In the early summer of 1945, the end of World War II appeared distant. Germany had been defeated, but the United States still had to pacify the belligerent Empire of Japan. The United States was contemplating a very large-scale invasion of the Japanese mainland, involving as many as three million men. Foreseen was a long and bitter struggle that would cost many hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides before the war came to an end. At this time however, American scientists completed development of and successfully tested the world's first atomic bomb, a new weapon of massive destructive power that could potentially bring an end to the war by delivering a crippling blow to Japan. President Harry S. Truman faced a momentous decision: whether or not to use the atomic bomb. While it has been highly controversial, Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan proved to be the right course of action. Although two fine cities were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of civilians died as a result of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, their use was necessary to end the war quickly and save many American - and Japanese - lives.

Dropping the atomic bomb was necessary to end the war quickly and without the need for an invasion that might have cost hundreds of thousands of American - and Japanese - lives. General Marshall advised President Truman that an invasion of Japan would cost "at a minimum one quarter of a million casualties, and might cost as much as a million" to the Americans (MPKT 6). British Prime Minister Winston Churchill also felt that an invasion of Japan "might well require the loss of a million American lives and half that number of British" (MPKT 6). Equal numbers of casualties were predicted for the Japanese too, possibly more, due to their dearth of supplies and somewhat inferior weaponry (MPKT 6). Also indicative of the possible Japanese casualties that would come from an invasion was the fact that while the Americans had about a 30% casualty rate at Iwo Jima, the Japanese, who were hell bent on fighting "to the death," lost about 90% of their forces there (IN CLASS). It was therefore probable that the Japanese forces would lose as much, if not many more lives than the invading Americans.

Our use of the atomic bomb against Japan was not in violation of international law. International law restricts "legal" bombing to military targets (ILPKT 3), and the United States attacked military targets when it bombed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was President Truman's full intention that the bomb be dropped on a military target, as he told Secretary of War Stimson that "the bomb should be dropped as nearly as possible upon a war production center of prime military importance" (PBRPKT 6). Hiroshima was in fact a city of considerable military importance. It contained the 2nd Army Headquarters, the command post for all of southern Japan. It was also a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for Japanese troops (PBRPKT 3). When Truman asked Secretary Stimson which cities were devoted most exclusively to war production, Stimson promptly named Hiroshima and Nagasaki (MPKT 6). While there were many civilians living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many were in effect soldiers as a result of the Japanese government's forcing them to take up arms (bamboo spears) and training children to sacrifice themselves to destroy enemy tanks ("Sherman's Carpet").

Some historians have argued that it was not necessary to demand an unconditional surrender from Japan and that Japan would have accepted a "conditional" surrender, thus eliminating the need to drop the atomic bomb. Although a conditional surrender might have brought about a temporary peace with minimal bloodshed, unconditional surrender was in fact necessary to ensure a lasting peace. The writers of the Potsdam Declaration to Japan had considered including a portion of several lin

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Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)