Was the Atomic Bomb Really Necessary World War II "I have to decide Japanese strategy-shall we invade Japan proper or shall we bomb and blockade? That is my hardest decision to date. But I'll make it when I have all thefacts."-Harry S. Truman Many questions have arisen dealing with the need for the atomic bomb since it wastwice used in 1945 to end World War II on the Pacific Front. Did it save lives whencompared to an all out invasion, or could it have been a statement to Russia in an effort tostart suppressing Communism? What is it that made the United States feel that Japan would not go down byconventional bombing and invasion like we had done with Germany? Most of this ideacame from the fact that Japan had instilled an attitude in their people to always fight untildeath. Surrender was considered a disgrace and it would be better for them to die fortheir country. Also the United States was having trouble fighting through the islands thatJapan had taken over due to their isolation from one another and that there were so manyof them. Japan, in actuality, was chosen as the target in 1943. There was a fear that if thebomb did not work on Germany that the Germans would be able to disassemble it andfigure out how to make it work. There was not this fear with Japan. Also a revengefactor was set in the heart of Americans ever since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The American citizens were behind using the bomb because they were tired of thewar. It had been five years and many had not seen their loved ones and were afraid theywould not ever again if they had to invade Japan's mainland. Americans were not willingto sacrifice more lives to end this war. They felt that the developed technology should beused. After all, creating the atomic bomb had been a long and hard task. It had takenmany years of planning, developing, and testing. The making of the bomb combinedtheories and ideas from countless chemists and physicists...
