Pros And Cons Of Bombing Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki

From 1939 to 1945 World War Two (WW2) ravaged the world, causing horrendous amounts of death and destruction. During the tail-end of the war, after Germany’s surrender, war still raged on in the Pacific; more specifically on the islands of Japan, which eventually lead up to the United States (U.S.) dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although the dropping of the atomic bombs in Japan caused inconceivable amounts of terror and suffering for years to come which potentially could have been avoided by alternative methods, the use of them was justified and may have saved hundred of thousands of lives. In 1939, information leaked through various sources that German scientists had discovered a method to …show more content…
Not only did they cause widespread instantaneous death, they also caused radiation sickness and many people on the outskirts of the blast developed cancer, meaning that the bombs caused huge amounts of suffering which cannot be described by a death toll. Radiation sickness has numerous negative effects including nausea, headaches, bleeding, hair loss and extreme levels of fatigue. To make matters worse, while Hiroshima was technically a “military” settlement there were massive amounts of civilian deaths caused by the bomb, and there is no question the Nagasaki was a civilian targeted bombing (which was happening anyway throughout the war but was still frowned upon by many). There is also the question as to whether the nuclear bombs were really necessary to end the war. Japan had already been defeated, and messages of them asking for peace with the Russians had been intercepted. Although the Japanese had rejected unconditional surrender, it was clear that Hirohito (Japanese Emperor) knew the Japanese could not win and were willing to negotiate peace, even though this was considered dishonorable by many Japanese generals and soldiers. Because of this, it seemed like the bombs were just adding insult to injury, especially since the surrender terms agreed upon by the U.S. and Japan were nearly identical to the ones Japan had proposed earlier, which was allowing Japan to continue to have an Emperor. This is because, in Japanese culture, the Emperor was basically seen as a deity and had the U.S. gotten rid of the Emperor many Japanese citizens may have committed suicide, mainly because they would feel a lack of purpose in their life. It is also possible that the bombs were dropped on Japan because of racism. At the time, people were extremely racist towards Japanese and barely even saw them as humans. This meant that