Was the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 a genocide?

Answer 1

No it wasn't deliberate genocide. After months of bombing cities in Japan, the US issued an ultimatum called the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, 1945 demanding that Japan surrender. The Japanese government ignored this demand. The US dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6; then the second on Nagasaki on August 9. On August 15, Japan announced its surrender and on September 2, 1945 Japan signed an Instrument of Surrender, officially ending the war.

The US's official justification was that it would save many more lives than it cost by ending the war, but most people just wanted the war to end period. The secondary goal was to let it be known that it would be much too costly in lives to wage war in the future and hoped that the atomic bomb would be the ultimate deterrent.

Each night multiple 500 to 1000 plane incendiary bombing raids attacked Japanese cities resulting in similar fatalities per raid as each atomic bomb did! Far more Japanese died each night from these raids than died in the two atomic bombings. Without the atomic bomb, those raids would have continued for more than a year, Japan's population would have been far more than decimated.

Answer 2

It was an air attack upon a naval base.