Dropping the Bomb, Essay Example

The Beginning of the End

Throughout the time President Truman commissioned the utilization of the atomic bomb against Japan, the United States was planning to attack the Japanese homeland. The fierceness and the suicidal measures the Japanese military had demonstrated showed the American leadership that there was a lot of battle left in the seemingly vanquished foe. Senior military and citizen leadership gave Truman a few choices to force Japan to surrender. The choices included the tightening of the maritime barricade and aeronautical barrage of Japan, an invasion of Japan, and an arranged peace settlement. Once the atomic bomb became operational, the bomb turned into a viable choice.

Truman accepted proposals recommendations from a vast array of leaders in the military inside the initial two months of taking office after President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed away. Just in the wake of gathering with the senior leadership to examine the different alternatives did Truman commission the arranging and execution of the attack of Japan. Nonetheless, the great number of casualty estimates exhibited by the Chiefs of Staff in June of 1945 remained a significant issue for Truman, particularly in the wake of the wicked combats on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. These casualty estimates turned into the driving variable for Truman’s extreme choice to utilize the new weapon against Japan and to end the war before more Americans who were serving the country unnecessarily died.

Controversy Justified

The bombings led to a sufficiently stunned the Japanese, which urged the surrender of a Japanese military that continued to battle until they were truly obliterated. Because of this, the bombings prevented what would have been an extremely expensive invasion of Japan. The historical connection of World War II, Japan’s lack of compliance in surrendering, and the high death toll anticipated from an attack of Japan legitimized the utilization of the nuclear shells against Japan. Despite the fact that today it is not difficult to judge the utilization of the atomic bombs as wrong due to the damage it ultimately caused, the essential element in Truman’s choice to utilize these weapons was a craving to end the pulverization of war, hopefully leading to peace to a war-fatigued world. The atomic bombs, in truth, spared the world from war.

The plan B to the utilization of the atomic bomb probably would have created equivalent languishing and suffering over the Japanese individuals. Delayed bombings, blockading Japan, and an attack might have had terrible consequences for the Japanese people and might have unnecessarily drawn out the war and its affliction. The utilization of the atomic was no less good than these awful wartime rehearses. Restriction to the utilization of the atomic bomb on good grounds disregards the utilitarian attention encompassing this civil argument. Traditional bombardments slaughtered and might have proceeded to annihilate hundreds of thousands more people.

The barricade in China executed a huge number of noncombatants, and the blockade of Japan pointed for the same effect. Large amounts of Japanese regular folks might have died as a result of starvation and sickness as a consequence of the blockade. As Richard B. Frank, author of Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire composed, “alternatives to the atomic bombs carried no guarantee that they would end the war or reduce the amount of human death and suffering.” In actuality, atomic weapons spared the Japanese individuals from the revulsions of routine bombings and an attack. An atomic ambush was no less improper than its alternatives, which would have possibly brought on equivalent or more languishing over Japan. As pulverization and roughness grew all around the world during World War II, ethical quality was redefined, and edgy endeavors to thrashing a foe through brutal methods got to be morally passable. In the context of World War II, the utilization of the nuclear shells against Japan was ethically legitimized.

Was the Bombing Morally Ethical?

While numerous restricted to the utilization of the atomic bombs refer to the report by the Joint War Plans Committee, these assessments disregard significant proof and present a misdirecting picture of the military circumstance in Japan before the utilization of the atomic bombs. The low casualty numbers presented in June of 1945 were dependent upon imperfect intelligence. In late early August of 1945, the Allies gained knowledge of a huge development of Japanese forces on Kyushu by interpreting military activity through Ultra, a code-breaking operation throughout World War II.[1]This new data made casualty assessments considered in June unreasonably low. On June 18, approximately 350,000 Japanese were on Kyushu. By late July, Ultra reported 600,000 Japanese warriors, ready to guard the country. After the war, this number was uncovered to be exceptionally wrong; there were over 900,000 troops on Kyushu. The rough estimate of 46,000 casualties in an intrusion of Japan was grounded on imperfect intelligence. The possible thought that fortifications might be dispatched to Kyushu in the time between June and the planned invasion in November was not recognized in the estimates made in June 1945.[2] It makes sense to believe that it is normal that the supporting of Japanese resistances by sending extra troops to Kyushu might have brought about a rise in American deaths.

As a result of the new intelligence, death estimates were revised changed. General Douglas Macarthur’s staff had horribly disparaged the Japanese determination to shield their country. As stated by the Japanese decrypts, the amount of Japanese troops ready to urgently shield their country by delivering serious harm on American troops was nearly three times the first estimate. The amount of Japanese flying machine on Kyushu was two to four times the June estimates. Inevitably, this gigantic development of Japanese defenses would have built the amount of Americans dead, wounded, or missing. As Dennis and Peggy Warner, Australian researchers and creators of The Sacred Warriors: Japan’s Suicide Legions have called attention to: “The casualty figures tossed about in mid-June might have been surpassed in a single day by kamikaze attacks on packed troop transports.”[3] Based on additional Japanese decrypts, General Marshall understood that the amount of American losses might climb as a consequence of the Japanese development to safeguard Japan.

The attack of Japan might bring about a high casualty level. In the last week of July, Marshall notified the president at Potsdam, Germany, of his projections for the expense of an invasion of Japan. The amount of reinforcement on Kyushu uncovered by Ultra made him foresee essentially higher death numbers, telling the president that the attack of Japan might bring about at least a quarter-million to the same number as a million American casualties. Although numerous history specialists have referred to low death numbers in an exertion to contend that the utilization of the atomic bombs was unnecessary, these figures overlook the development of Japanese forces that would inescapably prompt high numbers of casualties in an exorbitant attack of Japan. The utilization of the atomic bomb was a military need with a specific end goal to evade the attack of Japan, subsequently sparing a huge number of lives on both sides of the war.

