Truman's Decision to Drop the Atomic Bombs

Truman’s Decision to Drop the Atomic Bombs

October 11, 2018 by Doug Dillon 4152 0 0

President Harry Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II, and the killing of over 220,000 people in the process, was unjustified.

Lieutenant Walt Dillon, 1945

That’s not what I taught in secondary school history classrooms during my 30-year career in public education, however. No, not at all. You see, my dad was a decorated World War II bomber pilot who fought in Europe at the end of that conflict and would have had to also fight in the Pacific if the United States ended up invading the Japanese homeland. So, to me the Japanese surrender because of the atomic bombings always meant that just possibly Dad’s life had been spared by Truman’s decision.

In fact, Dad reluctantly had to agree with Truman, even though the results of that decision were horrific. That’s how I was raised, and my college education didn’t really contradict my upbringing. Nor did American society as whole. The only wrinkle in my outlook on Truman’s decision, however, came about when I viewed old newsreels showing the utter destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as seeing incredibly gruesome shots of the dead and wounded: Men, women and children.

More on Truman’s Decision to Drop the Atomic Bombs

Truman's decison on using atomic bombs changed the world

President Harry S. Truman

To watch President Truman’s announcement on the bombing of Hiroshima, click here.

Wait. Before I go on much longer, be aware that this short article is the first in a 3-part series. If you would like to view the other two, please click on the following titles when you are ready:

Article #2: “Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki“ (Counter arguments to the Truman logic)

Article #3: “Hiroshima Nagasaki Viewpoints: Atomic Bombing Decision“ (Quotes from important voices. Probably the most useful of all 3 articles)

And if you would like to see a short fact sheet on the Hiroshima bombing, here is the link: Hiroshima information.

Now back to what I was saying.

One of the first books on the impact of the atomic bombings in Japan

Hersey’s book had great impact on people

What got to me even more than the newsreels, was reading John Hersey’s 1946 Pulitzer prize-winning book, Hiroshima, detailing the ghastly experiences of 6 blast survivors. Yes, it got to me, and still does. But at the time it wasn’t enough to override the logic of the Truman’s decision and what I had been taught.

So as a result, my history lectures as school teacher were mostly in line with Truman’s explanation that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a grim necessity of a very nasty but justified war with Japan. Without those horrific attacks, Truman and I both espoused, the United States would likely have lost 500,000 more of its young men in the final invasion of the Japanese homeland and countless Japanese civilians would have died as well.

The atomic bombings led to victory in Japan but at what cost?

U.S. victory in Japan celebration

As a matter of interest, after Japan’s surrender, a survey of public opinion showed that 85% of Americans agreed with Truman’s decision to use the atomic bombs and his reasons for it. In fact, so did most newspapers in the United States.

The war was over, no more Americans had to die, and the Japanese got what was coming to them for Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March and the torture and murder of American prisoners of war. However, a disturbing 13% of Americans in that survey also wanted to see all Japanese people exterminated.

In postwar America, Truman and the U.S. government stuck to the necessity for using atomic bombs on Japan. In fact, however, there was a definite disinformation campaign to disparage any other point of view. It has literally taken decades for the real stories behind to bombings to come out.

See what it looks like inside an atomic blast

And in my case, what caused me to seriously question Truman’s decision was the periodic releasing of previously withheld/secret information about the bombings and documentary films that helped fit all that new data together. Finally, I turned to 3 books that convinced me Truman’s decision, as well as the fire bombings of Germany and Japan before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were definitely unjustified.

If you’re interested in those books, see details about them below. If not, don’t forget that key aspects of my arguments against Truman’s decision are contained in the other 2 articles in this 3-part series as follows:

Article #2: “Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki“ (Counter arguments to the Truman logic)

Article #3: “Hiroshima Nagasaki Viewpoints: Atomic Bombing Decision” (Quotes from important voices. Probably the most critical of all the arguments against using the bomb)

Vonnegut certainly challenged Truman's decision

Kurt Vonnegut’s contribution to sanity

Slaughterhouse-FIve: a novel by American writer, Kurt Vonnegut

A wild, weird and quirky ride into the insanity of war, using the true story of the Dresden, Germany fire bombing by American and British planes in 1945 as a focal point. In that event, 35,000 + men, women and children were killed in a prelude to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Slaughterhouse-Five is considered by some to be one of the best 100 novels of all time.

As an allied prisoner of war, author Kurt Vonnegut somehow survived the bombing of Dresden and lived to write about it.

Personal note: My dad was part of the U.S. Occupation Forces in Germany after World War II. My mother and I joined him there in 1949. And early in the 3 years we lived there, my parents took me to visit Dresden. I was 6-years old and only partially understood what I was seeing. All I can remember now is being with a small crowd of people standing in a rubble cleared street and seeing endless, incomprehensible destruction all around me. But what still sticks most in my mind was the deep quiet that enveloped us only occasionally being broken by the muted voices of the adults.