Warmup 26-21. Why does Truman want to use the Atomic Bomb?

2. Why was Hiroshima chosen?

3. How did Japan react to the dropping of the bomb?

4. What is instantly destroyed in Nagasaki?

5. What is Truman hoping for and why?

Objective: Was dropping the atomic bomb to end World War II justified?

Did Japan commit war crimes during WWII?Did Japan commit war crimes during WWII?

Rape of Nanking (300,000 civilians killed)

Pearl Harbor (2,300 military killed) Bataan Death March (1,600 POWS die)

YES!NO!

YES!

Pros & Cons of dropping the Atomic Bomb

The two targeted cities would have been firebombed anyway

Firebombing not as bad as the radiation from an atomic bomb

Japanese showed fanatical resistance and wanted to fight to the death, including kamikazes

Japan was ready to call it quits. Home islands were being blocked so they couldn’t get anything

Invasion of Japan would have caused more casualties than the death toll at Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Those deaths would have mostly been military and not civilian

The bomb's use impressed Soviet Union enough that they did not demand joint occupation of Japan

Civilian were sacrificed simply for power politics between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

For Against

When the bomb fell, I was 15 years old. At the girls' junior high school. I saw something shining in the clear blue sky. I wondered what it was, so I stared at it. As the light grew bigger, the shining thing got bigger as well. And at the moment when I spoke to my friend there was a flash, It exploded right in front of my eyes. There was a tremendous noise when all the buildings around me collapsed. I also heard people crying for help. I was caught under something which prevented me from moving freely. I was so shocked that I couldn't believe what had happened. I thought maybe I was having some kind of nightmare, but of course, I wasn't. When I finally was free I saw a few classmates that appeared to be crushed by the walls which fell on them. The rest of the students at the school were all screaming for their mothers. After I got better, I found a piece of mirror and looked into it. I found cuts on my right eye and on my nose and on my lower jaw and all over my back. It was horrible. I was very shocked to find myself looking like a monster. I even wished I had died with my sisters. - Survivor of Hiroshima, 1945

I was glad that we dropped the bomb. You couldn’t believe how sneaky the Japs were at Iwo Jima, they don’t fight fair. Tomorrow, I was supposed to land at Japan and begin an invasion of the island. This would have been Iwo Jima all over again and maybe worse. I have fought for a long time and have a wife and daughter at home.

Let’s face it, they bombed us at Pearl Harbor and are getting what they deserved. They are brutal and savage.

Truman bombing the Japanese saved my life and my daughter will grow up with a father.

- US Navy Officer during WW II