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Should The United States Have Dropped The Atomic Bomb Essay

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Should the United States Have Dropped the Atomic Bomb? On August 6, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress, Enola Gay, dropped an experimental bomb called Little Boy on Hiroshima. Three days later, the United States dropped another nuclear bomb on Nagasaki. The effects of these atomic bombs devasted Japan and forced a surrender from them ending World War 2. These atomic bombs, in the eyes of the United States during this time, looked like miracles from God, ending this tragedy of war and saving American citizens. Looking back at this decision in history, was saving ourselves and causing some much harm worth it? Did we need to kill so many innocent people, including children, to be a victor in a one-sided attack? The United States should have never dropped …show more content…

Many Japanese citizens died from these attacks. There was no warning, and Japan lacked enough bomb shelters. "Tokyo only had 18 concentrate air raid shelters. Each could hold 5,000. This meant the that the city could shelter 90,000 people out of a population of 4.3 million citizens." (HIST 123 Atomic Bomb Ethics) These attacks killed many people who did nothing wrong but lived in Japan. The United States lacked empathy for Japanese citizens and violated their life and security rights. "It was characteristic of Marshall that while others were celebrating the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Gen. Groves recalled that "General Marshall expressed his feeling that we should guard against too much gratification over our success because it undoubtedly involved a large number of Japanese casualties." (General George C. Marshall) Our generals thought that these bombs created too many casualties and that we should not find these bombs a successful end to war. It left people homeless and without …show more content…

The United States was worried about the Soviet Union stepping in and helping the fight against Japan; The United States wanted to deal with Japan on its own and not have other nations' opinions conflict with them. President Truman used this as one of his justifications for wanting to end the war so quickly with these bombs. Dropping these bombs, however, set a precedent for nuclear warfare. "Szilard was one of the main authors of the Franck Report in June 1945. This report warned that even if the a-bomb helped save lives in this war, the a-bomb's use could lead to a nuclear arms race and, possibly, a nuclear war that would take far more lives than however many might be saved in the current war." (Leo Szilard) This precedent led to atomic bombs being feared in the

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