Official A-Bomb Justification: Save US Lives According to Truman and others in his administration, the use of the atomic bomb was intended to cut the war in the Pacific short, avoiding a. But as the United States celebrated, it also braced itself for the uncertain future of the Atomic Age. Here are some comparisons of the atomic bombing with conventional bombing. It is easy now, after the event, to look back and say that Japan was already a beaten nation, and to ask what therefore was the justification for the use of the atomic bomb to kill so many thousands of helpless Japanese in this inhuman way; furthermore, should we not better have kept it to ourselves as a secret weapon for future use, if necessary? On 20 June the Emperor, on his own initiative, called the six members of the Supreme War Direction Council to a conference and said it was necessary to have a plan to close the war at once, as well as a plan to defend the home islands. The demonstration option was rejected for practical reasons. Then, shortly before Hiroshima, I became attached to General MacArthur in Manila, and lived for two months with his staff. But you should be aware there were numbers much higher floating around that decision-makers in the USA would have been hearing. . Furthermore, they wanted to know more about what radiation does to people, both short-term and long-term. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave Japanese leaders the excuse they needed to take the absolutely unthinkable action of surrendering. There were only two bombs available in August 1945, and the demonstration bomb might turn out to be a dud. How many lives do modern military historians estimate were saved by the two atom bombs? The March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo alone killed some 120,000 Japanese. President Obama lays a wreath at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Japan on May 27. He had lived since babyhood in America, and had graduated in 1940 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, the Soviet Unions decision to enter the Pacific War against Japan would have certainly hastened Japans surrender, and thereby saved lives. Its not until 1994 that we truly saw how fear of the Bomb had declined. "On August 6, 1945, a single atomic bomb destroyed our city. This is one opinon (as I mentioned). There was a striking willingness in family entertainment just after the horrors of WW2, to face the new possibility of annihilation. How Hiroshima and Nagasaki Saved Millions of Lives For several days it was touch and go as to whether the people would follow their government in surrender. thousands and thousands of young Americans. 75 years later, Japans atomic bomb survivors the hibakusha still remember the day in devastating detail. One of these raids killed about 125,000 people, the other nearly 100,000. Why did the Germans fall behind the Americans in the development of the atomic bomb after an initial lead? Was Japan already beaten before the August 1945 bombings? Continuing the myth that nuclear weapons can solve disputes and save lives brings us all closer to unspeakable catastrophe. That this was not an impossibility is shown by the following fact, which I have not seen reported. Far from being a myth, nuclear deterrence is nearly an ironclad law. The public isnt convinced. Raymond The Snowman Briggss deceptively cute graphic novel and film When The Wind Blows was about a sweet elderly couples teeth and hair falling out after the bomb drops. By comparison, the declaration of war by the Soviet Union had enormous strategic importance. Horrors of Hiroshima, a reminder nuclear weapons remain global threat The two bombings, which . In this way I learned something of the invasion plans and of the sincere conviction of these best-informed officers that a desperate and costly struggle was still ahead. rev2023.7.7.43526. On Tuesday, an Army communiqu noted the use of a "new type of bomb." The omission was deliberate: The United States feared that the Japanese, being forewarned, would shoot down the planes carrying the bombs. After all, given the amount of deaths Japan had endured during the war, the leaders could not have surrendered after only 200,000 soldiers were killed. (Bombing Hiroshima changed the world, but it didnt end WWII, Opinion, May 26). Seems like a bluff. For most Americans, the immediate reaction to the atomic bomb was relief: it had ended the war. Also the Russians had just started attacking Japanese forces in Manchuria and Korea. (U.S.. We know now how close they were to finding it. He may have got the shape and size wrong, but it became a reality in his lifetime just over 30 years later. The . The typhoon which struck Okinawa in that month would have wrecked the invasion plans with a military disaster comparable to Pearl Harbor. While they focus on political considerations, they do not mention the determination of the military to find out what an A-bomb would do to an intact city and a human population. But there was never any specific warning to the cities that had been chosen as targets for the atomic bomb prior to the weapons first use. From this background I believe, with complete conviction, that the use of the atomic bomb saved hundreds of thousandsperhaps several millionsof lives, both American and Japanese; that without its use the war would have continued for many months; that no one of good conscience knowing, as Secretary Stimson and the Chiefs of Staff did, what was probably ahead and what the atomic bomb might