Atomic Bomb Dbq

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There are several reasons the atomic bomb was necessary to use against Japan towards the end of the Pacific War / World War II. The first most obvious reason was retaliation against Japan’s surprise attack on the United States Naval Base Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. The bombing of Pearl Harbor left the United States with over 2,400 military casualties and 20 destroyed or damaged ships. The attack on Pearl Harbor was one of the sole reasons the United States had declared war on Japan. With the war with Japan still raging on by 1945, United States began closing in on the homeland of Japan. Two missions, Operation Torch and Operation Coronet, or together deemed Operation Downfall was the codename for the land invasion of Japan that would …show more content…
The first most being that it’s use was extremely inhumane and unnecessary, seeing as how it killed about 100,000 Japanese civilians in total. The death toll of Japanese civilians in the war were already high following the fire bombing raids on Tokyo that left 100,000 civilians scorched to death. Many American military leaders, such as General MacArthur and General Eisenhower, did not agree with the use of the atomic bombs on civilians. Following the Potsdam Conference of July 1945, the Soviet Union agreed to declare war on Japan. This decision heavily impacted the rest of Japan’s military capabilities and choices. After the Soviet Union’s invasion of Japanese occupied Manchuria, the Japanese Supreme War Council had begun to vote on the action of surrendering. For this reason, the atomic bomb’s use on Nagasaki and Hiroshima was not needed. Japan would have surrendered sooner than the end of the year. Another reason the atomic bombs were not needed to be used were that Japan’s refusal to surrender was only due in part to the Potsdam Declaration's statement that Japan’s Emperor Hirohito step down from his throne. Evidently, after Japan’s ultimate official surrender on September 2nd, 1945, the Emperor Hirohito was allowed to keep his monarchical position thus proving that the use of the atomic bombs were only barbaric vengeance by the United States. They would have been completely unnecessary had the Allied forces given this same proposition to Japan before the use of the atomic bombs on August 6th and August

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