Dropping the Bomb

When Harry Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb, it showed the world America's true power. He had to establish the country as a big bad super power. We think the USA was justified in dropping the atomic bomb because it protected many of the lives of the American people. We have no idea what the Japanese were planning next. For all we know they could have had an atomic bomb of their own. We know now that was not the case. But, at the time, Harry Truman was entirely unaware of their plans. Truman was only trying to ensure the general safety of all the American people. Truman had several people tell him that dropping the bomb was a horrible idea. But he insisted that the bomb be dropped. "The atom bomb was no "great decision." It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness." Truman also wanted to have some revenge after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Japan was a country that was taking part in World War II by being very aggressive. They quickly invaded Eastern China and took control of Manchuria. The Japanese soldiers were very brutal to the towns people, after and while the soldiers were invading. They would murder the men, rape the women, and then pillage the town. After hearing about the Rape of Nanjing many people feared the Japanese soldiers.
At the Rape of Nanjing the soldiers captured the city, and then proceeded to rape about 20,000 women. The death toll was somewhere between 250,000 to 300,000. Many of which were women and children. There were also many accounts of civilians being hacked to death. Some reports say that some victims were buried alive.
Thousands of the bodies were buried in shallow ditches.
Harry Truman wanted the Japanese to make the Japanese surrender unconditionally. At the end of World War I, Germany did not have to surrender unconditionally. And then they just built themselves back up and started another huge, giant war. Unconditional surrender is when the losing nation sets no limits to the consequences that the victorious power will demand.
At the Casablanca Conference, in 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told the other Allies that he demanded the unconditional surrender from Japan. "Tokyo rocks under the weight of our bombs...I want the entire world to know that this direction must and will remain - unchanged and unhampered, Our demand has been and it remains - unconditional surrender." - President Truman, in his initial address to Congress, 16 April 1945
In order for to achieve unconditional surrender from Japan, the US had to end the war as soon as possible. And once the atomic bombs were ready it seemed like a logical thing to do to stop the war immediately. Japan’s motto at the time was “We will fight until our death.” That means that there could have been a lot more death and the war may have continued for many more years to come. President Truman didn’t want to take any chances so he chose to end the war the quickest way he knew how. His solution was to drop two atomic bombs on the two towns of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
If the USA had not dropped the atomic bomb, the Japanese may have had only a conditional surrender. Then there would be the opportunity for them to rise up again and try to start another war. Somewhere in the middle of May it was determined that the atomic bomb little boy would be ready for combat use.
The Potsdam Declaration of July 26 demanded the unconditional surrender of the Japanese forces. In it, the Allies stated that if they failed to surrender, it would result in the complete destruction of the military and utter devastation of the Japanese homeland. The Japanese refused to surrender because unconditional surrender was unacceptable by the Japanese military. Since they did not heed the warning from the US, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was ordered. The US had given Japan the perfect opportunity to surrender without the devastation of the atomic bombs. But since the pompous Japanese refused, they were basically asking for an utter annihilation.
The day after Little Boy was dropped over Hiroshima, it was reported to the Japanese Army General Staff that, “The whole city of Hiroshima was destroyed instantly by a single bomb.” Two days later, Japan was further devastated by the news that the city of Nagasaki also was demolished by another atomic bomb, Fat Man. After both these physical and emotional blows to Japan, the Emperor Hirohito had finally decided to surrender.
To the US, it seemed that the atomic bomb was a one way ticket to the unconditional surrender of Japan. “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer This statement simply means that they had decided to use the atomic bomb before the completely thought of the consequences.