On the 6th of August 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of
Hiroshima,1ushering in the nuclear age. The bomb caused the deaths of over 100,000 people,2with …show more content…
The invasion of
Iwo Jima and Okinawa resulted in severe casualties, yet the Allies heard no talk of negotiations.
Joseph C.Grew, who was the former Ambassador to Japan believed, through ‘intimate experience with the Japanese thinking and psychology over an extensive period’18 that regardless of military defeat, it would be highly unlikely that Japan would of their own initiative surrender. Additionally,
Historian Barton Bernstein wrote ‘ no one who looks at intransigence of the Japanese militarists should have full confidence in any other strategy (apart from the A bomb), 19which affirms
Truman’s decision that it was necessary in order to bring the war to a quick end. Furthermore, The
American public was overwhelmingly behind the atomic bombing of Japan, with the bomb receiving an 85% approval 20rating, proving that within the context of the disaster, it was not considered to be as controversial as it is with the power of hindsight.
From analysing the arguments for and against the US decision to drop the A bomb on Hiroshima …show more content…
2. H.Truman, Memoir: Year of Decisions, Garden City 1955
3. H.L.Stimson, M.Bundy, On Active Service in peace and War, Harper and Brothers, New
York 1948
4. D.Eisenhower, The white house years: Mandate for change 1953-1956, Garden City 1963
5. W.D.Leahy, I was there, Whittlesey House, New York 1950
6. J.C.Grew, Turbulent Era: A diplomatic Record of forty years 1904-1945, Hougton Mifflin
Company 1952
7. H.L.Stimson, The decision to use the Atomic Bomb, week 13 reading
8. K.Doak, Nationalism in Modern Japan, Koninklike 2007,
9. E.Cannizzaro, The Law of Treaties beyond the Vienna Convention, Oxford
10. E.P.Hoyt, University Press 2011,Japans war: The Great Pacific Conflic, Random House
1971
11. D.D.Wainstock, The Decision to drop the Atomic Bomb, Prager Publishers, 1996
12. G. Alperovitz, The Decision to drop the Bomb, Vintage Books 1996
Articles
1. Barton J. Bernstein, A post war myth, 50000 U.S lives saved, Bulliten of Atomic Scientists, vol 3 no.9
2. John W. Dower, Unconditional Surrender at the Smithsonian, Week 13 Reading
3. L.Morton, Decision to use the Atomic bomb, Foreign Affairs, 1956
Website
1.The project of the Nuclear Age Peace foundation.org