If you had been president in 1945 would you have dropped the A-bomb on Japan or launched an amphibious invasion of the country?

Answer 1

An invasion of Japan would have resulted in hundreds, of thousands of American casualties, and would certainly have caused the deaths of as many as 1-2 million Japanese both due to combat action and famine (Japan was nearly out of food.) Trying to end the war at a stroke with one or two bombing raids which actually caused no more death and destruction than other air raids that used thousands and thousands of conventional explosives seems like a prudent and humane thing to do. Michael Montagne

I don't know that I would call the dropping of the A-bombs humane. I think they were far from being humane. I agree that according the the two choices, dropping the bomb was the right thing to do from the US president's perspective. I don't believe that the A-bombs were necessary, however. The US could have forced the Japanese government to surrender without dropping the bombs in the manner they did. In fact, most of the atomic physicists who designed the bombs believed the US should exhibit their power over uninhabited regions of Japan before unleashing their power of cities. I believe the Japanese would have surrendered without the carnage. I am a firm believer in the use of force in wars. War is not a game in which rules apply; war is war. But if it was me, I think I would have at least given the Japanese government an out, before I cooked thousands of their citizens.

Yes, after what Japan did to America if i were president I'd drop more, i mean Japan dropped more than two and did over 3000 Japanise die?Imagine if that happened to any British countries or Earupean countries.

Yes, Japan just wouldn't surrender, what else could we do? Sending Troops it isn't that easy, and wouldn't have worked as well. We gave Japan the whole war to surrender.

Plus we proved are power to the world, possibly preventing other wars.

I would have dropped the a-boms. American warned Hirohito both times before they unleashed the a-bomb. They told him when and where, and he did nothing. America was not targeting civilians. Both cities that were targeted actually have military bases in them, i believe one was navy and one was army... anyhow the a-bombs also saved thousands and thousands of American lives....

The amphibious assult would have taken over a million men on the allied side just to have hope of bing sucsesful, and the Japanese weamon and children were bing trained to use swords and to run up with bombs attached to them, so I would have cousen the A-Bomb Any day.

yes, i would have dropped the bomb on japan. there were three options for America at this time in the war and they were to drop the bomb, drop a demo bomb, or continue our amphibous invasions. An amphibous attack would have costed japan about 2 million casualties, 2 million casualties is gigantic compared to the 100,000 causeualties thay had when we dropped the bomb on them. a demo bomb would have left radiation all over the coast fo japan and would have given our soldiers and their soldiers radiation side affects. the casualties from this would have outnumbered the 100,000 Japanese dead by just directly dropping the bomb. the bomb was the most effective and least costly way to get japan to surrendor. Some may say we over did it with the second bomb but we didn't. Japan refused to surrendor after the first bomb. the second bomb was necassary.

Yes, I would have dropped the atomic bomb. An amphibious assult on the Japanese mainland would have been catastrophic for both sides. This was proven with the invasion of Okinawa. More Japanese civilians were killed in the invasion of Okinawa than by both bombs dropped on the main island. The Japanese were well prepared and ready to defend their homeland at all costs from invasion. The loss of life would have been biblical.

If I were President in the era of World War Two I feel that I would have dropped that a-bomb in a second, with no second thoughts. What you may not know is that the axis powers were trying to build their own atomic bombs at the time. It was a race and we won. Now I would have used the first atomic bomb to start my invasion. After the real U.S.A dropped the first bomb Japan tried to surrender immediatley. But instead of letting them do that we hurried up and dropped the second one on them. We wanted to know if it would have the same effect in a different climate. No, I would not have dropped the second one, but yes I most certaintly would have dropped the first one.

I think I would have dropped the atomic bomb. Everyone wanted this war to end but Japan just wouldn�t surrender. If we did not drop the bomb then the war would have gone on for a lot longer and more people would have died. I know that dropping the atomic bomb was morally wrong because all of these innocent Japanese people were killed. Not only the army but innocent Japanese people that were not involved in the war. But if we had let the war go on then a lot more Americans and Japanese would have died.

The first bomb was virtually a godsend for the Japanese. Now, before you get your feathers ruffled, consider these facts: more casualties were incurred in a single fire-bombing raid on Tokyo than either of the two bombs individually - secondly, if the decision was made NOT to drop the bomb but rather a decision to invade had been made this would have incurred an estimated one million American casualties and doubtless more Japanese casualties (this point is rather belabored as it's been addressed numerous times) - thirdly, and a salient point that's not been brought up previously, Stalin was keen on making a landing on the northernmost Japanese island and, had this occurred, it would have given him a greater chance of staking a claim on a zone of occupation in Japan. With such an occupation we could very well have had a dismembered Japan and a subsequent partition into a communist dominated half with only half of Japan under the control of the western allies.

Those points being made, it was a horrible thing to have done but it was better than the alternative. War is indeed a horrible thing.

One More Note A lot of the debate on the dropping of the Atomic Bombs on Japan comes from the now-recognized fact that the use of nuclear weaponry is very distinctly different than use of conventional weaponry.

However, this is something only learned by experience, and with plenty of hindsight to analyze the effects the use of such weapons have. In 1945, only a handful of people had actually witnessed the Trinity Test, the only use of a nuclear weapon. Of this handful of people, most were scientists, and none had political power. Several of these scientists realized that the Bomb was a whole new category of weaponry, but NONE understood the actual ramifications of its use on political policy. And NO ONE understood the actual consequences on its being deployed against real people. Flash burns, radiation exposure, etc were something only learned about after the Allied forces arrive in Hiroshima and Nagasaki once the war was over to study the effects the bombs had.

Outside this small group of first-hand observers, no one else had any direct experience with what the bomb could do, and its impact. To all policy makers, the A-Bomb was simply a Very Big Bomb. And, as policy makers used to employing the myriad of new technological gizmos that were the product of American ingenuity, they new what to do with this new wonder thing: Use It On The Enemy NOW. What rational reason could a policy maker have for NOT using it?

And, morally, what is the difference between kill 100,000 people in a massive firestorm and killing 100,000 people in the flash of an atomic burst, or letting 100,000 people starve to death due to naval blockade? None that I can see.