What did the US government fear about Japan which led to the decision to use atomic bombs?

Answer 1

Japan would not surrender prolonging on the war

Answer 2

that they wouldn't surrender

Answer 3

That the entire country would "fight to the last man" during the two planned invasions, necessitating killing over 90% of the population of Japan before they would be unable to continue fighting.

However even had the atomic bombs not be used, the US was preparing to use chemical weapons (e.g. nerve gas, mustard gas) during the invasions.

Actually the decision to use atomic bombs on Japan was likely made back in March or early April 1945, before the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt as it was obvious by that time that Germany would surrender before they would be ready and that Japan would probably "fight to the last man" during the two planned invasions.

Answer 4

I don't think there was a debate about whether to use the atomic bomb on Japan. Once the bomb became available the U.S. gave the Japanese an opportunity to surrender or suffer awful destruction. They declined and, with many U.S. solders' lives in the balance, President Harry Truman gave the order to use the bomb.

Since then, there have been many morning after debates about whether we should have done it.

Answer 5

Japanese soldiers did not surrender when defeated, US soldiers had to kill all of them to secure a location. Japanese pilots were performing Kamikaze suicide attacks on US ships, these attacks were very difficult to defend against. Japanese civilians were fighting with sticks or committing suicide when US soldiers invaded the outer Japanese island (e.g. Okinawa), the US soldiers did not like killing nearly unarmed civilians nor watching them kill themselves.

US Military analysts projected that if this continued during the invasion of the main islands of Japan that it would be necessary for the US to kill more than 90% of the Japanese, both soldiers and civilians. They also projected that the war could take as long as two more years (1945 to 1947) to end the war. This would likely result in significant US casualties also before Japan was completely neutralized.

Note: at the time the US was unaware of this, but some factions of the Japanese military had prepared plans to keep fighting a slowly losing war for ten more years (1945 to 1955) with the expectation that eventually the US public would tire of the war and demand the US government end it with peace negotiations, during which Japan could win back most if not all of their military losses just to agree to stop fighting. These plans were found in the Japanese archives by the US occupation forces. (It is important to observe that the North Vietnamese used exactly this strategy to defeat the US in the Vietnam War: just keep drawing out the war until the US public gives up - it could easily have worked for Japan in WW2 had we not used atomic bombs.)

The US was not limited to the 2 atomic bombs that were used, there were plans and facilities to manufacture and use 23 atomic bombs on Japan before the end of 1945, if that had not been sufficient then plans for many more would have been made for 1946, etc. However it is important to realize that no stockpile of bombs existed back then, the bombs took time to manufacture and were to be used "as soon as they became available". The 3rd bomb was manufactured before Japan surrendered and was being shipped for use, getting as far as San Francisco before being returned to Los Alamos. Had Japan not surrendered it would have been "available" at Tinian in late August and dropped on a Japanese city about three days later (time to assemble the bomb).

The remaining schedule was: September = 3 atomic bombs, October = 3 atomic bombs, November = 7 atomic bombs, and December = 7 atomic bombs.

Answer 6

As the American forces captured island after island, the resistance from the Japanese was terrific, and the loss of American lives was huge. It was considered that attacking the main islands would be too costly in American lives.
Though the atomic bombs, dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was like nothing anyone had seen before (and let's hope we never see the like again) they did cause the Japanese to surrender, so saving many, many American lives.
And, in a strange way, I believe (though Japanese suffered tremendously from the two bombs) the rest of Japan was saved from total bombing, street fighting, and heavy American weapons, which would have killed many more Japanese civilians.

Answer 7

japan would not surrender, prolonging the war