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Prelude to the bombings The United States, with assistance from the United Kingdom and Canada, designed and built the first atomic bombs under what was called the Manhattan Project. The project was initially started at the instigation of European refugee scientists (including Albert Einstein) and American scientists who feared that Nazi Germany would also be conducting a full-scale bomb development program (that program was later discovered to be much smaller and further behind). The project itself eventually employed over 130,000 people at its peak at over thirty institutions spread over the United States, and cost a total of nearly US$2 billion, making it one of the largest and most costly research and development programs of all time. The first nuclear device, called "Gadget," was detonated during the "Trinity" test near Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were the second and third to be detonated and as of 2006 the only ones ever employed as weapons. During World War II both the Allies and Axis powers had previously pursued policies of strategic bombing and the targeting of civilian infrastructure. In numerous cases these had caused huge numbers of civilian casualties and were (or came to be) controversial. In Germany, the Allied firebombing of Dresden resulted in roughly 30,000 deaths. The March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo may have killed as many as 100,000 people. By August, about 60 Japanese cities had been destroyed through a massive aerial campaign, including massive firebombing raids on the cities of Tokyo and Kobe. Over 3½ years of direct U.S. involvement in World War II, approximately 400,000 American lives had been lost, roughly half of them incurred in the war against Japan. In the months prior to the bombings, the Battle of Okinawa resulted in an estimated 50,000–150,000 civilian deaths, 100,000–125,000 Japanese or Okinawan military or conscript deaths and over 72,000 American casualties. An invasion of the Japanese mainland was expected to result in casualties many times greater than in Okinawa. U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who was unaware of the Manhattan Project until Franklin Roosevelt's death, made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. His stated intention in ordering the bombings was to bring about a quick resolution of the war by inflicting destruction, and instilling fear of further destruction, that was sufficient to cause Japan to surrender. On July 26, Truman and other allied leaders issued The Potsdam Declaration outlining terms of surrender for Japan: "...The might that now converges on Japan is immeasurably greater than that which, when applied to the resisting Nazis, necessarily laid waste to the lands, the industry and the method of life of the whole German people. The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland..." "...We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction." The next day, Japanese papers reported that the declaration, the text of which had been broadcast and dropped on leaflets into Japan, had been rejected. The atomic bomb was still a highly guarded secret and not mentioned in the declaration. The government of Japan showed no intention of accepting the ultimatum. On July 28, Prime Minister Suzuki declared at a press conference that the Potsdam Declaration was no more than a rehash (yakinaoshi) of the Cairo Declaration and that the government intended to ignore it (mokusatsu). Emperor Hirohito, who was waiting for the Soviet reply to Japanese peace offers, made no move to change the government position. On July 31, he made clear to Kido that the imperial regalia had to be defended at all costs. (Kido Koichi nikki, p.1120-1121) Choice of targets The Target Committee at Los Alamos on May 10–11, 1945, recommended Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and the arsenal at Kokura as possible targets. The committee rejected the use of the weapon against a strictly military objective because of the chance of missing a small target not surrounded by a larger urban area. The psychological effects on Japan were of great importance to the committee members. They also agreed that the initial use of the weapon should be sufficiently spectacular for its importance to be internationally recognized. The committee felt Kyoto, as an intellectual center of Japan, had a population "better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon." Hiroshima was chosen because of its large size, its being "an important army depot" and the potential that the bomb would cause greater destruction because the city was surrounded by hills which would have a "focusing effect".• Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson struck Kyoto from the list because of its cultural significance, over the objections of General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project. According to Professor Edwin O. Reischauer, Stimson "had known and admired Kyoto ever since his honeymoon there several decades earlier." On July 25 General Carl Spaatz was ordered to bomb one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, or Nagasaki as soon after August 3 as weather permitted and the remaining cities as additional weapons became available.