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Choices: The Atomic Bomb
WORLD HISTORY II
UNIT 6 PROJECT
Thursday, May 14 – Thursday, May 21, 2015
Name: __________________________________________
CHOICES: THE ATOMIC BOMB
Background
In the spring of 1945 Allied troops pushed steadily into German territory—Americans
and British from the west, Russians from the east. The Battle of the Bulge in December of the
previous year had been the last real attempt by the Germans to avoid total defeat to the Allies.
Now the Nazi troops retreated with only token resistance.
In the Pacific, too, the tide of the war had turned decisively in favor of the Allies (in this
theater, “Allies” meant, “Americans”). The eventual defeat of the Japanese, who had once
seemed nearly invincible, was a foregone conlusion. The only question was how long—and how
many lives—it would take. Unlike the Germans, however, Japanese soldiers continued to fight
with the same ferocity as they had earlier in the war. If anything the Japanese troops’ bravery
and fantatical devotion to their emperor increased as the American offensive pushed ever closer
to the Japanese home islands. During the Battle of Iwo Jima (February-March, 1945) all but a
handful of the 22,000 Japanese defenders were killed, while inflicting 7000 deaths and another
17,000 casualties on the invading U.S. Marines. The battle for the island of Okinawa (AprilJune, 1945), just 300 miles from the Japanese coastline, was even bloodier. There the Japanese
lost over 100,000 troops, and the Americans 12,000. Okinawa also saw the first use of kamikaze
pilots by the Japanese—volunteers who flew their planes directly into American ships in an
attempt to kill dozens of Americans and cripple an American ship at the cost of only one suicide
pilot.
American troops in the Pacific Theater, 1944 or 1945.
Germany formally surrendered—unconditionally—to the Allies on May 9. Now
America and its allies could focus all of their attention on defeating Japan. In July the leaders of
the Allied nations met in Potsdam, New York to discuss plans for post-war Europe, and for
defeating Japan. Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, who had guided their nations through six
years of war with the Axis Powers in Europe, represented Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
Representing the United States was Harry S Truman, who had become president just three
months earlier, after the death of Franklin Roosevelt. These leaders agreed that they would
demand of Japan the same thing they had received from Germany: absolute, unconditional
surrender. Churchill and Truman also pushed Stalin to declare war on Japan, and to send troops
to assist with an eventual invasion. The Russians were worn out from the devastating war in
Europe, however, and in any case it would take several months to get the Red Army reorganized, equipped, and transported across Siberia in preparation for an attack on Japan. For
now, the war in the Pacific would remain the responsibility of the United States, with some
assistance from the British Navy.
Churchill, Truman, and Stalin at Potsdam.
By the summer of 1945, high-ranking members of the American military had been
planning for an invasion of Japan for several months. Even with a year or more of steady
bombing by American B-29s, there would still be millions of Japanese soldiers (not to mention
civilians, who would almost certainly fight against any invaders as well) to defend their
homeland. If the Japanese—almost to a man—had been willing to give their lives to defend the
desolate island of Iwo Jima, while at the same time inflicting heavy casualties on their enemies,
how fiercely would they fight to defend their homes and country? The American planners
estimated that the minimum number of Allied deaths during an invasion of Japan would be
250,000 and that total casualties would likely approach 500,000. General Douglas MacArthur,
who had led the fight against the Japanese in New Guinea and the Philippines, believed that total
casualties would be 1 million.
American planners also estimated that the invasion could not begin before the spring of
1946. It would take at least that long to weaken the Japanese defenses with constant bombing,
and to assemble and train an adequately-sized invasion force. By 1946 the Russians would likely
be ready to assist with the invasion, which would obviously reduce the number of American
troops that were necessary (and by extension, the number of Americans killed). However,
assistance from the Soviet Union came with a down side as well. It was clear by this point that
the United States and the Soviet Union—with their competing philosophies of capitalism and
communism—would emerge from the war as the world’s two dominant powers. If the Russians
helped to defeat Japan, then at least part of that country would likely fall under Soviet
(communist) domination.
Map of the Japanese home
islands.
Images of the beauty of Japan. How fiercely would they fight
to defend their home?
On April 25, 1945, just two weeks after taking office, President Truman was told about a
new weapon that was being developed by American scientists in the New Mexico desert, under
the code name, “The Manhattan Project.” This weapon would harness the incredible power of
nuclear fission reactions, creating the most destructive device mankind had ever seen: the
atomic bomb. The Germans had also been attempting to develop a nuclear weapon since early in
the war, but they were defeated before their scientists could achieve the big breakthrough. Now,
as the war was drawing to a close, the Americans had accomplished the breakthrough. Secretary
of War Henry Stimson told President Truman that the weapon would likely be ready for
deployment within a matter of months. Indeed, the atomic bomb was tested successfully in New
Mexico on July 16, and Truman was notified that additional bombs were under construction, and
would be ready for use against Japan in another week.
“Fat Man” and “Little Boy,” the second and third atomic bombs built by the
Manhattan Project scientists at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Before Truman could give the order for an atomic bomb to be dropped on a Japanese
city, he had to consider the consequences, and any possible alternatives. The bomb’s destructive
power was enormous—it would likely destroy the entire city on which it was dropped. Hundreds
of thousands of innocent civilians would be killed in a single blast. Moreover, many of the
survivors would die a much slower and more painful death from the effects of radiation
poisoning.
Several prominent people, who were close to the President’s inner circle, argued that the
United States should not use the atomic bomb against Japan. General Dwight Eisenhower, who
had led the D-Day invasion in France and the subsequent defeat of Germany, felt that the U.S.
would lose its moral authority, and its reputation as a great humanitarian nation, if it became the
first country to use atomic weapons. He favored an invasion of Japan by the U.S. Army and
Marines. Even though this would mean many more American deaths, Eisenhower believed that
the sacrifice would be worth it. Many of the scientists who had helped to develop the bomb also
argued against the use of their “gadget,” as they called it. Leo Szilard, who had created the
Manhattan Project, presented Truman with a petition signed by 69 scientists, urging the president
not to drop the bomb on Japan. Instead, Szilard argued, the U.S. should invite Japanese leaders
to witness a second test of an atomic bomb, and then urge the Japanese to negotiate the terms of
their surrender. Others, such as Secretary of State James Byrnes, argued that dropping the bomb
on Japan would be the quickest and most humane way to end the war. He felt that the Japanese
would never agree to surrender unless they had to, and that the number of deaths that would
result from a year of conventional bombing and then an invasion would dwarf the number killed
by one atomic bomb. And of course, those killed by the bomb would all be Japanese, while in an
invasion many of the deaths would be young Americans.
Secretary of State James
Byrnes
General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Leo Szilard
Unit 6 Project Rubric
-Background Reading Questions—10 points
-Group Conference/Argument-Writing—10 points
-Active Participation;
-Graphic Organizer
-“The Meeting”/Class Debate—20 points
-Active Participation
-ESSAY—60 points
-Intro (10)
-Arguments (20)
-Counter-Arguments (10)
-Conclusion (10)
-Writing Style/Mechanics (10)
TOTAL—100 points