Elizabeth Rohr Red Class

Was the use of The Atomic bomb Upon Hiroshima Justified?

On August 6, 1945 America dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. Since that time many people have questioned whether it was necessary to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city. At the time the United States president, Harry S. Truman believed that it was justified! Even though the after math of the atomic bomb was horrific, I still believe that it is justified in order to save many lives. Many U.S. soldiers lost their lives in the Pacific War pushing the Japanese invaders back to mainland Japan. Japanese leaders refused to surrender, and vowed to continue to fight. In 1945 American Generals designed plans for the invasion of Japan. These plans included the estimated death of 268,000 American soldiers and another over 500,000 injured. Others have estimated even higher loses. The use of the atomic bomb may have killed and injured many Japanese people; however it spared an estimated amount of 778,000 American lives. The dropping of the bomb caused land invasion to be unnecessary, therefore saving the lives of many American soldiers. Even though dropping the bomb on Hiroshima killed numerous people, a land invasion would have killed as many or even more Japanese people. According to the Manhattan District figures as many as 66,000 people died and there were 69,000 people injured from the bombing of Hiroshima. If you add 39,000 people dead and 25,000 people injured from the later bombing of Nagasaki you have a total of 199,000 casualties. It would stand to reason that if 268,000 American soldiers would perish in over taking Japan that at least this number if not more Japanese soldiers would be killed in the fight. There wouldve been civilian causalities that were caught in the cross fire. Some estimate that five to ten million civilians and Japanese military would have been killed. Therefore Japanese causalities wouldve been higher in the land invasion verses the bombing. Opponents of the use of the atomic bomb believe that it was unnecessary to force Japan to surrender in that way. Experts at the time believe that conventional bombing would not be enough to end the war. Conventional bombing couldve caused the war to continue for several years, therefore causing additional loss of life on both sides. The decision to use the atomic bomb forced Japan to surrender to the United States ending World War II. If the uses of the atomic bomb were to never take place World War II most likely would have continued for a number of years. In conclusion using the atomic bomb, lives were spared on both sides of the conflict.

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