• Hiroshima during World War II At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of considerable industrial and military significance. Even some military camps were located nearby, such as the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. Hiroshima was a minor supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. It was one of several Japanese cities left deliberately untouched by American bombing, allowing an ideal environment to measure the damage caused by the atomic bomb. Another account stresses that after General Spaatz reported that Hiroshima was the only targeted city without prisoner of war (POW) camps, Washington decided to assign it highest priority. The center of the city contained several reinforced concrete buildings and lighter structures. Outside the center, the area was congested by a dense collection of small wooden workshops set among Japanese houses. A few larger industrial plants lay near the outskirts of the city. The houses were of wooden construction with tile roofs, and many of the industrial buildings also were of wood frame construction. The city as a whole was highly susceptible to fire damage. The population of Hiroshima had reached a peak of over 381,000 earlier in the war, but prior to the atomic bombing the population had steadily decreased because of a systematic evacuation ordered by the Japanese government. At the time of the attack the population was approximately 255,000. This figure is based on the registered population used by the Japanese in computing ration quantities, and the estimates of additional workers and troops who were brought into the city may be inaccurate. The bombing For composition of USAAF mission see 509th Composite Group Hiroshima was the primary target (the secondary was Kokura and a third "tertiary" target was Nagasaki) of the first U.S. nuclear attack mission, on August 6, 1945. The B-29 Enola Gay, piloted and commanded by 509th Composite Group commander Colonel Paul Tibbets, was launched from North Field, an airbase on Tinian in the West Pacific, approximately 6 hours flight time away from Japan. The drop date of August 6 was chosen because there had previously been a cloud formation over the target. At the time of launch, the weather was good, and the crew and equipment functioned properly. Navy Captain William Parsons had armed the bomb shortly after takeoff, since it had been left unarmed to minimize the risks during takeoff, and his assistant, 2nd Lt. Morris Jeppson, removed the safeties thirty minutes before reaching the target area.•The attack was carried out as planned, and the gravity bomb, a gun-type fission weapon, with 60 kg (130 pounds) of uranium-235, performed as expected. About an hour before the bombing, the Japanese early warning radar net detected the approach of some American aircraft headed for the southern part of Japan. The alert had been given and radio broadcasting stopped in many cities, among them Hiroshima. The planes approached the coast at a very high altitude. At nearly 08:00, the radar operator in Hiroshima determined that the number of planes coming in was very small—probably not more than three—and the air raid alert was lifted (to conserve fuel and aircraft, the Japanese had decided not to intercept small formations). The three planes of the strike flight were the Enola Gay (named after Colonel Tibbets' mother), The Great Artiste (equipped to deploy instrumentation), and a then-nameless B-29 later called Necessary Evil (the photography aircraft).• The normal radio broadcast warning was given to the people that it might be advisable to go to air-raid shelters if B-29s were actually sighted, but no raid was expected beyond some sort of reconnaissance. At 08:15 (Hiroshima time), the Enola Gay dropped the nuclear bomb called "Little Boy" over the center of Hiroshima. It exploded about 600 meters (2,000 ft) above the city with a blast equivalent to about 13 kilotons of TNT (the U-235 weapon was considered very inefficient, with only 1.38% of its material fissioning),• instantly killing an estimated 70,000–80,000 people. Of this number, there were approximately 2,000 Japanese Americans who died from the blast and another 800-1,000 who lived on as hibakusha. As U.S. citizens, many of these Japanese Americans were attending school before the war and had been unable to leave Japan. It is likely that hundreds of Allied prisoners of war also died. The radius of total destruction was about 1.6 km (1 mile), with resulting fires across 11.4 square km (4.4 square miles).• Infrastructure damage was estimated at 90% of Hiroshima's buildings being either damaged or completely destroyed. Japanese realization of the bombing
