Harry Truman Atomic Bomb Decision Reflective Essay

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The Reflective Essay

President Harry Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan during World War II

Introduction

The United States remains the only country in the world that has ever made use of an atomic weapon against another country during a war. In 1945 the U.S. bombed two Japanese cities – Hiroshima and Nagasaki – in what effectively informed the surrender of Japan during World War II. It is important to note that over time, the use of an atomic bomb by the U.S. against Japan has been debated widely. Was the U.S. justified in the deployment of the atomic bombs? What escalated the wartime circumstances to dangerous levels, and could the massive devastation that came about as a consequence be prevented? These are some of the questions that scholars have grapples with on this front. This text revisits the debate and highlights President Harry Truman's decision to drop atomic the bombs on Japan.

Discussion

According to Takaki (1996), the U.S. commenced the development of atomic weapons in 1940. It was not until 1945 that an atomic device was tested at a New Mexico test site. The test was successful, effectively meaning that the U.S. was now armed with a bomb whose destructive force was devastating and unlike any explosive device developed thus far. It should be noted that at the time of the test, WWII was still ongoing. However, Germany had already been defeated by Allied forces, but despite indications of being vanquished in the long-term, Japan had decided to soldier on in the Pacific. In July 1945, Allied powers made a surrender demand to Japan which was promptly turned down (Takaki, 1996). It was clear that Japan had decided to fight to the bitter end. According to the National Park Service, which falls under the U.S. Department of the Interior, there were four decisions that President Truman had under the circumstances.

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The first decision was to continue pounding Japanese cities with conventional bombs (National Park Service, 2016). According to Miscamble (2011), General Douglas MacArthur, the Army Commander in Chief in the Pacific, was in favor of a sustained conventional bombing campaign in Japan. It is however important to note that although Japan would incur heavy losses in this sustained bombing campaign, the casualties on the U.S. side were also expected to be significant. According to the National Park Service (2016), as Truman quipped later on, “despite their heavy losses at Okinawa and the firebombing of Tokyo, the Japanese refused to surrender…” Meanwhile, casualties were piling up on both sides. It is highly unlikely that Japan would consider surrendering even after some heavy pounding by way of conventional bombing.

The second option available to President Truman was an invasion of Japan. Towards this end, “the United States could launch a traditional ground invasion of the Japanese home islands” (National Park Service, 2016). Like the conventional bombing campaign, this is an exercise that could have taken a lot of time and resources. Further, the number of U.S. casualties could have been very high. As a matter of fact, Truman was advised that such a move would most likely “be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population” (National Park Service, 2016). It should also be noted that given that Japan had so far refused to surrender despite there being clear signs of certain defeat in the long-term, there were no guarantees that ground invasion would motivate surrender. In that regard, therefore, this was largely an impractical option.

Third, President Truman also had the option of dropping the atomic bomb in an uninhabited or sparsely populated area….....

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References

Miscamble, W.D. (2011). The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

National Park Service (2016). Harry S Truman’s Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/articles/trumanatomicbomb.htm

Takaki, R. (1996). Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb. New York, NY: Little Brown.

Wainstock, D. (1996). The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.

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