There are a number of topics that could be discussed as an excuse for the dropping of the atomic bombs. Some might consider these relevant to this paper but I do not. While these topics such as treatment of POWs are interesting they are not within the scope of this paper. The only issue of this paper is an attempt to cause a large number of civilian casualties.

        I believe that question of whether or not the bombings were needed can be answered simply with a no, but in all fairness to those at the time that may be easier to see fifty plus years down the road. To examine this question this paper will deal briefly with modern Japanese history. I wish to start with the opening of Japan to the west in the 1853 by Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853 when he entered Uraga harbor (595). The United States entered a Japanese port and basically forced the Japanese to except western contact after several centuries of isolation. When this happened it caused the Shogunate to fall and the emperor was "restored" to power( 595). The samurai who removed the Shogun immediately decided to emulate the things they found useful or necessary from western civilization the things they chose were mostly military. This included the need for an empire and in all fairness it was probably needed for their survival because the European countries were carving up every land in sight. This policy led to a number of foreign adventures including the Legation Incident with the Boxer Rebellion (). Japan’s wars of aggression were partly the result of the United States Government’s policies.

        The Pacific portion of World War II started near Peking on July 7, 1937 (Dupuy 1). There were many atrocities committed in China but these had little influence on the United States citizens. The war did not start for most people in the USA until December 7, 1941. The Japanese felt they had no choice but to launch the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and start the war if they wished to continue to expand their empire since the USA refused to continue to supply certain vital war materials. The events at Pearl Harbor were unfortunate but the end of the war considered any major operation with so few casualties a resounding success. This event came to be known as" A day that will live in infamy" from President Roosevelt’s speech to congress shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. This led to a war that was primarily naval in nature due to the small amount of land between California and Japan. The war had a land element to it though, since you control nothing militarily speaking if you have no base in the forward area from which to operate. The efforts to secure islands for these bases were extremely bloody and casualties for both sides were horrific for the pathetically small amount of land involved.

        The large-scale death of Japanese civilians did not start with the dropping of atomic bombs. The United States Government was already engaged in an all out campaign to inflict civilian casualties by large scale fire bombing. The capture of forward bases led to the United States Army Air Corp. being able to station their new B-29 Superfortresses with the largest bomb load of any aircraft at the time within striking distance of the Japanese Home Islands. General Curtis LeMay supported napalming of defenseless populations to bring the war to an end (Selden xiii). The tactic employed was very effective for the wholesale slaughter of defensless civilians but not effective in military terms. The first firebombing raid in Japan took place in the capital city of Tokyo (formerly Edo) on January 25, 1945. Serious fire bombing started on the night on March 9-10 in Tokyo when 334 B-29s stared fire bombing (Selden xiii). The estimated casualties were 87,793 dead and 40,198 injured according to The Strategic Bombing Survey (Selden xvi). This scenario in a number of cities in an effort to bring about the end of the war and made it impossible for the country to produce the material necessities of war.

        In order to end the war the Japanese Government tried to arrange for a peace deal through the USSR. To this end a meeting was arranged with the Soviet Ambassador Yakov Malik on June 3, 1945(Kurzman 282). The meeting was not all that was hoped for so the government of Japan decide to send Prince Konoye to Moscow in an effort to secure peace and a continuing of the Imperial Dynasty even at the cost of Emperor Hirohito’s abdication (Kurzman 290). The allies were demanding unconditional surrender and the Japanese wanted that one concession. The American government was uninterested in the peace offer. This is interesting since the one concession the Japanese wanted was granted after the war was ended.

        Since the war was not over yet the American government could proceed with their planned test over the cities that were spared to be targets for the new weapon. The B-29 Enola Gay launched with her cargo a single uranium bomb named Little Boy. The B-29 arrived on target August 6, 1945 and dropped the first nuclear device on the Japanese Prefecture of Hiroshima. This bomb was the weaker of the two that were used in August of that year but due to terrain that was more desirable for such a high powered weapon this bomb killed many more people than the second one. The major structures within one mile of ground zero were not military targets except for one. The major structures within the one-mile radius were three hospitals, an elementary school, NHK radio, Fukuya Dept. store, Hiroshima City Hall and Second Army Headquarters (Wyden inside cover map). There was also the site where American POWs were kept in the city.

        The Little Boy Uranium bomb was dropped over Hiroshima at 9:15 a. m. August 6, 1945 near what is now the Peace Museum. The device immediately caused an intense blast of light and radiation. Some of the people near ground zero were fixed as a shadow forever in a durable surface like concrete or stone. The estimated shock wave velocity started out at 600 meters per second, 500 meters from the blast and dropped down to 300 meters per second, 3000 meters from ground zero (The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Committee 39). In a short period of time 118,661 people were killed in Hiroshima Prefecture (The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Committee 113). This included United States military personnel being held at Hiroshima Castle when the bomb was dropped (Kurzman). The Japanese government was not able to get confirmation of the device and it’s effect until August eighth at 2000 hours (Kurzman 419).

