Truman’s Decision to Drop the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Essay Example

By the time World War II came to an end, only a few individuals questioned the decision by President Truman to drop the now famous atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima (Hamby, 1997). The majority of Americans were of the palpable view that this bold step brought the World War II to a well-timed end. The Americans view clearly overlooked the fact that more than 100,000 enemies were killed, after all America did not attack Japan, and not the vice versa. Later, quite a good number came out to question the Truman’s conventional wisdom that he was “saving lives,” by putting across individual theories (Hamby, 1997). However, by paying a close examination of the outcomes of atomic bombing on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, compared to the possible outcomes with a number of alternatives to applying atomic bombing, this sheds some light to this controversy. The decision by Truman to bomb Japan using the atomic bombs was intended to save lives (both American and Japanese) and bring a quick/timely end to the war, so as to prevent a catastrophic land invasion.

There existed various alternatives to bombing the Japanese city, but many political and military planners were of the view that this won’t achieve the desired results, at least not promptly. Instead they believed that the shock of a rapid chain of bombings stood a better chance of working. A good number of scientists behind the Manhattan project thought that by demonstrating the atomic bombs’ capability on an isolated area was the best option, and that by warning the Japanese of the same, would provide them with a good chance of making all the efforts possible to move American prisoners to the said target/location and to intercept the arriving bomber (Office of History & Heritage Resources, 1990). In addition, the uranium bomb had not been tested and the U.S. was worried of a failed result in case the bomb failed and the ridicule of its wreckage being in the hands of Japanese (Office of History & Heritage Resources, 1990).

The next alternative was to wait for the anticipated coming soviet’s declaration of war. It was hoped that this could have convinced Japan to surrender without strings attached, though this was not anticipated any sooner than mid-August. Truman was also hopeful to avoid the possible “sharing” of the Japan administration with Soviet Union. Conventional bombing combined could have eventually be triggered the surrender devoid of an invasion, though it was not clear how long the process could have taken, just in case it worked.

Truman and his close advisors felt that it was obvious that the invasion of Japanese islands using the atomic bomb could force them to surrender. Though no one was aware of the possible lives that would have been lost during the invasion (Japanese, American and Allied), though the seizure of Okinawa island hinted unto this. The seizure of this small island took more than 10 weeks coupled by deaths of over 100,000Japanese, 12,000 Americans, and possibly another 100,000 Okinawa natives (Wainstock, 1996).

The enormous loses that were suffered at Okinawa shocked Truman. The reports by the American intelligence correctly indicated that, even though Japan could not project its influence oversees in a meaningful manner,  Japan retained approximately 10000 aircrafts plus 2m solders for the defense of their homeland (Wainstock, 1996).

Conclusion

Despite the fact that Truman was hopeful that the atomic bomb could have given the U.S. an edge in the coming postwar diplomacy, prospects of evading  an extra year of gory warfare figured most importantly in Truman’s decision to bomb Japan using the atomic bomb.

References

Bernstein, B.J. (1996). The Truman administration: A documentary History. 1^st Ed. UK: HarperCollins.

Hamby, A.L. (1997). The decision to drop the bomb. Journal of American History, Vol.84 (2): 4-9.

Office of History & Heritage Resources (1990). The Manhattan Project: An interactive history- Potsdam and the final decision to use the bomb. Retrieved July 12, 1990, from http://www.cfo.doe.gov/Me70/manhattan/potsdam_decision.htm

Wainstock, D. (1996). The decision to drop the atomic bomb. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group.

1 see Hamby Alonzo, “The decision to use the atomic bomb” for an interesting flow of events prior to the atomic bombing.

2 See Office of History & Heritage Resources, for the rationale behind the bombing.

3 See Wainstock, “The decision to drop the atomic bomb,” for the loss of life by Japanese, American and Allied, during the war prior to the atomic bombing.