Truman Had Little Choice but to Drop the Bomb Considering the Intelligence Available at the Time

World War Two ended literally with a bang. That bang was the start atomic warfare. The decision to use the atomic bomb against the Japanese has fueled controversy ever since. Overall, my opinion on the use of atomic weapons against the Japanese was justifiable given the intelligence available to the planners and decision makers, however, later intelligence would prove the bombs use were less effective than the introduction of Soviet Forces into the Pacific Theater.

The US entered World War Two as a result of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The island-hopping campaigns fought in the Pacific were especially brutal and as the Allies got closer to Japan, the fiercer the Japanese fought - Guadalcanal: 7,100 American casualties and 31,000 Japanese killed (Kickman n.d.); Peleliu: 8,200 American casualties, nearly 11,000 Japanese dead and 19 Japanese and 198 Koreans captured alive(Gypton n.d.); Tarawa:  3,000 American casualties and 4,500 Japanese killed with only 17 survivors (History.com n.d.);  Iwo Jima: 26,000 American casualties and nearly 22,000 Japanese casualties (O'Brien n.d.); and lastly Okinawa: 40,000 American casualties, 143,000 Japanese casualties and 142,000 Okinawan civilian casualties (GlobalSecurity.org n.d.). As a result of the bitter fighting over Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the Joint Chiefs of Staff predicted the Japanese would fight for their homeland tooth and nail to the last man and estimated that American casualties for the final invasion of Japan would be in excess of 1,200,000 (JCOS n.d.).

World War Two was fought on the concept of total war – that is every resource available to a nation is put towards the war effort and as a direct result, everything, including the civilian labor force was considered a legitimate combat target. Unrestricted submarine warfare against merchant shipping was practiced by both sides as was unrestricted aerial bombing of cities. The cities of Germany and Japan were being turned into rubble with no regard for human life as the firestorms of Dresden and Tokyo would show.

American scientists began working on the Manhattan Project which culminated in the Trinity Test where an atomic bomb (the “Gadget”) was successfully detonated in a desert bombing range outside of Alamagordo, New Mexico (Department of Energy: Office of History & Heritage Resources n.d.). The success of the test lead Truman to order the development of the “Fat Man” and the “Little Boy” atomic bombs as they would decrease the need for American reliance on Soviet involvement in the Pacific Theater. At the Potsdam Conference, Truman hinted to Stalin about a "new weapon of unusual destructive force." To which Stalin, having been receiving information about the American atomic program since 1941, showed little interest and merely hoped the weapon would be put to use against the Japanese (Department of Energy: Office of History & Heritage Resources n.d.).

The losses at Okinawa, which provided a glimpse at the potential casualties involved in invading the Japanese home islands, in combination with intercepted Japanese plans for defending Honshu from invasion that described the depth of resistance planned shocked Truman immensely ("Magic" – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 502, 4 August 1945 n.d.). With the success of the bomb, he now had two options to ending the war with Japan – one atomic, the other an invasion. During the planning stages, it was considered to use the atom bombs in preparatory strikes to clear the beaches or strictly military targets however the mindset of total war on cities won the day ( Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, "Memorandum of Conversation with General Marshall May 29, 1945 – 11:45 p.m.," Top Secret n.d.). The final factor in bombing Japan with atomic weapons came from the fear that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria would not be enough to convince the Japanese to surrender unconditionally (General George A. Lincoln to General Hull, June 4, 1945, enclosing draft, Top Secret n.d.).

History shows the Soviets invaded Manchuria and the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and shortly after that, the Japanese signed the surrender documents on the deck of the U.S.S Missouri. It is my belief, considering the intelligence available to President Truman regarding the Japanese resistance on Iwo Jima and Okinawa and the resultant American casualties of those battles in combination with the possibility of another 1 million casualties forced Truman’s hand on the matter.

Additionally, while I feel the atomic bombs did their part to end the war, I honestly believe the injuries, damage and destruction caused by these comparatively low yield weapons when compared the destructive power of the later hydrogen bombs introduced war planners to the destructive power of the atom and in a way contributed to the lack of their use during the Cold War.

Bibliography:

" Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, "Memorandum of Conversation with General Marshall May 29, 1945 – 11:45 p.m.," Top Secret ." n.d. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/11.pdf (accessed May 9, 2010).

""Magic" – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 502, 4 August 1945." n.d. "Magic" – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 502, 4 August 1945 (accessed May 9, 2010).

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Kickman, Kennedy. About.com: World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal. n.d. http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/peleliu/bloody.aspx (accessed May 9, 2010).

O'Brien, Cyril J. Iwo Jima Retrospective. n.d. http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,NI_Iwo_Jima2,00.html (accessed May 9, 2010).