Should the United States have dropped the atomic bomb? ?

Question: Should the United States have dropped the atomic bomb!? !?

Please explain whyWww@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

Yes, the decision was a tough one, but it had to be made!. There were leaflets dropped by the AAC before the attack saying that a terribly devastating weapon would be used against Japan unless they unconditionally surrendered!. They ignored this warning, probably assuming it was propaganda!.

Based on the number of Japanese civilian casualties at Saipan, some who had jumped from the cliffs into the sea to avoid surrender to the Americans, others shot down by the remaining Japanese Soldiers because they were running the wrong way, or had stopped in the "lemming rush" to the cliffs, and others as casualties, the death toll among civilians in Japan would have been devastating, in cities of very high population, much higher than Hiroshima and Nagasaki!.

Add to that the Allied casualties in an invasion of the home islands, the US Marines had already had a taste of that when Okinawa was invaded!. The Japanese consider it a home island, but it's still more in a territorial status compared to the main islands!.

Take the casualties of Okinawa alone!. In the period from March 18-June 23, 1945, we had 84,528 men lost!. The Japanese lost 101,536 to 142,058 men!. Additionally, some 42,000 to 150,000 civilians were killed!. The War Department may have exaggerated the casualty estimates from an invasion of the main island, but even if its only multiplied by 5, our casualties alone would have exceeded 400,000 lost, and the Japanese almost 1!.5 million lost, including civilians!.

The estimates of the after effects of the devices were not taken into account in the strategic planning about the end of the war, though the results of the radiation poisoning over the course of the next 20 years were terrible, the actual immediate loss of life by the Japanese was much less than any reasonable estimate for their losses in the event of invasion!.

In the context of the time, there was no concern for later consequences, I don't think!. Even into the 50s and 60s, we were using smaller devices, in the kiloton range, (the tactical weapons were less powerful than the thermonuclear weapons available to both NATO and Warsaw pact forces) and detonating them and then ordering infantry into the area near ground zero with film badges to test whether the radiation would be dangerous to infantry moving into a bombed out area after the detonation!. In conventional weapons, with TNT, they used artillery and bombing to soften up a target before sending in infantry!.

They wouldn't have been sending soldiers with mothers, fathers and congressmen, to a slow painful death in 15 years on a whim!. I think they had probably convinced themselves that the "eggheads" (scientists) were just being alarmists!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

Yes!. It was a horrible, but necessary thing to do!. If the Americans had not dropped the bombs on Japan, an invasion would have been required!. 1 million American casualties and many, many, many more Japanese casualties would have occurred!. Millions of Japanese citizens would fight to the death for their emperor!. Dropping the Atomic bomb did kill 200,000 or so people, which is terrible, but by dropping it Japan(and America) was spared more lives than it lost from the bomb!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

That is an unfair question because we have hind-sight!. Decades of living under the threat of mutually assured destruction leads you to say "of course not!."

In a vacuum, circa 1945, the answer is a resounding "yes" based on several factors:

1) Japan was NEVER going to surrender to the United States and its allies!. Even though Japan's allies had already surrendered, leaving it face fight the world alone, the Japanese culture equates surrender with cowardice and dishonor!.!.!.this partly explains why US and British POW's were so poorly mistreated!. An Allied invasion on the Japanese main island would have been a horrific bloodbath on both sides!.

2) A vengeful US was looking for a humiliating defeat of Japan!. Yes, US soldiers and sailors were killed in battles along the Atlantic and in the European theatre, but what brought the US out of neutrality was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor!. Given America's outrage at that, the treatment of Japanese-held civilians in Manchuria and POW's after the Phillipines invasion (at same time of Pearl Harbor), no American was looking to give Japan any quarter!.

3) Germany routinely shared technological advances with Japan, even after it signed the armistice in the European theatre!.!.!.and they had developed plans for an atomic weapon but lacked the facilities/materials/delivery system!.

4) This one is in hindsight, but circa 1946!.!.!.German scientists that "turned themselves over" to the Red Army during their push to the west after the D-Day invasion jump-started the Soviet military program by bring the V-Rocket technology and results of German atomic testing!. One half of the Cold War was already in place and ready to participate less than five years after WWII had ended!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

yes, consider how many allied lives would have been lost in a land combat on Japanese soil, the war could have gone on for years
there is another part to this also - should japan have attacked pearl harbor before they officially notified the americans that they were at war with americaWww@QuestionHome@Com

This has been debated before in my opinion the bomb should have been dropped in an uninhabited area!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

yes but the Biggest one should have been dropped on the imperial palaceWww@QuestionHome@Com