accomplish could have made any different decision. Wells imagined a uranium-based hand grenade that would continue to explode indefinitely. The two events together plus the dropping of the second atomic bomb on Aug. 9 were decisive in making the case for surrender. They became important the winning weapon because of Hiroshima. Japan was not afraid of this new technology and were not going to surrender just because a new "bigger" bomb was being used against them. 60,000 people would die from the radioactive fallout by the following year. So assuming the invasion of Kysh took 90 days, that works out to about half a million US Army wounded, and over 100,000 dead. But at the time they dont seem to have been impressed. Even in recent history, courts in Japan often looked at consent through a narrow lens. Opinion Readers React: Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved American lives. 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As historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa writes in his book "Racing the Enemy," The controversial release of treated wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is moving forward despite opposition. Compare this with the results of two B-29 incendiary raids over Tokyo. How Many Lives Did The Atomic Bomb Claim? "What would have happened then?" No such drastic measures were discussed after Hiroshima was bombed. It is impossible to say how many lives were saved by the atomic bombing of Japan because no one knows when Japan would have surrendered if the bombs had not been dropped. Three factors are at work: the border disputes, the rise of nationalist leaders in both countries, and the impact of geopolitics. But were not yet in a position to judge such a trade off. August 25, 2014 Credit: Hiromichi Matsuda via Wikimedia Commons Advertisement Zachary Keck makes an able case that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives. South Korean government officials and scientists insist that contamination levels would be within acceptable safety standards. The two bombings resulted in an estimated 105110,000 deaths and close to another 100,000 injuries. Of the 210 square miles of greater Tokyo, 85 square miles of the densest part was destroyed as completely, for all practical purposes, as were the centers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; about half the buildings were destroyed in the remaining 125 square miles; the number of people driven homeless out of Tokyo was considerably larger than the population of greater Chicago. I had, perhaps, an unusual opportunity to know the pertinent facts from several angles, yet I was without responsibility for any of the decisions. Op-Ed: U.S. didn't have to drop atomic bombs on Japan to win war - Los So was the United States right to use the bombs? General MacArthur's staff anticipated about 50,000 American casualties and several times that number of Japanese casualties in the November 1 operation to establish the initial beachheads on Kyushu. But they werent impressed. Pal went on to add the Bomb to his film of The Time Machine (1960) so that HG Wells traveller witnesses a nuclear war in 1966. A U.S.-Japan "sister peace park" agreement angers representatives of the survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Japan, who want Washington to admit the "A-bomb did not end the war and save the . But none of the soldiers had any inkling of the true situation until one night, at ten-thirty, his regiment was called to hear the reading of the surrender proclamation. Eleven days later, on August 6, 1945, having received no reply, an American bomber called the Enola Gay left the Tinian Island in route toward Japan. Assessing what we know so far about Chinas fixed-wing carrier-based airborne early warning and control (AEWC) aircraft. This is undoubtedly true if one accepts the arguments of U.S. leaders at the time; namely, that not using the atomic bomb would have forced the U.S. to launch a full invasion of Japans home islands, and this would have killed far more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If they then needed to invade Honsh and take the Capitol in another 90 day campaign, that would more than double the toll to about 1.2 million wounded, and over a quarter of a million US Army dead. December 1946 Issue Explore If the Atomic Bomb Had Not Been Used Was Japan already beaten before the August 1945 bombings? The United States knew from intercepted communications that the Japanese were most concerned that Emperor Hirohito not be treated as a war criminal. It narrated the stories of the lives of six bomb survivors from immediately prior to, and months after, the dropping of the Little Boy bomb . Did the atomic bomb bring about the end of the war? Exactly what role the atomic bomb played will always allow some scope for conjecture. So the hope of there being a single impartial number that isn't somehow tainted by politics is remote in the extreme. Having found the bomb we have used it. Even the Matthew Broderick teen film War Games (1985), charming as it is, depends on a visceral terror of a nuclear strike at any moment. Radiation-triggered mutation seeped into the popular imagination. The bombing of Hiroshima just didnt create the kind of strategic impact that coerces experienced military men during wartime. Four years after the fall of the USSR, James Cameron exploded a nuke just in the background of True Lies while Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis kissed; as if deliberately aping