On the 6th of August, 1945, the Enola Gay, a US B-29 bomber released an atomic bomb on the metropolis of Hiroshima and another unnecessary one in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The incident resulted in the instantaneous death of 80,000 individuals in Hiroshima, and 40,000 more in Nagasaki after they were vaporized, and more than 100,000 continued to die because of burns resulting from the radiation.
The Allied Powers had initially pressured Japan to surrender and had warned that failure to surrender would lead to mass destruction. However, the Allied Powers did not mention the use of weapons of mass destruction (U.Shistory.org., 2016). President Truman used the atomic bomb as the last resort owing to his belief that bombing Japan was the only right and sole option. He thought this would force the country to surrender and hopefully bring the war to an end.
President Truman’s decision has come under strict scrutiny over the years and has become subject to debate by historians. The moral aspect of the bombing has continuously divided historians with some arguing that the long-term effect subjected to the Japanese population is not justifiable. Others uphold the perspective of total war, arguing that if the atomic bomb was not used, the war would not have come to a halt. They also believe that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved the lives of both American and Japanese citizens. Tom Nicholas, who wrote an article in the National Interest, supported the attack and viewed it as the right thing by Truman (Nicholas, 2015).
However, I support the historians that oppose President’s Truman’s decision. While I join these historians in criticizing the application of the atomic bomb, it is interesting to note that Truman’s decision to use this new military weapon was opposed by some of the United States military voices, as they expressed caution about it. The fact that experienced military professionals opposed the use of the atomic bomb on Japan shows that the experts knew that the use of nuclear weapons on Japan was unnecessary at that point. For that reason, Truman should not have dropped the bomb considering that Japan was already on its knees, therefore, rendering the bombing unnecessary.
An article “by Gar Alperovitz, a professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, in the New York Times,” he argues that the act was not necessary. According to him, when news about the plan reached General Dwight Eisenhower, who was the Supreme Allied Commander at the time, it was unnecessary owing to the fact that Japan had already surrendered, and its use was no longer necessary as a move to protect the lives of the American people (Alperovitz, 2016). He continues to note that the war could have ended differently. The U.S Intelligence Officers said that this could have happened if America had acted differently (Alperovitz, 2016).
References
Alperovitz, G. (2016). Prompt & Utter Destruction: Truman and the use of atomic bombs
againstJapan.Retrievedfrom:http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/upfront/debate/index.asp?article=0514
Nicholas, Tom. (August 6, 2015). No Other Choice: Why Truman Dropped the Atomic
Bomb on Japan Retrieved from: http://nationalinterest.org/feature/no-other-choice-why-truman-dropped-the-atomic-bomb-japan-13504
U.Shistory.org. (April 9,2016) The Decision to Drop the Bomb: U.S. History Online Textbook.
Retrieved from: http://www.ushistory.org/us/51g.asp
