Dropping The Atom Bomb
Probably the two “strongest” arguments of those who criticized the dropping of the atom bomb were that 1) the quantity of Japanese lives lost were much greater in comparison to the potential American lives. 2) The Japanese were losing and thus would soon inevitably surrender. Therefore they claim, Americans using the bomb and killing thousands of civilians was both immoral and unjustifiable.
While on the surface these arguments might seem to have some substance, in truth they don’t. Let us deal with and disprove each argument separately. The second argument claiming Japan was ready to surrender was absolutely ridiculous and untrue. While Japan might have been losing at the time that the bomb was dropped, they were certaintly/still not ready to surrender. To Japan the idea/concept of losing and that of surrendering were completely different and unconnected. And that is proven by a number of things:
According to Japanese research Japan knew by January 1944 that they were losing and were not going to win the war. However, Japan remarkably continued heavy fighting till the dropping of the atom bomb. President Truman notes that in the 3 months since he took office which in turn was the last 3 months before the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attack, Japan had killed 15000 Americans in the Pacific half of the total 30000 killed during the rest of the 3 years of war! The nearer victory came the higher the price in blood.
Japan was no ordinary country. While in Europe when a soldier found himself in a (deadly) compromising position he would most likely surrender, the opposite however, was true for the Japanese. As a captain in Military Intelligence remembered: “We had only too abundant evidence in those days that surrender was excluded from the Japanese ethos.”
Thousands of American Marines and soldiers died rooting Japanese from their foxholes and bunkers – for even while the Japanese...
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