The bombing of Pearl Harbor was the final straw for United States neutrality in World War II. After December 7, 1941, Congress declared war on the Axis powers. The battles took place in three locales, including the Pacific and Europe. On deserted Pacific islands, U.S. Marines witnessed some of the bloodiest fighting known to man. One such battle was that of the Solomon Islands, August 21, 1945, in which the Allies suffered over 7,100 fatalities and lost 29 ships and over 600 aircraft. These tremendous losses were nothing compared to immense destruction wrought upon the Empire of Japan. With over 31,000 dead and about 700 aircraft destroyed during this battle, the Japanese army seemed on the verge of surrender.
Further American casualties in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, 6,000 and 7,600 respectively, bring up the question of whether island hopping was the best military strategy for the war in the Pacific. Recent speculation concerning the Manhattan Project and the testing of the Atomic Bomb create the moral dilemma between losing American lives or inflicting massive losses to the Japanese people. Which is the moral choice? That decision is left to President Truman to decide.
Kevin and Alex
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Even though there was such heavy casualties I don't think it was right to drop the bomb. The United States set a negative precedent that its okay to use the bomb. Weapons of that magnitude should not be invented, researched or used.
ReplyDeleteAfter so many casualties on both sides i think the war needed to be ended, even if the bomb wasn't really the best solution at least the war was over.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the bomb was immorally incorrect, (considering the fact it killed thousands of innocent civilians) Japanese leaders had plenty of warning and were simply too stubborn to surrender.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of the opinions displayed here are profoundly colored by our American upbringing and the subtle propaganda that our textbook has.
ReplyDeleteMadeleine: The US had told Japan to surrender or face immense destruction or something. That is hardly specific. In fact if I were Hirohito I'd think this was just a political euphemism for "back up son or I'll pop you," lowly empty trash talk.
but after the first bomb Japan should have surrendered...
ReplyDeleteI guess they were still considering their options: I agree with Steve that the Japanese probably didn't have much of an idea what "immense destruction" was, and they were unsure of what action to take. Most of the leaders had probably not thoroughly thought out what they would do if they surrendered, or how they would cope with the US terms of surrender.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with the U.S.'s decision to drop the bombs. They knew the massive destruction the bombs would cause as well as the many innocent lives that would be lost. Also, the Japanese were already considering surrendering and did not have much willpower left to fight.
ReplyDeleteGood job on presenting the information accurately and concisely!
~V.Z.
what was the third location? it says in three locations, including the pacific and europe...
ReplyDeleteThe drop of atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was one of the turning points in Japan...
ReplyDeleteOkay, from reading your views, I would say that most of you haven't studied much about World War 2. I am going to see if it is easy to post this and if it is, I am going to come back to this.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, here's my take on this. I say this from the viewpoint of a 66 year old ex Navy seaman. I was in the service isn the early Sixties.
ReplyDeleteNow. toward the end of the war, the fighting in the Pacific got bloodier and bloodier. We lost a lot of guys on Iwo Jima. the Japanese mostly fought to the death. Kill or be killed. The last major battle was Okinawa. Over 5,000 US Navy men were killed by Japanese Kamikaze pilots who were actually the first cruise missiles, the pilots being the onboard computer. Seven thousand Army and Marines were also killed. But we lost many other thousand American servicemen in bloody confrontations. The Japanese also died in droves. Over a hundred thousand Okinawan civilians were killed. We were planning on attacking Kyushu, the closest Japanese island to Okinawa. We would use Okinawa as a base to send planes from. We estimated almost a million US casualties. That's 1,000,000 Americans that would be either killed, maimed, wounded. We needed to get this war over with. No one knew how many people would die from the atomic bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No one. We had only had a test of one bomb on July 16th, 1945.
Some of you think that the Japanese were almost ready to accept defeat. Well, sure, some of them wanted to quit, but not the ones who were in power. That was the Imperial Japanese Army.
They were into fighting to the last person and had the civilian population also, men, women and young children, training to use swords, spears, whatever to resist to the last.
Also, ploitically, we had to get this thing over as we didn't want the Russians making Japan a communist country. There is a line in a Crosby, Stills, Nash song that goes like this,"You don't know the fears that your elders grew by." It is easy with 20/20 hindsight to say "We shouldn't have opened that atomic door". But very few, very few, people, had any idea that all this radioactivity and the horrible results that accrued ffrom Hiroshima/Nagasaki were going to happen.
But, my father served on Okinawa as a Seabee and all of the men on that island, tired from having fought for 4 years against an implaceable foe, one who would die rather than surrender, cheered and cried, knowing they would live, when Japan finally surrendered, finally gave up. Remember, they din't quit when just one atomic bomb fell on their land. It took two until they finally called it quits. I hope somehow this can explain a little bit why this event so long ago occurred. Keep reading more history.
I think World War II was a big tragedy under all the profiles.
ReplyDeleteAs Italian, I feel very depressed adn sad for what my country did, because even if in the U.S. History book thaty wtire a lot about Hitler's cruel government, Mussolini was not that better.
Fascist Italy was deprived of freedom and people had to soffer a lot, Jewish were persecuted and sent in German camps and the colonies - Libia and Ethiopia - were took over just to satisfy Mussolini's ambition to bring italy basck to the glory of the Roman Empire.
I live with the hope that all those people have not died for nothing.
I hope that all the horrible things that happened, the Holocaust, the persecutions, the segregation, also the Atomic Bomb, the war itself, will not be forgotten and will help us, we young people, to learn from our ancestors' mistakes and just don't make History repeat itself.
I hope that all what happened is the final fact that will just open our eyes to how important is protect peace, promote the knowledge of different cultures and people, because when we know the world, in our hearts there is no longer room fof hate and fear of the other people.
We have to learn form the past to do not commit the same mistakes and love our possibility to express what we think, what we are, what we believe in, even something apparently simple like our right to vote, since many people had died to make this wonderful gift called freedom possible. Now, we have to keep it safe, for the people who will come after us.
good use of numbers
ReplyDeleteI thought this was very interesting. The use of the many specific causalities really put the horrors of the Pacific War in perspective. Great Article!
ReplyDelete