Dropping The Atomic Bomb Essay, Research Paper

The Decision to Drop the Bomb

It is August 6, 1945. The place is Tinian, an island speck in the South

Pacific. At 2:45 a.m. the evening quiet is abruptly interrupted by the roar of a

B-29 bomber as it rumbles down the runway and disappears into the night.

Special bombing mission # 13 is underway. A single B-29, nicknamed the Enola

Gay, embarks upon a mission which will change the course of history. The Enola

Gay will drop the first atomic bomb in history.

It was a Monday morning in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Families were

eating breakfast, children were preparing for school, and work at the factories

was about to begin. The distant throb of an airplane engine caused little concern

in the city. Japanese children had become accustomed to daily flight by weather

and observation planes. At exactly 8:16 a.m., what had been a peaceful Monday

morning was suddenly transformed into a nightmare of death and destruction.

Over 100,000 Japanese people died as a result of the atomic bomb. This cold

statement of fact conveys little real meaning until it is put into the words of

school children who survived the atomic bomb. Children who may never see

their parents or never be able to enjoy their childhood because they will spent

the next couple of years in the hospitals recuperating from third degree burns

and when they grow up they will finally realize the harmful effects they have

suffered because of the radiation they acquired from the explosion. Their

children may be born with cancer themselves and die before they are mature enough to enjoy life to the fullest, they may never have their own kids they may

not even fall in love for the first time. As sad as this sounds a man is lucky if he

even survives the horrible blast. Most of the innocent civilians were hit with a

blast that melted their skin or even killed them instantly. Some jumped into lakes

to sooth their burns not knowing that the water was radioactive and it hat

reached boiling point.

Can such a brutal attack be justified and was the atomic bomb the final

answer to the problem? These are some of the questions that have not yet been

answered and may never be answered. One of the reasons why the bomb was

unjust and cruel was because Japan was already defeated before the bombing,

an effective sea blockade and the successful bombing of military sites gave the

US a clear victory. A surrender would have taken place shortly without the

atomic bomb being a factor. There would have been no need to invade the

Japanese mainland and the bomb would not have significantly shorten the war

and it would not save enough lives to justify its use.

Another point brought up in this debate is if Japan was fairly warned and

given a chance to surrender. President Truman had failed to warn the Japanese

that they would be attacked with an atomic bomb and thus gave them no

opportunity to surrender until the bomb was dropped. The bomb could have

been dropped in an unpopulated area to demonstrate its power, such a

demonstration would have convinced the Japanese to surrender without

needless bloodshed and long-term suffering.

This unjustifiable slaughter of innocent civilians will forever be remembered as one of the darkest days in US history. To this day innocent

people who wanted a good life are suffering from the long term effects of this

deadly bomb. Some still do not see the costly effects of this bomb and that is

because they never had such a mass tragedy and such a great loss of human

life happen to them, they never had to watch their children die helplessly in front

of them as they had no way to help them and all they could do is WATCH.