Post-attack casualties By December of 1945, thousands had died from their injuries and radiation poisoning, bringing the total killed in Hiroshima in 1945 to perhaps 140,000. In the years between 1950 and 1990, it is statistically estimated that hundreds of deaths are attributable to radiation exposure among atomic bomb survivors from both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.•• Survival of some structures Some of the reinforced concrete buildings in Hiroshima were very strongly constructed because of the earthquake danger in Japan, and their framework did not collapse even though they were fairly close to the center of damage in the city. Since the bomb detonated in the air, the blast was more downward than sideways, which was largely responsible for the survival of the Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall, now commonly known as the Genbaku, or A-bomb Dome designed and built by the Czech architect Jan Letzel, which was only a few meters from ground zero (hypocenter). The ruin was named Hiroshima Peace Memorial and made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996 over the objections of the U.S. and China.• Events of August 7-9 After the Hiroshima bombing, President Truman announced, "If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth." On August 8 1945, leaflets were dropped and warnings were given to Japan by Radio Saipan. (The area of Nagasaki did not receive warning leaflets until August 10, though the leaflet campaign covering the whole country was over a month into its operations.)• An English translation of that leaflet is available at PBS.• The Japanese government still didn't react to the Potsdam Declaration. Emperor Hirohito, the government and the War council were considering four conditions for surrender the preservation of the kokutai (Imperial institution and national policy), assumption by the Imperial Headquarters of responsibility for disarmament and demobilization, no occupation and delegation to the Japanese government of the punishment of war criminals. At two minutes past midnight on August 9, Tokyo time, Russian infantry, armor, and air forces launched an invasion of Manchuria. Four hours later, word reached Tokyo that the Soviet Union had broken the neutrality pact and declared war on Japan. The senior leadership of the Japanese Army start preparations to impose martial law on the nation, with the support of Minister of War Anami, in order to stop anyone attempting to make peace. Responsibility for the timing of the second bombing was delegated to Colonel Tibbets as commander of the 509th Composite Group on Tinian. Scheduled for August 11 against Kokura, the raid was moved forward to avoid a five day period of bad weather forecast to begin on August 10.• Three bomb pre-assemblies had been transported to Tinian, labeled F-31, F-32, and F-33 on their exteriors. On August 8 a dress rehearsal was conducted off Tinian by Maj. Charles Sweeney using Bockscar as the drop airplane. Assembly F-33 was expended testing the components and F-31 was designated for the mission August 9.• Nagasaki during World War II
The bombing For composition of USAAF mission see 509th Composite Group On the morning of August 9 1945, the U.S. B-29 Superfortress Bockscar, flown by the crew of 393rd Squadron commander Major Charles W. Sweeney, carried the nuclear bomb code-named "Fat Man", with Kokura as the primary target and Nagasaki the secondary target. The mission plan for the second attack was nearly identical to that of the Hiroshima mission, with two B-29's flying an hour ahead as weather scouts and two additional B-29's in Sweeney's flight for instrumentation and photographic support of the mission. Sweeney took off with his weapon already armed but with the electrical safety plugs still engaged. Observers aboard the weather planes reported both targets clear. When Sweeney's aircraft arrived at the assembly point for his flight off the coast of Japan, the third plane (flown by the group's Operations Officer, Lt. Col. James I. Hopkins, Jr.) failed to make the rendezvous. Bockscar and the instrumentation plane circled for forty minutes without locating Hopkins. Already thirty minutes behind schedule, Sweeney decided to fly on without Hopkins. By the time they reached Kokura a half hour later, a 7/10 cloud cover had obscured the city, prohibiting the visual attack required by orders. After three runs over the city, and with fuel running low because a transfer pump on a reserve tank had failed before take-off, they headed for their secondary target, Nagasaki. Fuel consumption calculations made en route indicated that Bockscar had insufficient fuel to reach Iwo Jima and they would be forced to divert to Okinawa. After initially deciding that if Nagasaki were obscured on their arrival they would carry the bomb to Okinawa and dispose of it in the ocean if necessary, the weaponeer Navy Commander Frederick Ashworth decided that a radar approach would be used if the target was obscured. At about 07:50 Japanese time, an air raid alert was sounded in Nagasaki, but the "all clear" signal was given at 08:30. When only two B-29 Superfortresses were sighted at 10:53, the Japanese apparently assumed that the planes were only on reconnaissance and no further alarm was given. A few minutes later, at 