Hiroshima - Should or Shouldn't Have Happened

At the moment of explosion, Hiroshima was a place on the map of which few heard of; it was just a target. Then in a few seconds, the city of Hiroshima became the place where the first atomic bomb was dropped; the symbol of war and peace at the same time, a place the world will never forget. The bomb destroyed everything in its way, bringing a whole city to the ground. But more than buildings and objects, the bomb most affected the people. The necessity of bombing was always questioned and, even today, sixty years after it was dropped, no one can say the bombing was good or bad. It is easy to say Americans should have never dropped the bomb over Hiroshima; it killed thousands of people and destroyed lives. But the number of lives the bomb killed is not even half of the victims that would have been if the war continued or if America would have chosen another way to end the war.

“It should be used as soon as possible; it should be used on a military installation surrounded by houses or other buildings most susceptible to damage; it should be used without explicit warning of the nature of the bomb (Fink).” The Interim Committee of the Manhattan Project was the group in charge of building the first atomic bomb and these words can be found in their journal from May, 1945. Most of its members believed the use of the first A-bomb should be “sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it was released (Fink).”

The Committee did not really target the civilians or the buildings of Japan, but more the high powers of other countries, especially the Soviet Union who was their worst enemy. The Soviet Union was at that time the only power in the world that would have the resources to build an A-bomb and therefore, attack and destroy America. The members of the committee knew that Stalin would have wanted the bomb for Russia and considered necessary the use of the bomb before any other nation could discover their secret and attack them with their own weapons. On the other hand, using an A-bomb bomb for the first time in history, and then using a second one, would mislead the other nations into thinking America has more bombs like those in their possession and they were ready to use them at any time if needed. This not only intimidated their enemies, but also prevented a possible counterattack, offering America an invisible shield against its enemies; even if the truth would come to the surface in the end, by that time, the war would be over.

U.S. could have, of course, chosen another way to end the war, still with the help of the atomic bomb. A demonstration of the power of the atomic bomb would have been enough to make Japan see what risks they take if they want to continue fighting or do not accept the terms of surrender. Besides, even in case of bombing, after the demonstration, Japan at least would have had the chance to prepare for the attack, thus saving many innocent lives. But United States preferred the total destruction. “The cover story for the public – and for dissenting scientists of the Frank report – was that ‘a tremendous shock’ was needed to end in Asia. But it had actually ended for all intents and purposes(…) the real issue was that only a show of actual destruction from the bomb’s use would serve to warn the USSR of the new formidable military power of the U.S. No harmless academic ‘demonstration’ far from life would do (Fink).”

More than one city was taken into consideration for an eventual attack, amongst which Kokura, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Kyoto. From all those, Hiroshima “has the advantage of being such a size, and with possible focusing from nearby mountains that a large fraction of the city may be destroyed.” “Other targets were debated, without conscience, on how ‘flat’ they were so as to show the full ability of the bomb’s blast to spread through a city of residential houses (Fink).”