Did Harry Truman make the right decision dropping the atomic bombs on japan in 1945?

Answer 1

The use of the bomb was an alternative to Operation Downfall, an all-out Allied invasion of Japan, and effectively saved millions of Americans, and Japanese. Plus the atomic bomb actually killed less people than conventional bombing raids of Tokyo. Many argue additionally that through the destruction caused by the use of both bombs it created a stigma that became associated with nuclear weapons, which arguably may have resulted in their non-use throughout the entire Cold War. The theory says that no nukes have been used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki because no one knew how destructive they really were. Thus the atomic bombs actually saved (or potentially saved) other lives that would have been lost had Russia or the U.S. first used WMDs in the Cold War which assuredly would have triggered MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) in which both countries would have engaged in retaliatory strikes against the other.

Also if you are really into this topic Alperovitz's book is probably one of the best guides out there, be warned it is very lengthy: There is no concrete answer to this question as everyone has an opinion. My opinion is that the decision to use the atomic bomb(S) was a proper one. As answer 1 says, the use of the atomic bomb saved months of time [possibly years, depending on the "hard-headedness" of the Japanese military high command, upon who's word the Emperor made decisions], and allied lives [probably MILLIONS more].

It also SAVED MILLIONS OF JAPANESE lives [BOTH military and CIVILIAN] which would have been lost if the Allies had had to spend months [or years] pounding the Japanese MAINLAND into submission using conventional bombing, and eventual invasion.

The Japanese people had been so "pumped up" with nationalistic fervor, that the civilian population would have fought to the bitter end with pitch forks and other implements, resulting the loss of untold millions MORE JAPANESE lives than occurred from the use of the atomic bombs.j3h.

Answer 3I totally disagree with the droppings of both bombs and from reading the history I found it was simply "over-kill." Fire bombs could have been dropped. Trueman's reasons were extremely questionable (to this day) and his own Aides had a problem with this decision.

As far as the above poster saying that also many Japanese lives were saved that's so untrue. Even to this day the droppings of the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have left a gene pool to this day of disfigurement in civilians. I hope this never happens again!

Answer 4 -The Truth

• Less civilians died from the atomic bombs than from the firebombings that preceeded. The population was being instructed to resist to the death of every man, woman, and child. If the atomic bombs had not convinced the Japanese leaders to surrender, there would be no Japanese culture today.
• The low-end estimate of the number of Allied casualties in a full-scale invasion was 1 million. Perhaps your own father or grandfather was scheduled to be transfered from Europe to the Pacific to take part in this invasion. What would you think if he had died when Truman had access to a method of ending the war without another American casualty?

Answer 2

No, I do not agree with his decision to drop the atomic bomb. It was a terrible way to end the war, killing hundreds of innocent citizens and having lasting effects.

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In the greater context, Truman was absolutely correct.

As more Japanese would have died during an invasion, along with many thousands of US soldiers, the atomic bombs saved many other lives by ending the war. Their use also demonstrated reasons why they should never be used again. More Japanese civilians were killed by the conventional bombing campaign, and many more would have been.

Answer 3

It depends upon your point of view. Some would argue that he did, in order to save the lives of a million Allied servicemen that would have been lost had mainland Japan been taken via conventional invasion. Others would say that he didn't, because of the horrendous nature of nuclear weapons and the untold suffering that was inflicted upon an innocent civilian population. My own feeling is that he was very wrong to permit the use of the two atomic bombs, because they caused such appalling suffering to the innocent- Japan could simply have been contained within it's own borders after it had been driven out of the nations it was occupying, until there was an internal coup or the economy collapsed. However, it has to be up to you to weigh up the arguments and reach your own decision.

Answer 4

If Hirohito had decided that regardless of what happened, the Japanese would never surrender, it could have been decades before we brought Japan to heel, and the country would have been destroyed. The Japanese people were unimpressed by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: more had died in the firebombings of Tokyo, and neither events made the Japanese people lose heart. Hirohito, however, saw that, yes, Japan could keep fighting to the end, but his country would face utter destruction. We hoped that the prospect of unending destruction from the sky (we were bluffing, we only had 2 bombs and we used them both) would cause those in power to surrender. Luckily, we were right. Hindsight is 20/20, and anyone who says we should not have used the a bomb is not aware of all the issues, but at the time it could easily have made little difference.

Answer 5

Yes.

It was not expected that Japan would be likely to surrender without a full-scale invasion (as proof that this was probably correct, let me point out that even after the bomb was dropped, some elements in the Japanese military argued against surrender).

US Military projections for causalties in an invasion were much higher than those caused by both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. Note, please, this is not just a matter of "Better a million of those dirty Japs than a single one of our boys" ... by far the largest proportion of the casualties from the invasion were expected to be not American soldiers but Japanese civilians.

Taking those factors into account, dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was the correct decision not only from a military standpoint but from a humanitarianstandpoint.

In hindsight, it's possible to come up with "what ifs" like "What if the US had demonstrated the power of the atom bomb on an uninhabited target to Japanese observers?" However, the only people that were suggesting that at the time were those who'd actually seen the Trinity test; most military advisors had not witnessed Trinity and were extremely sceptical that a "firecracker in the desert" would convince the Japanese to surrender. In retrospect, now that we've all seen footage of bomb tests, it's much easier to believe this could possibly have worked.