History of Event

     After the war in Europe ended with Nazi Germany surrendering, the war in the Pacific continued. The United States, along with the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, called for a surrender of Japan with the Potsdam Declaration in July of 1945. The Japanese ignored the U.S.'s request so the United States started the Manhattan Project to create the Atomic Bomb to attack Japan during World War II. On August 6, 1945, American soldiers dropped the "Little Boy" bomb on Hiroshima. The bomb destroyed two thirds of the city and took out 60,000 of the 90,000 buildings. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, the Fat Man bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Forty percent of the city was destroyed, killing 40,000 people. Within the first couple of months the affects of the bomb killed about 100,000 people in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki. Six days after the bombing, Japan surrendered to the Allies when they signed the Instrument of Surrender on September 2nd, 1945.

Work Cited

1) Lewis H., Chris. (2002). Debating the American Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/atomic.htm 


2) Oh, Jung. Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Decision to Drop the Bomb. http://www.umich.edu/~historyj/pages_folder/articles/Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki.pdf 


3) Wikipedia. (28 February 2012). Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki


4) Museum of World War II (2012)
http://www.museumofworldwarii.com/TourText/Area16a_AtomicBomb_new.htm


5) Swanson, David (2006, June 8) 
http://warisacrime.org/node/11627

Who Done It

Mattie Jones: Ending the War in the Pacific, Introduction, and Evidence for Thesis

Diana Hall: Photo Gallery, Work Cited Page, and Who Done It

Evidence for Thesis

     No other event in World War II stirred up as much controversy as the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Pacific campaigns from 1944 to 1945 served as legitimate proof that Japanese would fight until the death. In president Truman said that the bombing saved half a million U.S. lives. Any alternate plans were risky compared to simply dropping the bomb. In the after math of Hiroshima, the bomb didn't raise ethical issues for policy makers of the American people. Whether it be in the number of American lives saved in a potential invasion of the island or in shaping the geopolitical structure of the post war era.

Photo Gallery and Media Archive

Explosions from Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Little Boy, the first bomb dropped on Hiroshima, weighed about 9,000 pounds and had a yield approximating 15,000 tons of high explosives.

Planes flying over Japan moments after dropping the Atomic Bomb

This is Hiroshima 8 months after detonation of the atomic bomb. It is a clear representation of what could happen when man forgets how to treat each other on a global scale.

White House press release, "Statement by the President of the United States”

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/small/mb10.htm

This is a press release given by the White House given from then-president Harry Truman to the American people explaining the dropping of the first bomb along with our clear intent and direction.

Radio Address to the American People After the Signing of the Terms of Unconditional Surrender by Japan

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/audio/players/play.php?aud=../mp3s/japansurrender.mp3

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/calendar/viewpapers.php?pid=129 (written transcript)

The first link given here is a 100% original radio broadcast given by President Truman acknowledging the surrender of Japan. In simple terms, the war ended after we dropped the bombs.

Telegram, Richard Russell to Harry S. Truman, August 7, 1945. Official File, Truman Papers

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/index.php?documentdate=1945-08-07&documentid=8&studycollectionid=abomb&pagenumber=1

This is a letter from the U.S senator to the President stating that he supports Truman bombing Japan until they surrender.

This is a letter from one of the pilots that dropped the bomb saying he received an award for doing this. We give awards to heroes, if we had thought dropping the bomb was a bad thing then we would have not awarded him.

This leaflet was released in Nagasaki after the first dropping of the bomb in Hiroshima, but before the second bomb was dropped. The intent was to warn the civilians of another destructive bomb that was on the way.

This is a document that should never be reproduced by any country. It is the green light of the operation to drop the first bomb on Hiroshima. This one document is a symbol of complete and utter annihilation.

Was written in Tennessee the day after Hiroshima bomb was dropped. This is another example of the Untied States' clear intent to further bomb Japan into surrender. Even if this was meant to gain public support it could be assumed that the gov. already had it.

This was the U.S. government telling people that the dropping of nuclear weapons would bring about a shorter war, lessening the loss of life on both sides.

Here is three poems by Sankichi Toge, that depicts a global awareness for peace after the use of the first bomb. this might have not been achieved if the bomb wasn't used.

Through yellow smoke whirling into light

Buildings split, bridges collapsed

Crowded trams burnt as they rolled about

Hiroshima, all full of boundless heaps of embers

Soon after, skin dangling like rags

With hands on breasts

Treading upon the spilt brains

Wearing shreds of burnt cloth round their loins

There came numberless lines of the naked

all crying.

Bodies on the parade ground, scattered like

jumbled stone images

Crowds in piles by the river banks

loaded upon rafts fastened to shore

Turned by and by into corpses

under the scorching sun

How can I forget that stillness

Prevailing over the city of three hundred thousand?

Amidst that calm

How can I forget the entreaties

Of the departed wife and child

Through their orbs of eyes

Cutting through our minds and souls?

Ending the War in the Pacific

     The United States was justified in dropping the atomic bombs on Japan because the Japanese were warned ahead of time and the bombs ultimately ended the war in the Pacific. After months before the bombing, Japan refused to resign any power and prepared every man, woman, and child to fight till death. The pride of the Japanese proved there was no possibility of a surrender. President Truman needed some method which he found in the atomic bomb and he believed it to be the only way to end the war quickly with the fewest American casualties. The only other option would be a military invasion of the Japanese mainland, which would result with a million American casualties, as well as Japanese. Dropping the atomic bomb was the only solution that would end the war, force the Japanese to surrender, and save the most American and Japanese lives.