uld not be as devastating to the city and the people”(Alp 345) .Admiral L. Lewis Strauss, special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy also proposed that a demonstration be done, “…over an area accessible to the Japanese observers, and where its effects would be dramatic enough to prove to the Japanese that at any given moment the U.S. could destroy any Japanese city”(Alp 333).Evidently, all the possible alternatives to using the atomic bomb, probably the most dangerous, most destructive weapon in the history of the world, were not properly investigated. Gar Alperovitz argues that the Joint Chiefs of Staff never formally studied the decision, nor did they carry out the usual extensive staff work and evaluation of alternative measures. The American usage of the atomic bomb was irresponsible. The lives lost, the injuries inflicted, and the damages all reflect the devastating power of the atomic bomb, of which the Americans knew about. Tests conducted by the Manhattan Engineer District showed the effects of the atomic bomb when detonated on a target. Tests were done on a site 29 kilometers by 39 kilometer bombing range in the New Mexican desert. A small bomb was detonated on a 100 feet tall tower. The tower was blown to pieces; the detonation left an impression that was 2.9 meters deep and 335 meter wide (Maag & Rohrer). The Manhattan Engineers had a fairly good idea as to what kind of damage a full size atomic bomb would incur on the Japanese, but yet the bomb was still used.Though argued that the atomic bomb saved many American lives, it took a lot of innocent Japanese lives, mostly women and children. In Hiroshima, 66 thousand people were killed, and 69 thousand were injured, totally casualties were approximately a half of the population of Hiroshima. In Nagasaki, 39 thousand people were killed, and 25 thousand were injured. Most of the casualties due to the dropping of the atomic bomb were innocent women and c...
