Atomic Bomb

Prompt: 
"To what extent can the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II be considered a justified action, considering the military, political, and humanitarian factors involved?"

DOCUMENT 1
Survivor of the Palawan Massacre
SOURCE: Eugene Nielsen, Private First Class, 59th Coast Artillery.  Recounts the Bataan rescue
...The truck smelled very strongly of gas. There was an explosion and flames shot through the place. Some of the guys were moaning. I realized this was it -- either I had to break for it or die. Luckily I was in the trench that was closest to the fence. So I jumped up and I dove through the barbed wire. I fell over the cliff and somehow grabbed onto a small tree, which broke my fall and kept me from getting injured. There were Japanese soldiers posted down the beach. I buried myself in a pile of garbage and coconut husks. I kept working my way under until I got pretty well covered up...
...They were bayoneting guys down low and making them suffer. They shot or stabbed twelve Americans and then dug a shallow grave in the sand and threw them in. Some of these men were still groaning while they were covered with sand. Then the Japs started to cover the grave with rubbish from the pile where I was hiding. They scraped some of the coconut husks off, and found me lying there. Then they uncovered me from the shoulders on down. They thought I was dead, and seemed to think I had been buried by my friends. I lay there for about fifteen minutes while they stood around talking Japanese. It was getting to be late in the afternoon. One of the guys hollered it was time to eat dinner, and every one of the Japs there went off somewhere to eat. I got up and ran down along the beach and hid in a little pocket of coral reef there...
...I left that area and started down the beach. About fifty yards ahead I ran into more Japanese. Suddenly I realized I was surrounded. They were up above me and also coming in from both sides. I was trapped. So I jumped in the sea. I swan underwater as far as I could. When I came up there were twenty Japanese firing at me, both from the cliff and from the beach. Shots were hitting all around me. One shot hit me in the armpit and grazed my ribs. Another hit me in the left thigh, then another one hit me right along the right side of my head, grazing my temple. I think it knocked me out temporarily. For a short period I was numb in the water; and I nearly drowned. Then I found a large coconut husk, bobbing around in the bay and I used it to shield my head as I swam....
...I came down to a place along the shore where there were a lot of trees and bushes in the water. I knew they were following me, so I went toward shore and splashed to make a little noise. I wanted them to think I was finally coming in. then I abruptly turned around and went out just as quiet as possible and started swimming across the bay. They never shot at me again. Probably it was too dark for them to see me. I swam most of the night. I couldn't see the other side of the bay but I knew it was about five miles. About halfway out I ran into a strong current. It seemed like I was there for a couple hours making no headway. Finally I reached the opposite shore and crawled on my hands and knees up on the rocks. I was in a mangrove swamp. I was too weak to stand up. It was about 4 A.M. I'd been swimming for nearly nine hours.

DOCUMENT 2
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
SOURCE: William Leahy, I Was There, 1950.
Once it had been tested, President Truman faced the decision as to whether to use it. He did not like the idea, but was persuaded that it would shorten the war against Japan and save American lives. It is my 
opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. It was my reaction that the scientists and others wanted to make this test because of the vast sums that had been spent on the project. Truman knew that, and so did other people involved. . . . The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in the being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. . . 

DOCUMENT 3
Memorandum for the Secretary of War: The 
Atomic Bomb
SOURCE: April 23, 1945
The successful development of the Atomic Fission Bomb will provide the United States with a weapon of tremendous power which should be a decisive factor in winning the present war more quickly with a saving in American lives and treasure. If the United States continues to lead in the development of atomic energy weapons, its future will be much safer and the chances of preserving world peace greatly increased.

DOCUMENT 4
Nippon Times, Tokyo Newspaper
SOURCE: August 10, 1945
How can a human being with any claim to a sense of moral responsibility deliberately let loose an instrument of destruction which can at one stroke annihilate an appalling segment of mankind? This is not war; this is not even murder; this is pure nihilism. This is a crime against God and humanity which strikes at the very basis of moral existence. What meaning is there in any international law, in any rule 
of human conduct, in any concept of right and wrong, if the very foundation threatened to do? . . . now the latest technique of total destruction which the Americans have adopted, their earliest crimes pale into relative insignificance. What more barbarous atrocity can there be than to wipe out at one stroke the population of a whole city without distinction – men, women and children; the aged, the weak, the 
infirm; those in positions of authority and those with no power at all; all snuffed out without being given a chance of lifting even a finger in either defense or defiance!

DOCUMENT 5
Memoirs of Harry S. Truman
SOURCE: vol. 1: Years of Decisions, Doubleday & Co, 1955.
My own knowledge of these [atomic] developments had come about only after I became President . . . I had set then up a committee of top men and had asked them to study with great care and implications the new weapon might have for us.
It was their recommendation that the bomb be used against the enemy as soon as it could be done. They recommended further that it should be used without specific warning, and against a target that would clearly show its devastating strength. I had realized, of course, that an atomic bomb explosion would inflict damage and casualties beyond imagination. On the other hand, the scientific advisers of the committee reported, ‘We can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.’ . . . It had to be used against an enemy target. . . In deciding to use this bomb I wanted to make sure that it would be used as a weapon of war in the manner prescribed by the laws of war. That meant that I wanted it dropped on a military target. . . 

DOCUMENT 6
Injured Child, Bombing of Hiroshima
SOURCE: Published in Smithsonian Magazine

DOCUMENT 7
Kamikaze Strike
SOURCE: Kamikaze Attack,, Philippines, November 25, 1944, US Navy

DOCUMENT 8
Thank God for the Atomic Bomb 
BY: Paul Fussell, a World War II Soldier, Thank God for the Atom Bomb, 1990.
My division, like most of the ones transferred from Europe was going to take part in the invasion at Honshu (an island of Japan). The people who preferred invasion to A-bombing seemed to have no intention of proceeding to the Japanese front themselves. I have already noted what a few more days would mean to the luckless troops and sailors on the spot…. On Okinawa, only a few weeks before Hiroshima, 123,000 Japanese and Americans killed each other. War is immoral. War is cruel.