I think Source G is more useful because it explains the Americans motives for dropping the bomb and it is not biased because it is a cartoon by the British who are allied with the US. Also the source is not said by President Truman who is responsible for the dropping of the bomb and would try and justify the dropping of the bomb was necessary like in Source A.
2.Source H is by Admiral Leahy writing in his memoirs in 1950 saying that he felt the dropping of the bomb was unnecessary and the Japanese were already defeated but the Japanese still had not agreed to getting rid of their Emperor. But if he had been strongly against the dropping of the bombs he would have advised President Truman not to drop the bomb especially since he was President Truman’s Chief Advisor or if this still hadn’t worked he could have resigned. You could say that he might be saying this now because he now knows 5 years later the long-term effect of the Atomic bombs like radiation sickness, cancer etc. I slightly agree with this interpretation because the Japanese were already defeated and it was just a matter of time before they would capitulate, because of the effective sea blockade and successful bombing with ordinary weapons. But you could also say because the US did not know the long-term effects then like radiation sickness they thought the bomb would end the war and end loss of lives for the US since they had lost 1000’s of lives because the Japanese fought more ferociously as the US neared Japan. The US also expected more lives to be lost if they continued to fight and did not drop the bombs.
3. I think the dropping of the bombs can be morally and militarily justified but I think there could have been some cases were the bomb could have been avoided. The Japanese were told that they must unconditionally surrender and to get rid of their Emperor as it says in source A. It also says in the first ultimatum sent to the Japanese to accept the ultimatum to spare them from the utter destruction but it is rejected by the Japanese leaders. Now if the US had dropped the bombs and got rid of the Japanese Emperor you could say they were doing this because they knew the Japanese would not surrender but they do not and this is backed up by Source G because their it says that the US press receive news that the Japanese were considering to negotiate but this news is put aside and the bomb is dropped.
We also know that the Japanese are very reluctant to surrender because they train children under the age 15 and they send Kamikaze pilots to blow up ships in the process killing themselves. Therefore the first bomb can morally justified in order to make them surrender because as we know the Japanese are very reluctant to surrender, also the US want the end of the war to come as soon as possible because they felt that to many lives were being lost while they were island hopping towards Japan, but you can say the second bomb was unnecessarily cruel because the Japanese were willing to surrender after the horrendous effects of the first bomb and the second bomb just made matters even worse in Japan as you can see in Sources D+E were everything has been totally obliterated and no houses are left. The effect of these bombs can not be justified as you look at the figures of death for e.g. the bomb on Hiroshima caused 80,000 deaths at the time of the bomb but this figure rises to 138,890 as a result of radiation sickness.
Another way the bomb is morally justified is the fact that the horrific things the US had seen in some the camps that had been liberated by the US and what they had seen happening to fellow Americans and British Troops, and these would have been atrocious sights since giving up was seen as sinful in Japan. They would have seen this as a chance for revenge for the suffering of fellow Americans in camps and what the Japanese had done to them at Pearl Harbour and they would have wanted revenge on the people who did this as in the generation alive at the time but little did they know that the dropping of the bomb would continue into the years to follow due to radiation sickness as is said in source C by the Hiroshima City Council that the effects should last only on the generation alive at the time, but this is still wrong because the bomb would vaporise innocent people at the time who had nothing to do with this war, but the effects should not continue 20 years later and more.
You could also say that they did not need to drop the bomb because the Japanese had already been defeated due to the effective sea blockade and successful bombing as said in Source H and as we can see in Source B the Atomic Bomb was not as effective as Fire bombs.
It can be militarily justified because you could say that they needed to the end the war quickly because their projected loss of invading Japan was 1,000,000 deaths and since the Japanese refused to surrender you could have said it could have been necessary to drop the bombs but as said in Source H the bombs could have been avoided because Japan were ready to capitulate.
Another way it can be militarily justified is that the US did not want the Russians to enter the war since the Russians had promised to help and the US did not want Communist Russia gaining influence over the east and therefore they wanted the war ended before the Russians had a chance to enter and therefore thought that the dropping of the Atomic bomb would end the war sooner.
Finally another way it cannot be militarily justified is that the US wanted to demonstrate its power by blowing Hiroshima to pieces in effect saying “look at us we have the Atomic Bombs” this is proven in source G because the US know that the Japanese want to surrender but they do not take this into account and continue with their plans to destroy Hiroshima. Also instead of trying the bomb in the middle of the Arizona Desert to see its effects without people they want to see what it can do so they use Japan as a test dummy and as an excuse to test this powerful bomb.
I finally conclude that in some ways it can be militarily and morally justified but in some ways it can’t for e.g. it can be justified to drop the bomb because the Japanese are very reluctant to surrender and the US are losing too many lives but dropping another bomb after the first totally obliterated an entire city and caused so many deaths and radiation is just wrong and had no effect on the war because Japan was already ready to surrender.
Zoheb Hussain
