Why Did Harry Truman To Use The Atomic Bomb

Near the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman was faced with a difficult decision. He had to make a choice about what to do with Japan. Germany had surrendered to the Allies, but Japan kept fighting. Truman had to choose whether or not to invade Japan and drag the war on or use America’s new weapon, the atomic bomb, to end the war quickly. In 1938 two German scientists discovered how to split a uranium atom, which led to the creation of the atomic bomb. The U.S. used an international team of scientists, many of whom were Germans who had left their country because of the Nazis, to turn this discovery into a bomb. This was known as the Manhattan Project. They created three bombs and the first was tested successfully on July 16, 1945 in the New Mexico desert.

On August 6, 1945, the U.S. used their second atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Then on the morning of August 9, 1945, they dropped the last atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, Japan. The damage was devastating. More than 200,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki died immediately. However, many people suffered from injuries and radiation sickness. It’s impossible to know exactly how many people died from radiation. It is estimated that within 5 years, over 150,000 people died of radiation sickness in Hiroshima alone. Japan officially surrendered on September 2, 1945. If Truman hadn’t chosen to drop the bombs, the war could have dragged on for many years and millions of people could have died on both sides. Even though the damage in Japan was severe, hopefully it saved many lives in the