Transcript EQ: How should the US have ended the war with Japan?

“The principal political, social, and military objective of
the U.S. in the summer of 1945 was the prompt and
complete surrender of Japan…
As we understood it in July, there was a very strong
possibility that the Japanese government might
determine upon resistance to the end, in all areas of
the Far East under its control. In such an event the
Allies would be faced with the enormous task of
destroying an armed force of 5 million men and 5
thousand suicide aircrafts, belonging to a race which
had already amply demonstrated its ability to fight
literally to the death.”
-Memoirs of Sec. of War Henry L. Stimson, 1947
EQ: How should the U.S. have
ended the war with Japan?
Based on what you already know,
should the U.S have dropped atomic
bombs on Japan?
Yalta Conference (Feb 4-11, 1945)
• Big 3 made postwar plans
• Agreements:
– Poland
– Free elections in liberated countries of E. Europe
– Stalin promises to enter war against Japan
(territory promised in return)
– UN would be formed at conference in San
Francisco (April 1945)
Truman becomes President
• April 12th FDR dies
• VP Truman comes to
office
Germany surrenders
• April 30th, 1945
Hitler’s suicide
• May 8th, 1945
– V-E day
Atomic bomb
• Manhattan Project
– J. Robert Oppenheimer
• July 16th, 1945- test
explosion
– near Alamogordo, New
Mexico
• Opinions on use of
atomic weapons?
Potsdam Conference
(July 17-Aug 2, 1945)
• Stalin, Truman, Clement Attlee
(new British prime minister)
• Potsdam Declaration
– warning to Japan to surrender
• Potsdam Agreement
– Military occupation plan
– Soviet annexation of former Polish
territory
– War-crimes trial
Japanese attempts to negotiate
• June 22 – Japanese Supreme War Strategy
Council approves negotiated peace
• July 12 – Japan attempts to get Soviet
mediation to end war
• BUT July 28 - rejected Potsdam ultimatum
August 6, 1945
• Enola Gay
• “Little Boy” dropped on Hiroshima
• ~140,000 killed
Hiroshima after bomb
Effects of atomic bomb
• Thermal heat
– Severe burns, loss of eyesight
• Blast
– Wind pressure destroyed buildings, homes
• Radiation
– ~2-3 miles range
– Hair fell out, fever,
red spots, gums bled
– Cancers
August 9, 1945
• “Fat Man” dropped
on Nagasaki
• ~70,000 killed
Nagasaki after bomb
Surrender
• Japan agreed to
surrender if emperor
was recognized
• Radio address
announcing surrender
August 15th
• Sept 2nd – formal
surrender signed
aboard USS Missouri
in Tokyo Bay
Survivor Accounts
• Read Shige
Hiratsuka’s story
– Discuss reactions
– Does reading
survivor accounts
change your
perspective at all?
If so, how?
Survivors of the United States' atomic attack on
Hiroshima, still hospitalized two years later, 1947.
“I realize the tragic significance of the atomic bomb.
…We won the race of discovery against the Germans.
Having found the bomb, we have used it. We have used it
against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl
Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten
American prisoners of war, against those who have
abandoned the pretense of obeying international laws of
warfare....We have used it in order to shorten the agony
of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and
thousands of young Americans.
We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy
Japan’s power to make war. Only a Japanese surrender
will stop us.”
-Harry S. Truman, radio address, August 1945
“I made one great mistake in my life... when I
signed the letter to President Roosevelt
recommending that atom bombs be made;
but there was some justification - the danger
that the Germans would make them.”
-Albert Einstein, Nov. 1954
Should the U.S. have dropped
atomic bombs on Japan?
EQ: How should the U.S. have
ended the war with Japan?