Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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Hiroshima and Nagasaki

This report is to discuss the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II. Many people believe that this was the only way to get Emperor Hirohito of Japan to surrender to the United States. Some believe that there were other reasons for dropping the bombs. A couple of those reasons were for revenge on Pearl Harbor and to show the world that we had the power to destroy any country that wanted to intrude on the United States. One of the main reasons though, was to save hundreds of thousands of Americans lives and to possibly save lives of many Japanese.

Some veterans of the war were asked about the issue, they quoted "I thank God that those atomic bombs were dropped. I wouldn't be here if they hadn't." "The dropping of the bombs saved the lives of all of us being held in Japan. There isn't one prisoner who wasn't told they were dead if the Americans invaded Japan. We were looking forward to an invasion, but we knew we might not be around to see it."

"No one should think that war is humanitarian, that you just shoot the enemy in the legs. I feel sorry for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who suffered when the atomic bombs were dropped, but can look at all the atrocities the Japanese committed and know these bombs were appropriate means to wage war."

"We felt little pity or concern for the Japanese then, and we thought the bomb was a wonderful thing to bring the war to an end." "I would have been glad to drop the bombs myself."

These opinions of many people in the war go to show the attitudes of the soldiers at the time of the war. You cannot change the past and the United States did what they had to do to win the war. For more than four years the Americans sacrificed their lives to the war and they killed thousands of Japanese, but they were not about to give in. The Japanese were not going to give up and without the bomb we would have had to invade the island and that would have cost many American lives and even more Japanese lives. Truman wanted to end the war as quick as possible and with as little American casualties as possible.

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