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The Bombing of Hiroshima

            
            
             Why did America drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima? The bombing of Hiroshima was one of the pivotal events of the twentieth century, yet this controversial question remains unanswered. At the time General Dwight Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, and chief of staff Admiral William Leahy all agreed that an atomic attack on Japan was unnecessary (Takaki 1). .
             The Strategic bombing survey of 1946, the internal War Department repot concluded the atomic bomb had not been needed to end the war. Its assessment of the impact of the Soviet declaration of war was the same: It was a "disastrous event which the Japanese leaders regarded as utter catastrophe and which they had energetically sought to prevent at any cost- Had the atomic bomb not been available or not been used, the study concluded, it is "almost a certainty that the Japanese would have capitulated upon the entry of Russia into the war (Alperovitz 94-5)" .
             So why was it dropped? Was the bomb dropped to end the war more quickly? Or was it to startle all opposition? The destruction of a whole city and deaths of thousands of civilians was a gratuitous act to end the war.
             General MacArthur's Confusion.
             Although General Douglas MacArthur was the supreme commander of the Allied forces in the Pacific, he was not consulted about whether to use the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He was informed of the decision only forty-eight hours before the fateful flight of the Enola Gay.
             MacArthur considered the bomb completely unnecessary from a military point of view: he believed that the Japanese were practically defeated. In July, when the general learned that Japan had asked Russia to negotiate surrender with United stated, he told his staff: "This is it. The war is over. (Takaki 4)" A tremendously significant event had occurred. But General MacArthur did not understand why the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. .
             Why the Bomb was Dropped on Hiroshima.


Essays Related to The Bombing of Hiroshima

1. Hiroshima

... death, the destroyer of worlds." The testing of the bomb in New Mexico was the first detonation, however it was not the last (Serendipity: Manhattan Project para.10). The atomic bomb was again set off in Hiroshima on August 4th, 1945. This time the bomb was used in warfare (Serendipity: Detonation para.1). Two aspects of these bombings were the injuries to the people caused by the bomb and the long-term effect the bombing had on the culture ... . There were three main kinds of injuries caused by the bombing: burns, mechanical, and radiation. The burns were due to the flash radiation of h...

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2. The United States and the Bombing of Hiroshima

... low. However the Japanese wanted to safeguard the position of Emperor Hirohito. Many argue that the bombing of Hiroshima was to force the unconditional surrender of Japan. In the end however, Japan surrendered under the condition that Emperor Hirohito would remain on the throne. There were several targets considered for the deployment of the atomic bomb. Many experts at the time urged the use of offshore targets. However it was determined that the full devastating effect of the atomic bomb would ... included the modifications of forty six b-29 bombers to be used in the Manhattan Project...

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3. Hiroshima

... . I think they would have surrendered on their own because the axes powers where starting to diminish. Germany surrendered before they dropped the bomb and the rest of their group was folding along with them. Many innocent people died because of tension between two governments. The biggest reason for me believing that the atomic-bombing of Hiroshima was wrong was that it was targeted at innocent civilians, not military targets or ... soldiers. Of course in every war in history civilians have been victimized ... ...

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4. History of the Atomic Bomb

... deal with purpura, which is a condition in which a person's body begins to bleed beneath the skin, due to the radiation. This caused many to have big blotches on their body, resembling a bruise, but they don't go away. On August 9th, 1945, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, when the Japanese government did not surrender, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. This ... atom bomb was named "Fat Man." It was even more powerful than the one dropped in Hiroshima. Over 75,000 people died during this bombing. Twelve hours later, fires in Nagasaki were burning so brightly ...

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5. Hiroshima

... through the eyes of these six individuals. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and also Nagasaki in 1945 killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese people. The official reason given by then United States President Harry Truman was that it would save more American lives than it would kill Japanese. Prior to the Americans dropping the atomic bomb, many Americans had become upset by the behavior the Japanese had displayed concerning the bombing of Pearl ... Harbor and their particular cruelty to prisoners of war. The bombing of ... ...

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6. The Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

... dropping these bombs within days of each other would be most effective in making Japan surrender. The bombing of Nagasaki would be a hit to their port systems and cause just as much damage as Hiroshima. These men also had discussed which bomb would cause more devastation to Japan, the Hiroshima bomb made of Uranium or the Nagasaki bomb, made of Plutonium. Hiroshima was a planned target for the military but Nagasaki was not ... the military's first 2nd choice for bombing. There were 3 potential cities selected ... ...

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7. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

... calculate and had recognised consequence. As many inhumane war crimes committed by the Japanese forces- e.g. the torturing of POW's, and beheading of enemy casualties, none were as significant and large- scaled as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing over 200,000 casualties and leaving over 2 million homeless. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an unnecessary act,- the Japanese Imperial Emperor and his forces had already pleaded to surrender multiple times ... Army General Leslie Groves commented- "we were generally inured to the mass killings of civilians". Truman did...

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8. Hiroshima: The Spark that Lit the World - Was It Really Nece

... if that option was also discarded, the U.S still had other options to use instead of bombing Japan, such as locking out their economy with the rest of the world. That would also force Japan to surrender, given enough time (Hiroshima and the End of World War II: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The U.S. dropped the bomb without considering other options, and furthermore, without knowing what the full effects of the bomb would be, because they hadn ... 't tested it in a populated area nowhere before. Based on that, they were walking blindly towards grounds where they have never b...

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9. The Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

... spread as well, yet another political reason that the atomic bomb was used. By using the atomic bombs on Japan, the United States could show the power of the US, not only to Japan and Russia, but to the world. So they justified the bombing of innocent women and children in order to gain and maintain political power. Some could say that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were totally justifiable and even necessary ... in order to get the Japanese to surrender. Some could ... ...

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