d as having more power than 20 thousand tons of T.N.T. It is said to have had more blast power than that of the “British Grand Slam,” the largest bomb ever used up until that time (Manhattan Engineer District). In-fact, the bomb was so powerful that the smoke and flames were recorded to have reached a height of 40 thousand feet within eight minutes of detonation.Despite the fact that there are a number of logical and ethical reasons why the use of the atomic bomb is looked down on, there are still people, with valid reasons as to why the atomic bomb was necessary. The most common reason advocating the use of the atomic bomb is based on the argument that it saved American lives. Secretary of War Stimson states that the atomic bomb “…was going to be used because it would save hundreds of thousands of American lives” (Alperovitz 354). According to Lemay, “[I]f a nuclear weapon shortened the war by only a week, probably it saved more lives than were taken by that single glare of heat and radiation” (Alperovitz 334). Lemay maintains, “the atomic bomb probably saved three million Japanese lives and perhaps a million American casualties” (Alperovitz 341). The bomb probably did save American lives, but who knows how many; it could have saved anywhere from one to one thousand American lives, no one knows how many. What is known however is that the bomb not only took thousands of Japanese lives, it also took approximately 23 or more lives of American prisoners of war being held in Hiroshima and over one thousand Japanese-American lives.Initially, when targets were being selected for bombing, there were four different cities selected, but only two bombs produced. Marshal states, “when we got the bombs, we had to use them in the best possible way to save American lives…” there were only two bombs and “…the situation demanded shock action” (Alperovitz 361). The...
