"But Teacher Mark! It is a fact that the Japanese had already surrendered to the Communist Eighth Route Army of China. America put the bomb on Japan to make the world think that America was the... the..." (54).
How did World War II actually end?
According to Mother Jones, the necessity behind America dropping bombs on Japan to end World War II is very controversial, but this does not include the idea that the Japanese had surrendered to the Chinese Communist Party. The debate about how world War II ended is between the people who think that the bombs were necessary for Japan to surrender, and the people who think Japan would've surrendered anyway because they were already doomed (with the Allied forces/some of the world's most powerful countries against it). This, along with some decoded messages between Japanese diplomats proving they were ready to end the war, that Harry Truman (President of the US at the time) was aware of , could have made a negotiation possible before bombs were brought into the equation.
Also, according to the Encyclopedia of China, China was in the midst of a Civil War between the Communists and Nationalists, which made it difficult to fight against Japan. The quote (at top) shows that since the Communist Party now controls China, they probably changed the facts to make themselves look better and gain support from the people, because what's a better way to gain popularity than by being successful?
When Harry Truman dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, it killed nearly 80,000 people and flattened four miles of cities, and then three days later the US dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, which killed 40,000 more people. Tens of thousands more died from radiation poisoning and lack of resources in the following weeks. Although this may have resulted in a quicker end to the war, it certainly didn't save any lives, as Mark Salzman argued that it did. Probably a million people died from the bombs and in the next years, poverty and radiation poisoning killed many many more. This was sooo unnecessary in the grand scheme of things, especially if what Chloe said about the coded letters discussing Japan's surrender is true.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, we did not need to drop atomic bombs on Japan - it killed tons of people and some believe that there are still repercussions of that act today - that it is hurting our chances of finding world peace and Japan has difficulty trusting the United States.
Research done on "This Day in History" from the History Channel website.
I completely agree!
DeleteActually, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was crucial to a Allied victory in the east. After the brutal fighting on Okinawa, where 98% of Japans 115,000 soldiers fought to the death, the US sought a way to deal a death blow to Japanese morale and also minimize the amount of US casualties. By May 8th, 1945, Germany had already surrendered to the Allied powers, but Japan was determined to fight to the death, sacrificing millions of civilian lives if necessary. There were only two invasion points on the Japanese mainland, and the Japanese military was prepared for an all out defense, with all available military units and conscripted civilians forced to fight. Estimates for allied causalities were in the millions. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki only killed 200,000 people. The death tole wasn't the important part though, bombing Japan with nuclear weaponry sent a message to the Japanese. The message was basically, we have bombs that can destroy entire cities, can you possibly hope to defeat us?
ReplyDeleteThe bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima ended the last conflict of WWII, instead of the pacific campaign dragging out for another two years as the US fought tooth and nail to occupy Japan. Today, Japan and the US are close allies, both militarily, economically, and socially. Saying that Japan has difficulty trusting the US is like saying that Israel still mistrusts Germany (which they don't).
Okay but what if they used fire bombs, which could have killed the same amount of people but without the lasting damage from radiation? Also you didn't cite your source for the number of deaths and I did, so I think I'm right because you could have just pulled that out of the air.
DeleteYes it did send a strong message to Japan, but I think that the same message could have been sent with a different type of bomb.
I think, and Ms. K. agrees with me, that the reason the US dropped the bombs on Japan was because we wanted to see what they could do. It was, despite being an impressive display of fire power, completely unnecessary.
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Delete"Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki" ^ "Timeline #2 – the 509th; The Hiroshima Mission". The Atomic Heritage Foundation.
DeleteI took the average of both death estimates and came up with around 200,000. Fire bombs were in fact used to destroy targets in Japan, the most famous being the Fire bombing of Tokyo, which left over 100,000 dead immediately, over 1 million wounded, and 26.2% of Tokyo destroyed. By 1945 Japans loss of the war was inevitable, the and in 2007 Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo apologized in print, acknowledging that the Japanese government should have surrendered when they knew they would lose the war, doing so would have prevented both the fire bombing of Tokyo and the nuclear bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Bradley, F. J. No Strategic Targets Left. "Contribution of Major Fire Raids Toward Ending WWII"
The planned ground invasion of Japan (which was cancelled because of Japans surrender after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) code name Operation Downfall was estimated to result in 500,000 american deaths, and an estimated 8-10 million Japanese deaths. Because Japan surrendered to the US before a ground invasion was ordered, over 8 million lives were saved, and the war against Japan ended at least a year earlier then it would have if Operation Downfall had taken place.
Frank, Richard B. (1999). Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire