The Bombing of Hiroshima Led to End the War in the Pacific

Hiroshima: Necessary Warnings

Bill Eckley
HIST560
4026624

“The final decision of where and when to use the atomic bomb was up to me. Let there be no mistake about it. I regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used.”1 –President Harry S. Truman

By the closing stages of the Second World War the Generals and Admirals had very little to do with how the war was to end. Truly the decision to drop the atomic bomb was a precipitous change in the Machiavellian relationship between war and politics. Before the generals and admirals were the experts in how to place their weapons to maximum effect making policies and doctrine based upon their initiative and insight from ‘in the field’ or ‘on the ground’. The employment of Atomic weapons though was new territory and the use and employment of said weapons proved to be political territory. The controversy surrounding this pivotal turning point in American global politics will continue to confuse and confound any and all who would attempt to plumb its depths for the proverbial ‘truth’ surrounding why the United States dropped not only one but two atomic bombs on Japan.

Time has done little to clarify the proverbial ‘truth’ of our leader’s motivations. Modern historians have many theories about what the deciding factors for dropping the bomb were. Most modern theories provided leave much to be desired and don’t offer the same feeling of substantive rightness that those closer in time to the event provide. Certainly a combination of many factors influenced the scales of decision President Truman used to decide on the best course of action. Unfortunately for historians much of the Manhattan project and the events of early 1945 were shrouded in secrecy for several decades. By the time archival documents had been released to the public the prevailing stories had been firmly set into the American historical perspective. This has led to deep dividing lines between some groups of historians with regards to this one decision to drop the bomb. These viewpoints I will generalize under three different titles; traditional interpreters, revisionists and middle grounders. Some may include another perspective in these titles, namely the Japanese perspective, however I would consider this subset as part of the revisionist group for reasons that should become apparent. The traditionalists perspective can be summed up as following; Truman felt that saving American lives and ending the war in the Pacific quickly was ultimately the most humane path.

“We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans. We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.”2 –President Harry S. Truman

While traditionalist historians admit the moral implications to the bombing Hiroshima they contend that Truman bombed the city in order to take a stand for ending the war in the Pacific. Truman stood up for American soldiers and against the transgressions of the Japanese. Furthermore that Truman used it as punishment against what he saw as the dastardly attack by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. The traditional argument stems from the belief that firstly the bomb was seen as a legitimate weapon. The leaders at the time felt that the bomb was simply a more powerful weapon. The political ramifications hadn’t been examined or critiqued amongst the world community. Necessarily the bombs development had been secret so open discourse concerning whether the bomb was legal had not been enacted. Unlike the restrictions against the use of Dum-Dum bullets or chemical weapons there was no precedent for restricting the use of the atomic bomb.

Traditionalists also contend that the decision to drop the bomb was carefully thought out. Pre-invasion estimates for the invasion of Honshu and Kyushu range anywhere from 40,000 to nearly 1 million American casualties. This part of the traditionalist viewpoint makes the use of the Atomic bomb seem like a bargain when viewed against the death of 250,000 Japanese military and civilian. A main point of secondary contention between the traditionalist and revisionist historians lie with this disparity of numbers.

The traditionalist perspective also maintains that there was no ‘true’ alternative to the use of the bomb was available in order to quickly end the war. The deeper meaning of this statement goes into the realm of potentials. This point is the main difference between the revisionist theoreticians and the traditionalists. The revisionists feel that Japan was on the brink of collapse and the atomic bomb was unnecessary. Traditionalists hold that Japan was, in the words of Truman – “savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic”3 The traditionalist may not all have such racist beliefs, however, the predominant way of thinking of the time led the U.S. to not believe reports of Japanese willingness to surrender. Traditionalist also maintain that the bomb was necessary for military purposes both because of the tremendous amount of effort and funds that went into producing it but also because of the lives that would be saved by forcing the surrender.

Revisionists as has been mentioned earlier believed that the use of the atomic bomb was unnecessary. They see dire motives being the primary movtives for Truman to drop the bomb. Among these assertions lay the belief that the casualty estimates were unnecessarily inflated to make the use of the bomb politically feasible to the American public. Some revisionists maintain that the use of the bomb was more of a political statement to the Soviets following the uneasy peace following the completion of the war in Europe. Revisionists believe that many of the relevant facts have been withheld from the public and hidden under a shroud of secrecy for this reason. Revisionists generally feel that the bomb was dropped on dates and in a drastic hurry in order to force a peace before the Soviets could enter the war and take guardianship of large areas of Asia. Revisionists also attempt to cast doubt on Trumans decision through interviews and biographies from other sources. Undoubtedly the debate that continues to this date will muddy relevant facts and draw modern historians into irrelevancies and needless debate. The following follows my attempts to draw the ‘truth’ from these contending viewpoints. I feel after my own research that I am more of a Middle grounder.

The early part of 1945 several events transpired which helped shape the context that Truman was to base his decision on. The United States was preparing to invade the Japanese homeland in an operation creatively named Operation Downfall. Truman’s advisors gave him just a few options to force the Japanese surrender; tightening the naval blockade with continued aerial bombardment, a negotiated peace, invasion, or the atomic bomb. The first two options were political dead ends for a war weary country. After the conclusion of the war in Europe the United States wanted a quick and decisive end to the war against Japan. A negotiated peace was also an option however, the Suicidal tactics employed by Japanese in defense of Okinawa and Iwo Jima served its intended purpose of convincing American planners that the Japanese resolve to fight had not been broken and that any attack of the Japanese homeland would be a bitter fight for every inch. The atomic weapon was another option and of the alternatives as the most attractive both politically and militarily. As has been mentioned before original estimates place casualty estimates at the low end 40,000 Americans. This estimate was obviously provided before intercepts and military analysis noticed that the Japanese had correctly guessed where the American invasion was to take place. It is logical to suspect that after that point and given the context of the determined and suicidal tactics that had recently occurred in Okinawa and Iwo Jima that the American casualties would be a magnitude greater.

Though Truman was the President who would be responsible for the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan the bombs development had started years before under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. At the outbreak of World War II Hungarian scientist Dr. Leo Szilard sent a letter to Albert Einstein. In this letter Szilard outlined the Nazi’s efforts to develop an atomic bomb.4 This letter subsequently led to the creation of a Top Secret military program Code Named S-1. This program more popularly known as the Manhattan Project was to become one of the largest scientific-industrial programs in history and one of the war’s most closely guarded secret. Though recent evidence points to the Soviets penetrating the program fairly early on. It is also interesting to note that the fact that the US was developing a Nuclear weapon was not lost upon the Japanese. This was drawn from the fact of the embargo by the US in the build up to the war of fissionable materials.5
The primary reason for the American rush to developing its own atomic weapon was fear… The fear was that Germany was developing its own atomic weapon. This fear was to prove to be unfounded due to German scientists inability to produce fissionable materials in sufficient quantity to produce a bomb.6 This fact, however, was undiscovered until after Germany’s surrender in 1945.
With the death of President Roosevelt in April of 1945 President Truman was faced with the necessity of achieving a Japanese surrender. At hand was the untested and unknown quantity of the atomic bomb. At the time of Roosevelt’s death only a few key military and civilian officials knew of the Manhattan Project. Once Truman was in office he was ‘read-in’ to the program. Henry Stimson, Secretary of War, and James F. Byrnes, Truman’s representative for atomic matters, kept President Truman informed of the developments of the project.

During this period of great achievement in the realm of nuclear physics there was hardening of Japanese resistance in the Pacific. Japanese units refused to surrender and continued to fight against overwhelming odds. During the battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima, American casualties were elevated to their greatest numbers. The Japanese defenses employed past experience and suicidal tactics to devastating effect. American planners were forced to plan for the worst as hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians were sent into defenses prepared throughout the south of the Japanese homeland. The planners estimated 250,000 casualties of American forces for any invasion of Japan. Doubtless the enemy military and civilian casualties added to the numbers of American dead played into the grim arithmetic that led to the decision to drop the bomb.

The atomic bomb was successfully tested on 16 July 1945 in New Mexico. With the dawning of the nuclear age Truman was given additional options, which could make an invasion unnecessary. The invasion plans of Kyushu still proceeded apace and the Big Three met at the Potsdam Conference. At the conference the leaders of the US, Great Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration calling for; the removal from power or influence those leaders which deceived and mislead the Japanese people into war, occupation of Japanese territory, cut back of Japanese territory limiting it to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and others, disarmament of Japanese military forces and war trials for war criminals. The sole mention of “unconditional surrender” was specified solely for the military forces mentioned at the end of the proclamation.

“We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.”7

The fact that the test for nuclear bomb occurred on the first day of the conference is a fact that is seldom noted and leads one to speculate about the full meaning of the last lines of the declaration. It has also been shown that with the successful test the US essentially told the Soviets that they were in possession of a new weapon which could devastate Japan. Japan had no clue what was coming its way and felt secure that the prompt part of their utter destruction was a ploy.

In the meantime the Japanese government attempted to negotiate with the Soviets to mediate a peace settlement, however the Japanese did not address the United States or any other of the participants of the Potsdam declaration. Whether the Japanese were attempting to call a bluff or buy time will remain unknown. That fact that they failed to deal directly with the signatories of the Potsdam agreement shows that the war was far from over. On 6 Aug 1945 all of Truman’s hopes for a negotiated peace before unleashing the weapon ended. The fact that Japan still refused to surrender 3 days later shows that indeed the Japanese were resolved to fight it out to the end. The second atomic bomb showed taught the Japanese the strength of Truman’s resolve.

Works Referenced
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