without any irony the Reagan and Thatcher Gone With the Wind parody poster that had become an emblem of the anti-nuclear weapons protest movement. They say that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower didnt share President Trumans exuberance over the use of atomic bombs. Both American and Japanese | by Will Staton | Lessons from History | Medium 500 Apologies, but something went wrong on our end. Japan lacked the resources and strength to keep the fight going. In the late 60s Tony Price began salvaging materials discarded from the Los Alamos labs to construct his art works, saying: Los Alamos scrap is a kind of pure art in itself, since you are dealing with a harmonic principle of nuclear physics. Read about our approach to external linking. I'll change the title to reflect this. The bomb saved half a million American lives. Fears of nuclear accident and cover-up mutated with the post-Watergate conspiracy thriller in The China Syndrome (1979) released 12 days before the real Three Mile Island disaster and Silkwood (1983). The neuroscientist says "Baby approved!" The questions in the body text can be answered. pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. The U.S. governments use of atomic bombs must be a strong reminder to us of what citizenship must entail. We appeal to the world not to forget us.. You could argue that the situation we are in today large and dangerous arsenals that we seem to perennially have difficulty getting rid of is in part the result of believing in the shock value of Hiroshima. Asia, Southeast And we knew the disaster, which would come to this Nation, and to all peace-loving nations, to all civilization, if they had found it first. Was the use of the atomic bomb inhuman? It is too soon to decide that we have definitively escaped this danger. Author of Through Fire and Flame: Into the New Inferno. Bylines at Arc Digital, Areo Magazine, and the Strategy Bridge. The public isnt convinced. Enjoying this article? Opinion: Why did seeing a strong Black woman on The Bear make me cry. Days after the first atomic bomb was dropped, on Hiroshima, the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria. On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. But we knew that our enemies were on the search for it. These sentiments may seem surprising to us, but they make sense in the context of the ferocious bombing campaign Japan had already undergone. This might have eventually been resolved peacefully in the mold of Germany. There was every reason to think that the Japanese would defend their homeland with even greater fanaticism than when they fought to the death on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. There was one fewer city behind them, but they had been losing cities every other day, on average, throughout the entire summer. You fail to quote the critical paragraph of that report: It is clear through reading the entire article that the deadlock had existed for months between those fanatically dedicated to continuing the war at any price, and those looking to end the war. It was a horrifying act of enormous destruction. But Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably saved the most lives by demonstrating to the world the horrors of atomic warfare. They were worried that the war might end before they got a chance to test the new weapons. On the other hand, a divided Japan could have gone the way of Korea and Vietnam where brutal wars followed their divisions, killing millions in the process. Decades later, controversy and misinformation still surround the decision to use nuclear weapons during World War II. Blonde bombshells indeed. In a blinding flash it incinerated . This would have resulted in far more death and destruction for two reasons. A survey has shown that it did not have much immediate effect on the common people far from the two bombed cities; they knew little or nothing of it. @jwenting in which case Patton would have gotten the war with the Soviets that he so badly wanted, we would instead learn about the atomic bombings of Moscow and Leningrad, and there would have been no cold war. The Pacific Realist responds to Ward Wilson about whether the atomic bombings of Japan saved lives or not. If there is an AI race between China and the U.S., its not over generative AI or language modeling. Who is Oppenheimer? The controversial man behind the atomic bomb It is important to distinguish between the man making the statement and the country he leads. Nothing nessecarily wrong with that, but you can see how such a person would have an interest in exactly the argument he was making. The first, against the Southern island of Kyushu, had been scheduled for November 1 (Operation Torch). Credit: Hiromichi Matsuda via Wikimedia Commons, Southeast That's amazing. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? Both of these arguments are plausible but, I think, wrong. Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved American lives. That's what The crackdown that began on July 9, 2015 is not just history; some of the targets are facing renewed pressure today. These are some of the facts which lead those who know them, and especially those who had to base decisions on them, to feel that there is much delusion and wishful thinking among those after-the-event strategists who now deplore the use of the atomic bomb on the ground that its use was inhuman or that it was unnecessary because Japan was already beaten.
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