11:00, the support B-29 flown by Captain Frederick C. Bock dropped instruments attached to three parachutes. These instruments also contained messages to Professor Ryokichi Sagane, a nuclear physicist at the University of Tokyo who studied with three of the scientists responsible for the atomic bomb at the University of California, Berkeley, urging him to tell the public about the danger involved with these weapons of mass destruction. The messages were found by military authorities but not turned over to Sagane.Lillian Hoddeson, et al, Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos During the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), on 295. At 11:01, a last minute break in the clouds over Nagasaki allowed Bockscars bombardier, Captain Kermit Beahan, to visually sight the target as ordered. The "Fat Man" weapon, containing a core of ~6.4 kg (14.1 lb) of plutonium-239, was dropped over the city's industrial valley. 43 seconds later it exploded 469 meters (1,540 ft) above the ground exactly halfway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works (Torpedo Works) in the north. This was nearly 3 kilometers (2 mi) northwest of the planned hypocenter; the blast was confined to the Urakami Valley and a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills. The resulting explosion had a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT. The explosion generated heat estimated at 7000 degrees fahrenheit and winds that were estimated at 624 MPH. According to some estimates, about 70,000 of Nagasaki's 240,000 residents were killed instantly,Rinjiro Sodei. Were We the Enemy?: American Survivors of Hiroshima. Boulder: Westview Press, 1998, ix. and up to 60,000 were injured. Other estimates say about 40,000 dead and perhaps 50,000 injured. Richard Frank. Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. New York: Penguin Putnam, Inc, 1999 The radius of total destruction was about 1.6 km (1 mile), followed by fires across the northern portion of the city to 3.2 km (2 miles) south of the bomb. The total number of residents killed may have been as many as 80,000, including those who died from radiation poisoning in the following months. The Hibakusha The survivors of the bombings are called , a Japanese word that literally translates to "people exposed to the bomb". The suffering of the bombing is the root of Japan's postwar pacifism, and the nation has sought the abolition of nuclear weapons from the world ever since. As of 2005, there are about 266,000 hibakusha still living in Japan.• Korean survivors During the war Japan brought many Korean conscripts to both Hiroshima and Nagasaki to work as forced labor. According to recent estimates, about 20,000 Koreans were killed in Hiroshima and about 2,000 died in Nagasaki. It is estimated that one in seven of the Hiroshima victims was of Korean ancestry. For many years Koreans had a difficult time fighting for recognition as atomic bomb victims and were denied health benefits. Though such issues have been somewhat addressed in recent years, issues and resentments regarding recognition continue to linger. The surrender of Japan and the U.S. occupation Up to August 9, the War council was still insisting on its four conditions for surrender. On that day Hirohito ordered Kido to "quickly control the situation" "because Soviet Union has declared war against us". He then held an Imperial conference during which he authorized minister Togo to notify the Allies that Japan would accept their terms on one condition, that the declaration "does not compromise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign ruler". (Kido Koichi nikki, p.1223). On August 12, the Emperor informed the imperial family of his decision to surrender. One of his uncles, prince Asaka, then asked whether the war would be continued if the kokutai could not be preserved. Hirohito simply replied "of course". As the Allied terms seemed to leave intact the principle of the preservation of the Throne, Hirohito recorded on August 14 his capitulation announcement which was broadcast to the Japanese nation next day despite a short rebellion by fanatic militarists opposed to the surrender. During the year after the bombing, approximately 40,000 U.S. occupation troops were in Hiroshima. Nagasaki was occupied by 27,000 troops.• Upper limit dose estimates for those troops range from 0.19–0.3 mSv for Hiroshima and from 0.8–6.3 mSv for Nagasaki, depending on location. Support While the death of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on April 12, 1945, marked a hopeful moment for the Japanese people, who were largely unaware of the inauspicious state of their war efforts owing to government propaganda, the German surrender of May 8 seemed to forbode certain defeat. In complete isolation, Allied forces controlled much of the globe. It could be presumed that it was only a matter of time before Russia reoriented her forces to declare war on Japan; Japan, at the time, still occupied territory it had won from Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. Military, strategic, and technological