The war in the Pacific had turned out to be a troublesome battle for American forces in the time up to the annihilation of Japan. Losses from past fights in the Pacific had been high, forecasting a wicked and excessive attack of Japan. The Japanese powers battled fervently as they withdrew from involved islands to their country, causing huge amounts of casualties on propelling American forces. As Americans neared Japan, they experienced expanding resistance from the Japanese. The number Americans lost in the Pacific in the initial three months since Truman took office were equivalent to a large portion of the amount of deaths in the Pacific over the past three years of war. As David McCullough, a writer of U.S. President Harry Truman, stated, “The nearer victory came, the heavier the price in blood.”[4] The Americans were confronted with fervent resistance as the Japanese loss got unavoidable, bringing about substantial amounts of American and Japanese losses.

Throughout the clash at Iwo Jima, kamikaze strikes and the harm delivered by the Japanese led to 6821 American lives lost and wounded over 20,000, which is just about a third of the individuals who had arrived in Japan. Japanese deaths were profoundly higher; give or take 21,000 of the defenders lost their life. During the battle at Okinawa, 1,465 kamikaze planes sunk 30 American battleships and ruined another 164. More than 38,000 Americans were unfortunately wounded, in addition to 12,000 being reported as missing or dead. Over 107,000 Japanese soldiers lost their lives as well. Civilians also endured the wrath of the war, as approximately 160,000 Japanese civilians lost their lives, which is just about one-third of the population. The counteractive action of an attack of Japan spared American lives, as well as Japanese lives too. All around the war in the Pacific, the Japanese endured a larger number of deaths than the Americans.

In the clashes at Saipan and Okinawa, the amount of Japanese losses was something like ten times that of the Americans, and twenty-five times more in the clash at Tinian and the Philippines. Civilian deaths were amazingly high as well, reaching a few hundred thousands at Saipan and Okinawa. The high number of deaths at these battles perpetuated by both the Americans and the Japanese throughout the war in the Pacific, particularly throughout the battle at Okinawa, foreshadowed a gory and brutal battle if American powers were to attack Japan. Intervention by the Soviet Union might have brought about further Japanese death as well. Throughout the war, the Soviet Union caught just about 2.7 million Japanese citizens. More than 347,000 were dead or lost by the end of the war. Nearly two-thirds of these individuals were civilians.[5] Herbert Feis, who was an advisor to the Secretary of War from 1944 to 1946, composed in The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II: “The people who would have suffered most, had the war gone on much longer and their country been invaded, were the Japanese.” The atomic bombs finished the war before an attack was needed, hence sparing both American and Japanese lives.

The value of American and Japanese lives

The expense of an attack of Japan helps defend and justifies the utilization of the atomic bombs by sparing American lives. As the Americans approached Japan, Japanese powers began resisting more and more, delivering countless numbers of deaths on the Allied forces, all while maintaining high amounts of losses themselves. An attack of Japan was anticipated to be met with restraints financially, which would inevitably lead to the Americans being at a disadvantage. As a consequence of the Japanese beginning to rebuild their reinforcements, and the misfortunes throughout past combats in the Pacific, Truman was counseled by General Marshall that an attack of Japan could bring about a significant number American casualties; perhaps over half a million. This number was anticipated by Pentagon organizers, who came up with the figure of 135,000 American losses for an intrusion of Kyushu in addition to 100,000 for Honshu. The United States Sixth Army’s staff came to the conclusion that from the amount of deaths in the Battle of Okinawa, a fight to secure Kyushu alone could lead to 98,500 Americans losing their lives or being wounded. An attack of Japanese territory might have brought about high losses on both the American and Japanese sides. Before the utilization of the atomic bombs, Truman placed stock in the fact that “there was a possibility of preventing an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other.”[6] The atomic bomb presented America an option to an attack of Japan that could spare both the Japanese and Americans from a long and ridiculous fight. The colossal American and Japanese losses anticipated from an attack of territory Japan supported the utilization of the atomic bomb as a military need. Regardless of objections many have of the moral grounding of the atomic bombs, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were and still are justified, as it was a necessary evil in preventing more evil.

Was it worth it?

Ultimately, the unfortunate destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made Japan surrender and ceased an attack that might have slaughtered countless Americans and conceivably spared the obliteration of Japan itself. All the choices accessible to Truman were practical and could have inevitably led to the Japanese surrendering. To Truman, the expense of American lives was too significant, especially if one takes into account the fact that America had the means and wherewithal to end the war quickly. Truman’s choice to this day remains one of the contested issues of the last century. However, General George C. Marshall surmised the series of events best in his remark: “The Japanese had demonstrated in each case they would not surrender and fight to the death. It was to be expected that resistance in Japan, with their home ties, could be even more severe. So it seemed quite necessary, if we could, to shock them into action. We had to end the war; we had to save American lives.”[7]

Bibliography

Feis, Herbert. The atomic bomb and the end of World War II. Vol. 197, no. 0. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966.

Frank, Richard B. Downfall: The end of the imperial Japanese empire. New York: Random House, 1999.

McCullough, David. Truman. Simon and Schuster, 2003.

Warner, Denis, Peggy Warner, and Sadao Senoo. The sacred warriors: Japan’s suicide legions. NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982.

[1] Robert H. Ferrell, Harry S. Truman: A Life (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994) 212.

[2] Edward J. Drea, MacArthur’s ULTRA: Codebreaking and the War against Japan 1942-1945 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992)

[3] Robert James Maddox, Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1995)

[4] David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992) 437.

[5] Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (New York: Random House, 1999) 356.

[6] J. Samuel Walker, Prompt & Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997)

[7] David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992) 395.