Nguyen Duc Minh

U.S. History B

Writing Assignment 2

18/9/2019

Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb

The decision of dropping the two atomic bombs on the city of Hiroshima and

Nagasaki has still been a debatable action until the present. While many believe that the

bombs are way too cruel, inhuman and are not called for, I stand by the opinion that this was

a justified action of President Truman, which I will prove in the essay below.

The most important reason of why President Truman dropped the bombs was to make

sure an end for the deadliest war in the entire human history with approximately 85 million

casualties. While dropping the bomb was inhumane, but the war is inhumane itself and the

bomb end it. Japanese were not only loyalty and persistent, they knew that the US leaders and

public would stand against heavy casualties on US side and therefore they would fight as

hard as they can to avoid defeated and kept the honor of the nation. This idea was expressed

through the saying of Army Minister Korechika Anam: “Wouldn't it be to our advantage if

peace were established after we had given the enemy a terrible beating in the decisive battle

on the homeland?” Sending army on the Japanese mainland would cause uncountable

casualties for both sides. While nearly 200 000 have died after the bomb from heat blast and

injured, millions would have been dead if the US invaded mainland (in Kyushu only, there

were about a million Japanese willingly to fight to dead with the US). Being the president of

the United States, Harry Truman must act for the benefit of his people and all the alternatives

options will only lead to a longer war, more casualties and bloodshed for both sides.

Secondly, many Asian countries have been released from the chains of the Japanese

empire during this time and even free some other countries from the risk of being invaded by
the Japanese because of the atomic bombs. During War World 2, Japan proclaimed the

"Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere". They extract raw resources from these countries

in order to serve them in the war. They have also caused the Vietnamese famine in 1945, in

which the casualties were controversial, from 400,000 to 2 million people. There was also

some evidence of cannibalism during this time due to the fact that all the food was taken by

the Japanese in order to supply the war. That was only one in many countries that Japan has

reached its hands. If there was no atomic bomb to stop them, the Japanese would have had

the tactical position to continue to invade more and more such as Singapore, Malaysia, …

and might be entire Asia.

There were various opinions about why Truman should have not bombed Japan. One

of them is the target of the bomb were ordinary civilian instead of the Japanese military force.

However, the US had already dropped tons of leaflets, which told the civilian to leave

evacuate from a specific location as a warning for the bombs. Secondly, some of the opinions

state that the US chooses to bomb Japan because they are Asian. One of the facts was the US

had not bombed Germany, a European country. In fact, during his presidential, FDR has

already considered using the bomb on the German. However, during the Truman presidential,

the German has already lost the battle in Europe way before the US decided to use their

nuclear bombs and Japan would still be on loose, fighting in the Pacific. Besides, if they used

the bomb on Europe that would have caused a lot of negative effect on their allies such as

France and Britain, not to mention a large amount of Americans in Europe.

In conclusion, President Truman’s decision was justified because the two nuclear

bombs make sure an end for this has been a far too long war. If he did not use it, how many

more would have died? How would Truman answered to the US public when millions of the

American young man has died when he has the ultimate final weapon but could not use

because it would be immoral to their enemy? The bombs have also ended the occupation of
Japan in Asia, which caused far too much suffering. Despite various opinions about how the

bombing was immoral and cruel, I believe that Truman’s action was justified.