superiority in the months leading up to the August 1945 atomic bombing seemed to indicate that Japan would have to surrender, but even beyond Victory in Europe Day, battle was fierce. The Battle of Okinawa, for instance, which had begun while Germany was still a trusted and steady Japanese ally, raged on well beyond the collapse of Germany, ultimately claiming 72,000 US casualties of whom over 12,500 were dead or missing, in addition to over 200,000 Japanese dead, at least half of whom were civilians. From the Allied standpoint, Japan seemed to have every incentive to surrender unconditionally, and yet Emperor Hirohito, regarded as a living deity for whom approximately 4,000 "kamikazes" laid down their lives, appeared culturally or politically unable to do so. A nation historically suspicious of Western imperialism, Japanese military officials were unanimously opposed to any negotiations before the use of the atomic bomb. The rise of Japanese militarism in the wake of the Great Depression had resulted in countless assassinations of reformers attempting to check military power, such as those of Korekiyo Takahashi, Saitō Makoto, and Inukai Tsuyoshi, creating an environment in which opposition to war was itself a risky endeavor. While some members of the civilian leadership did use covert diplomatic channels to attempt peace negotiation, they could not negotiate surrender or even cease-fire. Japan, as a Constitutional Monarchy, could only enter into a peace agreement with the unanimous support of the Japanese cabinet, a cabinet dominated by militarists of the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy, all of whom were staunchly opposed to surrender. A political stalemate developed between the military and civilian leaders of Japan, the military increasingly determined to fight despite all costs and odds. Many continued to believe that Japan could negotiate more favorable terms of surrender by continuing to inflict high levels of casualties on opposing forces, to end the war without an occupation of Japan or change of government. Historian Victor Davis Hanson points to increased Japanese resistance, futile though it was, as it became obvious that Axis defeat was certain. The Battle of Okinawa showed this determination to fight on at all costs. More than 120,000 Japanese and 12,000 American troops were killed in this bloodiest battle of the Pacific theater, just eight weeks before Japan's final surrender. When the Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, and carried out Operation August Storm, the Japanese Imperial Army ordered its ill-supplied forces in Manchuria to fight to the last man. Major General Masakazu Amano, chief of operations at Japanese Imperial Headquarters, stated that he was absolutely convinced his defensive preparations, begun in early 1944, could repel Allied invasion of the home islands with minimal losses. According to some Japanese historians, after realizing that the destruction of Hiroshima was from a nuclear weapon, civilian leadership gained more traction in its argument that Japan had to concede defeat and accept the Potsdam Declaration. Even after the destruction of Nagasaki, the emperor himself needed to intervene to end a deadlock in the cabinet. The peace faction seized on the bombing as decisive justification of surrender. Kōichi Kido, one of Emperor Hirohito's closest advisors, stated: "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war." Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945, called the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war." According to these historians and others, the pro-peace civilian leadership was able to use the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convince the military that no amount of courage, skill, and fearless combat could help Japan against the power of atomic weapons. Supporters of the bombing also point out that waiting for the Japanese to surrender was not a cost-free option—as a result of the war, noncombatants were dying throughout Asia at a rate of about 200,000 per month. Firebombing had killed well over 100,000 people in Japan since February of 1945, directly and indirectly. That intensive conventional bombing would have continued prior to an invasion. The submarine blockade and the United States Army Air Forces's mining operation, Operation Starvation, had effectively cut off Japan's imports. A complementary operation against Japan's railways was about to begin, isolating the cities of southern Honshū from the food grown elsewhere in the Home Islands. "Immediately after the defeat, some estimated that 10 million people were likely to starve to death," noted historian Daikichi Irokawa. Meanwhile, in addition to the Soviet attacks, offensives were scheduled for September in southern China and Malaysia. The Americans anticipated losing many soldiers in the planned invasion of Japan, although the actual number of expected fatalities and wounded is subject to some debate. It depends on the persistence and reliability of Japanese resistance, and whether the Americans would have invaded only Kyūshū