        I have included the following two paragraphs so that you the reader will be able to see that these were real people that led real lives. They are not just nameless faceless statistics. It may seem strange to you to read a personal opinion at this point but writing this paper this term has changed me. I was sure the right thing was done no matter how abhorrent I found it at a personal level at the start of the term. Now I am embarrassed to say I feel foolish when I consider my opinion at the start of the term. These people were caught up in events totally beyond their control and were just pawns in a game played by politicians. They deserved better than they got. The primary target for the second bomb was Kokura but the cloud cover was too heavy to see the immediate effect of dropping the bomb so the B-29 moved on to it’s secondary target. The people in Nagasaki were just unlucky since their city was the secondary target for the second atomic bomb.

        One of these was Shin- kun, he was out playing with a friend and his much loved tricycle when the device was activated. Shin -kun and his friend both died instantly. The two were both buried in Shin’s backyard along with the tricycle. Forty years latter Shin’s surviving parents and his friends mother exhumed the bodies for a proper burial and his father was surprised to see the tricycle that he forgot he had buried with them so long ago (Ohba).

        Sakaki Chiauyo was four years old at the time the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Her family went out to look when the air raid siren went off when they saw nothing her mother and father went home. After words some screamed that a bomb was falling so Sakaki- chan , her grandmother and her two siblings went to the family air raid shelter. When they came out the houses near them were all flattened and her parents came running up. The family moved to Koba and built a hut shortly after this both parents developed radiation sickness and died. The children were all sent to different homes and adopted into their new families. Sakaki -chan still misses her first mom (Selden 228-9).

        I believe that the decision to drop the device was made easier by a number of factors all of which I will discuss briefly. The first was that the war had been going on for seven years for some of the allied countries and some had suffered extensive damage such as the United Kingdom and USSR. The war needed to be ended relatively quickly as these countries were heavily damaged so that they might get back to normal conditions. The United States wished to involve the USSR in the Pacific war to as small an extent as possible so that the Japanese Home Islands would not be divided up between several occupying forces as Germany was. The Truman Administration also wanted the Japanese firmly in the western camp at the end of World War II so that there would be a good site for US bases in the Far East. It was becoming apparent by this time that their would be problems with Stalin because there were problems over occupied Poland on April 25^th before the war in Europe was even over (Feis 30). I believe that part of the reason for dropping the bombs was so there would be test subjects. I believe this because it took many years to return all the remains for proper burial. This is not a popular thing to say but I believe that was part of the reasoning behind the decision. I have this opinion because of the United States Occupation forces unwillingness to give needed information for the treatment of bomb victims (Selden xxxiv). A major consideration was probably that Two Billion dollars had been spent on the nuclear program and not using such an expensive device would proably not sit well with Congress or the average person (Herbert 67).

        One of President Truman’s advisors told him not to tell Stalin about the bomb during their meeting on July 17, 1945(Kurzman 373). Stalin told the President that his troops would enter Manchuria in mid August and this certainly effected the decision to drop the devices in early August (Kurzman 373). During the same series of meetings Stalin told Truman of the peace attempt by the Japanese with the USSR as mediator (Kurzman 380). Truman indicated he did not wish to pursue negotiations (Kurzman 380) Truman was probably already concerned by the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe.

        I believe that the dropping of the devices was not needed to end the war based on a few things. One of these is the Japanese peace attempt ignored by President Truman. The country was already in bad shape due to fire bombing leaving millions homeless and killing hundreds of thousands of people. Little shipping was getting through so there was a shortage of every thing including food. President Truman was aware of the problems the Japanese were having since senior military personnel were telling him these things. President Truman’s Chief of Staff Admiral William D. Leahy said in an interview "The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons." (Long). Admiral King supported a blockade as the way to win the war with the least casualties (Feis 5).

        General Macarthur was the senior army commander in the Pacific and he predicted 50,800 casualties were more than he anticipated in the first thirty days on the Japanese home island of Kyushu (Feis 8). Marshal said invasion of the island would probably be no worse than the 31,000 Killed wounded and missing at Luzon (Feis 9). President Truman said in his diary that General Marshal the commander of the United States Army told him U.S. ground forces would take half a million casualties is the Japanese home islands were invaded (Feis 12). All these were only rough guesses of deaths since no invasion like this had ever been attempted. The attacks would require new tactics since mountainous Japan is not ideal tank country.

        There are those who disagree with me about the bombing being a bad thing though. One of these is President Bill Clinton. When asked on April 7, 1995 whether the USA would apologize for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the president said no he would not (Japan Council). It is fair to say in my opinion that we should make our apology before the survivors all die since it has been over fifty two years since the devices were dropped. I would hate to see it made to the children or grand children of survivors.

