Hiroshima And Nagasaki Essays - , Term Papers

Hiroshima And Nagasaki Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the untold story Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the untold story On August 6th 1945, the first Atomic Bomb, Little Boy, was dropped on Hiroshima, and three days later on August 9th 1945, the second atomic bomb, Fat Man, was dropped on Nagasaki, Japans industrial capital. The decision to use the Atomic Bomb against Japan was a poor one considering the damage, the devastation, and the amount of people left dead, injured, or suffering the loss of a family member or a friend, all for the sake of quickly ending the ongoing War. When the Japanese had realized that they were the only ones left in the war, Germany their ally, was already beaten out of the war and all efforts were now concentrated at them, the Japanese began suing for a peaceful end to the war. Apart from the fact that Japan had been suing for a peaceful end to the war, there were a number of alternative routes of action that the Americans had at their fingertips, and could have taken advantage of at a moments notice, which could have possibly saved a lot of lives, both American and Japanese. After analyzing the amount of damage and the amount of lives lost as a result of the dropping of the Atomic Bomb, it becomes evident that dropping the bomb was not worth a quick end to the war. Much of why Japanese surrender took so long to come through reverts back to the Samurai Tradition in Japan. First, the Emperor didnt not intervene in political affairs as he was considered to be above such petty human politics, and second, the Japanese code of honor which puts death before dishonor. The Americans had intercepted messages from the Foreign Minister Togo, to Ambassador Sato expressing the desires of the Emperor for a peaceful end to the war, [h]is Majesty the Emperor, mindful of the fact that the present war daily brings greaterevil and sacrifice upon the peoples of all belligerent powers, desires from his heart thatit may be quickly terminated (Alperovitz 23). The desire of the Emperor for an end to the war never came true until both atomic bombs had been dropped on two of Japans key industrial cities, as the Emperor never formally expressed this desire. In the samurai tradition, the Emperor is held at a God-like status and therefore, is considered above politics, so therefore he never intervenes, and was never expected to intervene in political issues, his role was to sanction decisions made by the Cabinet, whether he personally approved of them or not. For this reason, the Emperor never expressed his desire for peace to the Cabinet; it was an unprecedented act (Long). The retention of the Emperor was crucial to the surrender, as the Japanese believed their Emperor was a god, the heart of the people and the culture (Long). This Japanese belief is a part of a tradition that dates back to 660 B.C. when the first Japanese Emperor, Jimmu, who according to legend was a descendant of the sun god, Amaterasu. So there fore, according to the tradition, the emperor during this time, Hirohito, was said to be a divine bei ng. It is for this reason that the Japanese sued for peace based on the Atlantic Charter of 1941 that was drafted up by Roosevelt and Churchill on August 4th, 1941. According to the Atlantic Charter, every nation could choose its own form of government, thus, if Japan were to surrender based on these terms, they would be able to retain the emperor, their God (Alperovitz). However, when the United States offered a peace agreement based on Unconditional Surrender, the Japanese refused this offer as no provisions had been made for their Emperor. As Leon V. Sigal states, one point was clear to senior [United States] officials, regardless of where they stood on war termination the critical condition for Japanese surrender was the assurance that the throne would be preserved (Alperovitz 31). It turns out that the unconditional surrender clause of the peace agreement was the major factor that hindered Japanese surrender at this point in the war. According to the surrender agreement, the au thority that deceived the people into