Hiroshima And Nagasaki: Necessary Or Justified?

Every year when the anniversaries of the U.S bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki come around, Americans begin to ask themselves was it a right to bomb Japan in August 1945. The first explosion on Hiroshima nearly destroyed about four square miles of the city injuring roughly 40,000 people and killing another 90,000. A couple days later the second bomb on Nagasaki murdered about 37,000 and wounded another 43,000. Both of the bombs killed around 200,000 civilians. It seems every year farther away from that horrible event, we begin to think were we wrong? 1945, during the war Americans encouraged the bombing; Decades later that is not the case. Should America apologize for the use of the nuclear bombs? My answer is yes, Japan was already defeated …show more content…
In Tokyo the Foreign Minister of Japan Mamoru Shigemitsu met with Swedish ambassador asking what peace terms do the British and Americans have in mind and that they are willing to negotiate as long as the emperor is not to be touched. The message was delivered to the United States but Stettinius the Secretary of State at the time told the Ambassador of the U.S to show no interest or do not take any pursuit of the matter.

In July the United States had seized a message from Togo to the Japanese, revealing that the Emperor of Japan himself personally was working on the peace effort. Japan were going to accept nearly any peace offer as long as it is not turning in their beloved Emperor. The Japanese were afraid that the Americans would disgrace the Emperor, or even put him to death. These messages that were intercepted show as real evidence that the japanese were trying and desiring to get out of the …show more content…
Truman the United States president during the time continued to defend his use of the atomic bomb by saying that it saved millions of lives by bringing the war to an end. The questions is, how can you end a war that was already ended in the first place? Truman went so far that he even lied about the bombing declaring according to ihr.org “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.” It is ironic because almost all of the victims of the bombing were civilians. Later on when a bombing report was released it shows that Nagasaki and Hiroshima were chosen as targets because of their population rate and activities. According to historyextra.com Henry Stimson scretary of war was not sure the bombs were needed to reduce the need of an invasion. According to the antimedia.org General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Comander of Allied Forces in the Pacific stated “ it was completely unnecessary from a military point of view the Japenese were already