Revenge, no by this time there had already been enough punishment
heap on Japan.

Tokyo had already been bombed with more casualties than either Atomic bomb, if Truman had wanted to give Americans their revenge that would have been it.

Also the US 8th Air Force dropped one-million leaflets over 36 Japanese cities on Aug 1 warning them of terrible destruction and telling them to evacuate, each target city
was listed on the leaflet.
This was done on order of Truman over the objections of the Air force, does that sound like a President bent revenge?

There was also a third bomb being prepped for dropping, after Nagasaki
Truman gave a direct order that it not be used without his permission, the
thought of killing another 100,000 Japanese was just too horrible to bear.

If Truman wanted to scare the Soviets, then why tell Stalin about the weapon
in advance?

Why not just use it and shock them the way it was used to shock Japan.

If he was worried about the Soviets invading and grabbing land, then why
did he press so hard to get Stalin to declare war on Japan at the Potsdam
Conference. After all doing that would give the Soviet Union a seat at the
negotiating table, which gave them North Korea and the islands anyway.

If the Americans thought that Japan was anywhere near surrendering
who needed the Soviets. Yet reporters who accompanied him to Postdam
wrote later that Truman was jubilant about getting Stalin to finally commit.

While it is agreed that Japan was defeated, surrender was another matter.
The US knew about the massive build up of troops and equipment in Southern
Japan under operation Ketsu-go. Japan was preparing to conscript every
civilian of fighting age armed with nothing more than an assortment of
farming tools, swords and explosives.

The Americans knew from 2 yrs of fighting that Japanese were suicidal and
90% preferred death to surrender, why should they expect Japan to be any
different? 100,000 civilians died during the battle of Okinawa, thousands of them
were coerced by the Japanese Army to commit suicide. Of the 150,000 Japanese defenders the Us only took 7,000 prisoners, 8,000 kamakazi pilots
attacked the US fleet .

What most people also don’t realize is that although elements of the Japanese Govt who were making attempts to negotiate a surrender weeks before the bombs were dropped, including the Prime Minister himself, had no authority or control over the military.

There was even a plot by junior Army officers to assassinate members of the “Peace Faction” incl the Prime Minister and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of the Gov’t, Army Minister Gen. Anami knew about this and did nothing to intervene.

The leaders of the “War Faction” were bent on continuing the war even after both bombs were dropped and the Soviets declared war on Japan.

The intent was to try and kill one million Americans and force the US to sue for peace on terms favorable to Japan thereby allowing them to save face.

Only the personal intervention of the Emperor himself forced the military to stand down, it was the only decision he had made during the entire war.

Even after that decision had been made a group of Jr. officers broke into the Imperial Palace. They were looking for the recording the Emperor had made to inform Japanese about the intention to surrender. Fortunately the Emperor had the foresight to hide the recording in his wife’s overnight chamber which was never searched. It was smuggled out of the palace the next day and broadcast nation wide.

This is an example of haw far some in Japan were prepared to go.

If you fight a foe who does not bow to your overwhelming force, what other option is there. War is a plague of mankind, the longer it goes on, the more it destroys. People are killed, economies are destroyed and countries are ravaged. To possess a weapon that can end all of this suffering with a fraction of the cost of loss of the alternatives is a clear choice. Use it or die trying to take Japan. No one can doubt that every Japanese man, woman and child would have fought to the death defending their supposedly superior “Yamato” race. No one can doubt that hundreds of thousands and even millions would have been killed as a result.

The shorter war can be made, the better. The lesser of two evils was, strangely enough, using an atomic weapon. The world is a sick, twisted place.

Japan had proven itself to be a stubborn unrealistic foe throughout the war, and their stand and fortitude would not have changed even if we had laid siege to their island for 100 years. I often wondered if a bombing site on a nearby island might have convinced them, but although only three days separated the two atomic bombs they did not change their resolve, there was no point in expecting anything to change the Japanese people’s tenacity and fortitude to not accept surrender.

This is evident in the mass suicides before and after the bombing as defeat loomed near in the future for the Japanese soldiers in combat and the civilian population of the devoted fundamentalist Japanese populace. If the first bomb in Hiroshima didn’t change their indignation, then the second one was merely a point made to convince them that we had our own resolve to continue an accumulative bombing campaign to a point of annihilation.

The humane viewpoint of the bombing is mute to, for at the time there were so many compiled atrocities by the Japanese military that point-counter point is a foolish and senseless endeavor. The original point is simply put, we should stay off war in all forms unless as a last resolve and then surely not arbitrate its usage against the voices of peace mongers who accept no answer other than their own.

Japan had assaulted and declared war upon China and the US in a vain attempt to gain superiority at a time when they felt that the US was weak from having to fight the German War campaign, and as was said “Awakened a sleeping giant” in the process. Its war campaign was full of inhumane uncivil and horrific abuses against civilian populations and war POWs.

Their code of honor in civilian life and military protocol prevented the idea of surrender, and excused inhumane treatment of their foes since as so with the Germans, they felt themselves a superior race. The obliterations caused by the atomic bombs were simply and truthfully horrific, yet in war, horrific is a common definitive. War if waged, should be wielded with stern determination in itself to shorten its nightmarish scenario.

The atomic bombings were just that and if used early on would have saved the horror of war from being felt by sunken war ships with drowning, shark eaten soldiers at sea and starving, disease ridden people in occupied territories. The bombings of civilian populations would have been lessened, yet the world had felt that nightmare with the recent bombing campaigns in London and Berlin, so Japan was no one special to be exempt from the casualties felt in war.

They had enjoyed their glories and in an effort not unlike revenge, but mainly resolve to end the war, the atomic bombs were justified, considering that any excuses not to use them would simply have cost the world hundreds of thousands more in the lives of the innocent and not so innocent involved. If it were as simple as today with technology changes, the US could have set offshore and used cruise missiles and implemented targeted smart bombing strikes to neutralize the Japanese war effort.

Yet, the time was then and not now and the US used what was laid at hand for them. That leaves the point-counter point pretty much answered, except for those whose denial fortitude is as stubborn as the Japanese, simply put. For those who chose to hold no answer but their own, the bomb of truth will not help, for stubbornness is their god, and denial their bible.

Edited For Format

…If a bomb built back then could cause so much destruction, imagine what a modern and more powerful bomb could do. I fear for the future of all mankind.