in November 1945 or if a follow up landing near Tokyo, projected for March of 1946, would have been needed. Years after the war, Secretary of State James Byrnes claimed that 500,000 American lives would have been lost, however in the summer of 1945, U.S. military planners projected 20,000–110,000 combat deaths from the initial November 1945 invasion, with about three to four times that number wounded. (Total U.S. combat deaths on all fronts in World War II in nearly four years of war were 292,000.) The atomic bomb hastened the end of the Second World War in Asia liberating millions in occupied areas, including thousands of Western citizens; about 200,000 Dutch and 400,000 Indonesians ("Romushas") from Japanese concentration camps. Moreover, Japanese troops had committed atrocities against millions of civilians (such as the infamous Nanking Massacre), and the early end to the war prevented further bloodshed. Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on August 1, 1944, ordering the disposal and execution of all Allied POWs, numbering over 100,000, if an invasion of the Japanese mainland took place. Supporters of the bombings have argued that the Japanese government waged total war, ordering many civilians (including women and children) to work in factories and military offices and to fight against any invading force. Father John A. Siemes, professor of modern philosophy at Tokyo's Catholic University, and an eyewitness to the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima wrote: "We have discussed among ourselves the ethics of the use of the bomb. Some consider it in the same category as poison gas and were against its use on a civil population. Others were of the view that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical to me that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of war against civilians."• Some supporters of the bombings have emphasized the strategic significance of Hiroshima, as the Japanese 2nd army's headquarters, and of Nagasaki, as a major munitions manufacturing center. In his speech to the Japanese people presenting his reasons for surrender, Emperor Hirohito refers specifically to the atomic bombs, stating that if they continued to fight it would result in "...an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation..." Opposition Objections to the bombings generally emphasize one or both of two points: Inherently immoral A number of notable individuals and organizations have criticized the bombings, many of them characterizing them as war crimes or crime against humanity. Two early critics of the bombings were Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard, who had together spurred the first bomb research in 1939 with a jointly written letter to President Roosevelt. Szilard, who had gone on to play a major role in the Manhattan Project, argued: "Let me say only this much to the moral issue involved: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?." Takashi Hiraoka, mayor of Hiroshima, upholding nuclear disarmament, said in a hearing to The Hague International Court of Justice (ICJ): "It is clear that the use of nuclear weapons, which cause indiscriminate mass murder that leaves ?effects on survivors for decades, is a violation of international law". John Bolton, current US ambassador to the United Nations, used Hiroshima and Nagasaki as examples why the US should not adhere to the International Criminal Court (ICC): "A fair reading of the treaty Rome Statute concerning the ICC, for example, leaves the objective observer unable to answer with confidence whether the United States was guilty of war crimes for its aerial bombing campaigns over Germany and Japan in World War II. Indeed, if anything, a straightforward reading of the language probably indicates that the court would find the United States guilty. A fortiori, these provisions seem to imply that the United States would have been guilty of a war crime for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is intolerable and unacceptable." Historical accounts indicate that the decision to use the atomic bombs was made in order to provoke an early surrender of Japan by use of an awe-inspiring power. These observations have caused some commentators to state that the incident was an act of state terrorism. These claims were strong enough to cause historian Robert Newman, a supporter of the bombings, to argue that the practice of terrorism is justified in some cases. Militarily unnecessary
See also Further reading There is an extensive body of literature concerning the bombings, the decision to use the bombs, and the surrender of Japan. The following volumes provide a sampling of prominent works on this subject matter. Because the debate over justification for the bombings is particularly intense, some of the literature may contain claims that are disputed. Decision to use the bomb Descriptions of the bombings
Histories of the events Debates over the bombings, and their portrayal Cultural notes Films about the events Footnotes | |||||||||||||||||
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