Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb

Truman and the Use of Atomic Bomb

The atomic bomb has only been used twice against the human population; both times by the U.S. when it dropped the dreaded weapon on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki towards the end of World War II. The decision to drop the bomb, made by the U.S. President, Harry Truman, resulted in over 100,000 deaths and almost total destruction of the two cities. Since that time a debate has raged about the necessity and morality of using the bomb. The "traditionalists" are of the view that the use of the bomb was justified since it resulted in a prompt Japanese surrender; thus saving the lives of a large number of Americans who would have inevitably died if the War had continued. The "revisionists," on the hand, contend that President Truman had entirely different motives for using the bomb such as impressing the Soviet Union in a forthcoming Cold War. In my opinion, although there may have been a number of reasons for the decision, the desire to end the war quickly was undoubtedly the over-riding one. Consider:

There is no doubt that the Japanese were on the verge of almost total defeat by early August 1945. However, they still showed no signs of surrendering and Japan's military leaders continued to express a fanatical resolve to fight on. During the American invasion of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in previous months, the Japanese had fought almost to the last man, and despite suffering immensely, had also inflicted terrible casualties on the American forces. This was a clear indication that a land invasion of the Japanese mainland by the U.S. forces would result in much greater casualties. It is, therefore, quite evident that once the atomic bomb had been developed by the Americans, using the terrible weapon to end the War was probably the more humane option as it saved more lives than it ended.

Some revisionist historians contend that the Japanese would have ultimately sued for peace and surrendered if the conventional "fire-bombings" of its cities had continued; hence the use of the atomic bombs by the U.S. was unnecessary. This may be partially true, but no one should lose sight of the fact that the fire-bombings had resulted in more civilian deaths than the total numbers killed as a result of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For example, on a single night (March 9, 1945) of such a conventional bombing raid over Tokyo, more than 100,000 Japanese civilians were killed and one million were injured. In raids over other cities during the next nine days, 150,000 more Japanese deaths occurred ("Truman, the Bomb, and What was Necessary," 1995). Moreover, after the end of the War in Europe, over a thousand B-29 bombers were now available for bombing the Japanese cities, which made even more intense bombing possible. We can only imagine the devastation and casualties continued fire-bombing of Japan would have caused before the Japanese were forced to surrender; it would be certainly greater than the damage caused by the atomic bombs. Other "conventional" measures to force a surrender, such as naval blockade of the Japanese ports -- that was in place in mid-1945 -- were likely to cause further suffering for the civilian population including starvation due to food shortages.

A point-of-view has also been put forward that secret Japanese radio messages intercepted and decoded by the U.S. during the summer of 1945 had indicated that the Japanese were ready to surrender; that the War could have been ended, if the U.S. had responded by offering the retention of the Japanese Imperial Monarchy instead of insisting on unconditional surrender. Further research on the decoded messages, however, indicate that the militarists still dominated the power hierarchy in Japan and they were willing to fight to the bitter end, despite their precarious military position. They were depending on the war-wariness of the Americans. Their theory being that the United States was unwilling to bear more casualties and any major setback to the American forces during a planned invasion of the Japanese mainland would improve Japan's bargaining position and obtain a peace agreement. In other words, the Japanese military leaders were only agreeable to a ceasefire and unwilling to consider surrender. They wanted to retain the militarist policies of the government and with the hawks dominating the corridors of power, there were no chances of an early end to the War in August of 1945. It was only the shock of the devastating power of the atomic bombs, which broke the hold of the militarists over the Japanese government and enabled the doves to consider surrender (Wainstock, 1996, pp. 44-57; Frank, 2005)