        A professor of history at Duke University disagrees with me as well. I have included him because he teaches military history and the history of technology. I question his opening sentence in which Professor Roland states "The hundreds of lives lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki must be weighed against the hundreds of millions of lives saved by the existence of nuclear weapons"(Roland). I believe that to say the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few or the one is absolute hogwash! You can not take lives and trade them like commodities at a stock exchange! The reality is that we do not know what would have happened if the devices had not been used in anger. He also says that the existence of nuclear weapons has prevented large-scale war in our time while I agree with this I cannot say that the use of the two bombs was for such a noble purpose. I feel they were to impress Stalin and the rest of the world. Professor Roland points out that in the past killing people required more effort and that caused the lower casualty rates in the past. I agree with him that humanity has shown an ability to commit incredible acts of savagery (Roland). The Professor’s web page shows that 84 percent of the casualties from war this century occurred before 1950. He feels that the threat of nuclear weapons was instrumental in establishing world peace during the last fifty years (Roland).

        Several people have brought up that island hoping was a very expensive in terms of lives to take over the islands we needed and that they felt that the number of lives lost would be huge. I know it may sound cold or I may be some sort of dinosaur from the past but non-combatants are NOT MILITARY TARGETS! When you join a military you swear an oath and it is generally understood that you don’t fire at non-combatants as an infantryman so why should it be different if you are in a B-29? I’m not the only person that has ever felt this way Admiral Leahy said, "My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. " (Long). While my language is not that strong I agree with the theory behind the words.

        I don’t feel that actions taken on or off the battlefield can ever be a good excuse for large scale attacks intended to cause civilian deaths. Things like island battles and Pearl Harbor and even the rape of Nanking do not justify such actions.  I think that President Truman did the best he could because he was in quite a juggling act. He had to keep the citizens, Congress, Churchill and Stalin happy or at least content. He was acting in good faith I feel to end the war the best way he could. I just don’t think he made the right decisions, but that’s easy to say more than fifty years latter.

        I took a survey of MTU students since college graduates are part of what I have heard called an educated elite. I asked five questions of twenty-three MTU students. The first question I asked was "Do you feel the dropping of the first two nuclear devices was justified?" There was no clear majority to any view on this matter but eleven of the respondents thought it was the right decision. The second question was also significant in that most of those that responded had no idea how many people died in the largest single instance of people killing each other. For the rest of the questions and more detailed answers look at the appendix at the end of the paper.

        These questions were intended to cause the people I surveyed think about this issue even though it is not a pleasant one. I believe it made at least one of them stop and think about this event. I hope that some of them will question their opinions and even mine and do some research on their own.
 
 

I took a limited survey among MTU students on the issues and facts of the bombing. I interviewed as many people as I could and I will give the variations to the answers to the best of my ability. I asked the following questions of 23 MTU Students.

1. Do you feel the dropping of the first two nuclear devices was justified?


The response to the first question was about what I had expected although there

was one response I found to be rather cynical even by my standards. That was the response that he didn’t know if the dropping was justified but thought that it was the easiest political solution. The responses to this question broke up in the following way.

Eleven students thought that dropping the two devices was the right thing to do. Four of those responding felt that the first device was called for the second one was not. There was a significant group that felt that dropping the devices period was wrong these seven people felt for the most part that using such a powerful weapon on civilians was wrong. The final and smallest group was not knowledgeable enough about the topic to have a form opinion there were two people in this category.

2. What do you think the combined casualties from the two cities were in the year following detonation?


The responses to this question appear to show a lack of knowledge about the

destruction our country caused by dropping the two devices. The responses to this question varied incredibly. The highest response I got was three million and the lowest was two thousand. The actual figure is approximately 250,000 deaths for the two cities while total United States death in all theaters was about 300,000 for military personnel.

3. Do you feel the United States Government should apologize for dropping the bomb?


On this question there can be no right or wrong answer unlike the last one. I will
just say that I feel that we should apologize for the second one at the very least and maybe the first one. The responders were some what varied in their opinions. The largest group felt that we should not apologize, any big surprise when you look at the response to the first answer. Thirteen of them felt that no apology was called for although one of them commented it was a little late now. The next largest group of eight people felt that an apology was called for. There were two who were undecided.

4. Do you know the name of the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb?


The responses to this question I feel to be unfortunate since it shows a clear lack of knowledge in an area I feel to be vital to modern world history. Fifteen of those responding could not answer this question.
 

5. Can you name the two cities the atomic bomb was dropped on?

Again I will say that I feel the bombing of the two cities was not needed to end the war even though I can see why President Truman might have thought so. I hope that this paper has made you the reader question your views as well. If it has, them I consider the paper a success no matter the grade since to me that was not the purpose of this paper. If you question some of my information please look it up for your self, and see.