Download Hiroshima Bombing

Jacob Maloney
April 4, 2012
Hiroshima Atomic Bomb
Was the dropping of the atomic bomb by the United States on Hiroshima justified?
66, 000 people died when the bombing of Hiroshima hit, the newest and the
deadliest bomb at the time (Conrad, 1993, pg 46). There was a lot of thought that went
into the bombing of Hiroshima. After the fact that the bomb was dropped, many
Japanese and people around the world asked if the bomb was justified and that is what
I am going to say. The US was justified in the atomic bombing being dropped on Japan.
The US and Japanese weren’t always enemies, actually they used to be good
friends and even traded and sold goods to each other, but when the Japanese started to
expand and take over the pacific island, the US stopped sending them resources such
as oil. That is why the Japanese wanted to hurt the US. Then the Pacific part of the
WWII started on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the
naval base of the US. In the start of the attack the first planes came from the South
West and attacked the US by surprise because the US thought the planes were there
own trying to get full. The next wave came from the North West to take the US by
surprise the other way, but the US was better prepared for this attack than the first
(Rice, 2001, pg. 46). I relate this to the bombing of pearl harbor because of the bombing
of pearl harbor and how they tried to make the US surrender by bombing them when
they weren’t ready to get there oil. So really the Japanese were the attackers and
wanted the war to start and to really control the Pacific Ocean. Then when the
Japanese expanded to the French and Polish islands, the US really couldn’t let them
take all that land (Doerr, 2012).
There were a couple of options at the end of the war, either to invade or to
drop the deviational bomb. The first option that I had already said was that they could
invade the main island of Japan and try to take Japan over with force. Many people
wanted that because it would put the United States ahead and make the Japanese
suffer from there own island. There was a down side though, there would have been, on
estimate over 200, 000 Americans would have died and over 1,000,000 Japanese were
estimated to die (Conrad, 1993, pg. 150). That is one of the main reasons in why the
United States decided against invading the main land of Japan. The other option,
which is the one the United States used, was the atomic bomb. Albert Einstein helped
create this new bomb that was powerful enough to blow up a whole city. After they
made the decision to bomb Japan and not invade, they had to decide which city to blow
up, they wanted to see how powerful the bomb actually was, so they wanted a city that
was untouched and didn’t have too many people get killed. They got it down to three
cities, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They took out Kyoto because one of the military
personal had visited it and it was an amazing city. So the US was going to drop the
bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Conrad, 1993, pp. 150).
When the war was in the closing months, the United States really found it
hard to get the Japanese to surrender, because they would never give up and never
really feel they needed to until all of their land would be gone. It would take a very long
time for the US army and navy to hold off the Japanese. The soon became worried
because if the war didn’t end fast enough the Soviet Union would come into the war
and come out of it a higher country and that is not what the United States would want
(Editor of Lifetime Book, 1997, pp. 153). So they needed to end the war fast and make
sure that there was no other way for the Japanese to fight. In other words, the United
States wanted Japan to surrender before the Soviet Union could join the war (Conrad S.
1993, p 152). On another note, the Japanese coulter has this way, they do not give up,
and they would rather die for their country than loss the war. That is why the atomic
bomb had to be dropped to insure the Japanese would give up and surrender the war,
knowing what the United States could do.
Now the answer to my question: Was the dropping of the atomic bomb by the
United States on Hiroshima justified? My answer is yes it was justified and I will give
three reasons why. The first reason, and the easiest one is that the war ended. If the
war had ended then it would not have been justified, because it killed 66,000 people
and it is still killing people today because of the radiation poisoning in their bodies
(Conrad, 1993, pg 26). It would not have been justified if the war would not have ended
and if millions of people would have died for nothing. The second reason for the
bombing being justified is that it scared the Soviet Union into not joining the war and
not starting a war against the Americans. When the United States dropped the bomb
on Hiroshima, the Soviet Union then did not enter the war and then became a little
scared of the United States because of the firearm that they had and because of the
bomb and they didn’t want to be the next recipient of the bomb. The third and final
reason is that, the bombing showed how powerful and harmful the bomb really was and
how carful we should be with it. The bombing truly showed us how powerful and
amazing the bomb is and how it can hurt many people and in hind side destroy the war.
As President Truman said, “I am sure that the end of the world-in the last millisecond of
the worlds existence-the last man will see something very similar to what we have seen
today.” (Conrad, 1993, pg 26, para 4). Those were the three reasons the atomic bomb on
Hiroshima was justified.
In conclusion the Japanese truly started the war with Pearl Harbor and trying to
get all the other land. The United States just wanted to protect themselves and the other
pacific countries from being taken over by the Japanese. The United States did the whole
war in a defensive state, meaning, they wanted to keep all of their own land and help the
other countries to keep theirs. So they dropped the bomb to end of the war and let the other
countries have freedom and to stop the Japanese for good.
References
Rice R. (2001). The Bombing of Pearl Harbor. New York: Time
Doerr, W. (2012). Pearl Harbor [Information]. Retrieved from worldbookonline database.
Editor of Lifetime book (1997) The American Story World War 2. New York: Time
Company
Conrad S.(1993) The Manhatten Project. Chicago: Children Press
Book