criteria in that definition so the bombing must be terrorist acts. Berger begins his argument by describing all the violence caused by the bombs. Throughout the essay, he quotes passages from Unforgettable...
Words: 1554 - Pages: 7
...The mother earth already suffers from the climate change. Yet we the people still engore it also the past history of that happened to hiroshima and nagasaki all the damages that U.S had made. Also the conflict of every country to possess nuclear arms. Crisp hooks all these claims like climate change, nuclear bombs, and country that possess nuclear arms by logos,pathos and ethos. Crisp uses logic with climate change by saying,”climate change is already making resources scarce in some areas...”(Crisp 14). When the U.S bomb Hiroshima with fat boy and little boy it’s affect the weather with toxic elements that made people who survived die later. Crisp is getting “Institutions and power arrangements that tended to maintain stability for the good or ill have broken down”(Crisp 14 ). As a result the people who survived had nowhere to live Hiroshima was habitable and later had to leave their house where they had grown up and to wait until plant and water to return and than they can go back to Hiroshima. After they returned there were no homes so it was like a new undiscovered place to start over. As a result in the climate change in...
Words: 641 - Pages: 3
...Vice President, Harry S Truman scarcely saw President Roosevelt, and received no briefing on the development of the atomic bomb or the unfolding difficulties with Soviet Russia. Suddenly these and a host of other wartime problems became Truman's to solve when, on April 12, 1945, he became President. Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, in 1884. He grew up in Independence, and for 12 years prospered as a Missouri farmer. He went to France during World War I as a captain in the Field Artillery. Returning, he married Elizabeth Virginia Wallace, and opened a haberdashery in Kansas City. Active in the Democratic Party, Truman was elected a judge of the Jackson County Court in 1922. He became a Senator in 1934. During World War II he headed the Senate war investigating committee, checking into waste and corruption and saving perhaps as much as 15 billion dollars. As President, Truman made some of the most crucial decisions in history. Soon after the war against Japan had reached its final stage. An urgent plea to Japan to surrender was rejected. Truman, after consultations with his advisers, ordered atomic bombs dropped on cities devoted to war work. Two were Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japanese surrender quickly followed. The first use of an atomic bomb in warfare took place on August 6, 1945. The weapon was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the U.S. bomber Enola Gay, instantaneously destroying four square miles in the middle of the population center. The blast killed 66...
Words: 1041 - Pages: 5
...On August 6, 1945, the U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and three days later ordered the same for Nagasaki, upon which Japan surrendered, ending World War II. Those very actions have been widely debated by many people since the order has been fulfilled. War is crazy, war is devastating, war is war and that which happens in war is always thought to be the best or right course to take by one leader or another, but the question people ask, from time to time, is: should the U.S. have dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The hardest part of debating this topic is looking at the whole of the matter impersonally. No one goes into a war asking just how many lives will be lost and still be acceptable, because the ultimate answer to that is none. However, that isn’t a realistic idea, so the only reasonable thing to do then is to find a way to minimize the death toll for one’s side. Dropping the bombs seemed like a viable option that was selected at that time because of a study done for the Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley that estimated that conquering the main land of Japan would cost from 1.7 to 4 million American casualties, including 400,000 to 800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities, both civilian and military; the key - and correct - assumption was that Japanese civilians were prepared to fight to the death rather than let their country be taken by the US (Operation...
Words: 351 - Pages: 2
...Atomic Bomb By: Jordan Long Atom bombs were always just a thought to scientists before they were created and dropped on two different Japanese cities in order to end war. The question people were and still to this day are asking is, “Was it the right thing to do?’ Yes it was the best thing to do in that certain situation. The atomic bombs explosion is massive.“A nuclear weapon’s explosive power is measured in yield, which is expressed in tons of TNT. Fission, or atomic bombs, can be as small as one kiloton (KT) of explosive power or as large as several hundred kilotons.”(PBS Newshour) This is important because it's showing the measures of the power of an atomic bomb. Since the end of the Cold War, both Pakistan and India have developed nuclear...
Words: 1520 - Pages: 7
...word ‘terrorism’ instantly makes people shudder; the negative connotations and controversies surrounding terrorism in modern society are enough to spark a discussion of whether it is justifiable or not. In order to determine whether or not terrorism can be justified, a clear definition must be decided upon. Decades before the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, the definition of the word terrorism was hard to define. Political figures around the globe argued and disagreed on what they thought should have determined the act of terrorism. Now, there are multiple different definitions originating from distinct cultures and societies, suggesting that terrorism is in the eye of the victim. One definition of terrorism is “any violent or criminal act planned for a political or ideological purpose”; while another claims that terrorism is understood to be a direct attack on innocents. Since both of these definitions have important components to them, it can be assumed that both traits are essential to defining terrorism. For the purpose of this paper, the definition of terrorism will be understood as ‘a violent attack on innocents for the purpose of political change’. It can be hard for most people to understand the act of injuring and/or killing hundreds, or maybe even tens of thousands of people, as justifiable. However, if the innocents are seen as legitimate targets, the violent acts of terrorism can be carried out without justification. In order...
Words: 1878 - Pages: 8
...The Necessity of the Atomic Bombs in World War II On August 6th, 1945, the first atomic bomb intended to kill man was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan by the United States of America. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in hopes to force Japan to finally surrender. There is much controversy, even to this day, as to whether to deployment of the first atomic bombs were warranted and absolutely necessary. While the bombings did end the treacherous World War II, they ended up killing over 240,000 people. While Samuel J. Walker, a World War II historian, claims that “The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States”, the debate also boils down to other factors, such as the fact that it was part of the total warfare that began in WWII, it was more desirable than invasion, and it actually saved lives but hastily ending the war. Arguments against the bombing of Japan revolve around the inherent morality of the atomic bomb, especially considering Japan’s underdeveloped nuclear advancements and the actual necessity of the Atomic bombs. The two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan were absolutely necessary despite the immorality because of Japan’s refusal to surrender, the bombs ended up saving more lives than it spent, it was part of total warfare, and it was the most efficient...
Words: 1766 - Pages: 8
...The scope of this essay is that the decision, to drop the atomic bomb, made by President Truman was largely influenced by political factors rather than military factors. By observing the historical timeline, the Cold War started shortly after World War II. Truman was likely to have been aware of the rising power of the USSR. This mostly likely influenced him more to drop the bomb. Truman at the same time could have been influenced by the people around him such as the Manhattan Project and Congress. The dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been one of the most widely debated topics to date. The two conflicting sides of the argument are political and militarily. Traditionalist historians argue from the military perspective,...
Words: 2028 - Pages: 9
...Pacific island, Okinawa, with the bloodiest battle of World War II which they were reluctant to repeat, although they had plans to invade the Japanese Islands in November 1945. James Byrnes, as the United States Secretary of State had convinced military and political personnel that the bomb...
Words: 936 - Pages: 4
