Was the dropping of the A bombs justified? The year is 1945 in the city of Hiroshima, on the 6th of august. The whole city is packed

On July 16th 1945 at 5:30 in the morning in the New Mexico Desert, history was being made. The first ever atomic bomb was being let off. The Americans had made the most powerful weapon the world had ever seen. President Harry Truman, who had only been president for three months, had to make the decision whether to use the bomb in an act of war or not. America and Britain were struggling in the war for the pacific and the Japanese were not going to surrender easily. America and Britain had lost substantial numbers of troops. At that time the decision may have seemed simple at the time because the allies were just finding out about the terrible things that the Japanese were doing to the allied prisoners of war. One P.O.W wrote in his book about his time in Japan that “these bombs saved many more lives than the tens of thousands that they killed. They saved the lives tens of thousands of prisoners of war, hundreds of thousands of allied servicemen and almost certainly the lives of millions of Japanese.”

This extract would suggest that this P.O.W was in favour of the atom bomb.  However, the effects of the bomb were so terrible that we must ask why Truman decided to use it. Was this the only option Truman had? After all, there is evidence to suggest that the war was almost won. There is also new evidence that the Japanese had been trying to surrender since 1944. Truman could have dropped his insistence on unconditional surrender and agreed to allow Emperor Hirohito to stay on the throne.  The Japanese would have surrendered and Truman would not have had to resort to the bomb. But then the awesome power of the bomb would not have been demonstrated. So Truman may have decided to use the atomic bomb as a warning to the USSR. The images of the devastation caused by the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are shocking. We cannot imagine the suffering of those who died and survived the blasts. For a moment the world stood back speechless. Then the press in the USA and later Britain portrayed the bombing of "a military base at Hiroshima" and of Nagasaki as positive acts which had brought the war in the Pacific to a more rapid conclusion. It was argued that the main strategic alternative to the atom bomb, US occupation of Japan, would have been infinitely more costly in terms of lives, war materials and time. In the USA, memories of the "infamous" Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor meant that there was little sympathy for the Japanese as the war they had started was brought to a devastating conclusion. The world had judged Truman and concluded that he did the right thing. However, more evidence has emerged. There is evidence that the Japanese had tried to surrender several times but that their offer had been rejected. Doubts have crept in. Did Truman really have no option but to use the atomic bomb? Or was he prepared to use this phenomenal weapon to prove something to the world. Quite frankly I don’t think it is possible to tell which it was. The boost the war effort or the mans ego?

And Finally to the conclusion my original hypothesis that Truman was wrong to drop the bombs may have been correct but not for the reasons that I put. Now I believe that If Truman sincerely wanted to end the war he would have accepted the Japanese offers of surrender. The Fact that he didn’t showed that he has no respect of human life. Over 40,000 men, women and children were killed by quite possibly his rash, selfish actions. On the other hand if the Japanese hadn’t offered to surrender then maybe he did the only thing he thought was right.