Dropping the Atomic Bombs: An Irresponsible Decision

"Ever since I have been in touch with this program, I have had a feeling that before the bomb is actually used against Japan that Japan should have some preliminary warning for say two or three days in advance of use" (Dannen, "Bard Memorandum" 1). If the men in charge of the "Manhattan Project" had listened to men like Ralph A. Bard, the Undersecretary of the Navy, many deaths could have been prevented.

On April 12, 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage and Harry S. Truman became the president. After the defeat of Germany on May 7, 1945, there were pressures on both the leaders of Japan and the U.S. to end the war (Boyer 553-554). The two nations were involved in a bitter fight which began with Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and included American air raids with incendiary bombs on the major cities of Japan. Although thousands of Japanese were without food and homes, Japan refused to surrender.

By mid-July two events occurred that enormously influenced America's decision to drop two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first was the Potsdam Conference in Germany. During that conference, President Harry S Truman mentioned to "the allied rival" Joseph Stalin about a powerful new weapon; Stalin encouraged the usage of any weapon that would hasten the end of the war. Towards the end of the conference, Japan was given an ultimatum which Japan rejected. The other event was the successful test of the atomic bomb. This test gave the men in charge of the project the confidence that they knew everything about the effects of the radioactivity on the human body.

Finally, on July 24, 1945, Truman submitted his order to drop the first atomic bomb, "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima. Three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, August 9, the other atomic bomb "Fat Man" was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. Figure 1 shows models of the two bombs.

The dropping of the bombs had various beneficial effects. For example, it helped end World War II with Japan's surrender and it saved countless U.S. military lives. However, the flood of negative results was simply overwhelming, because Hiroshima was not a big military center and the damage from the bomb could not be predicted or controlled as Scientists had forewarned. These points imply that the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan was an irresponsible decision.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

To understand why Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as civilian cities, should not have been attacked, it is important to know about the rules of warfare. These rules were proposed at The Hague in 1907 and ratified by the U.S. Senate on March 10, 1908.

Article XXIII states, that "In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden: ... to employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering..." Further Article XXV explains that "The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited." And, finally, Article XXVII maintains that "In bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare ... buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided that they are not being used at the same time for military purposes..." (Dannen "International Law" 2-3).

The ratification by the U.S. Senate made this document a contract that was valid for the nations that signed it, including the United States, and should not have been violated. According to the first Article, the use of the atomic bomb as a weapon intentionally calculated to make people suffer would have been prohibited even if it had been dropped on military targets. The second article states that the bombing of civilians was prohibited and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were purely civilian targets. There are some sources that state that Hiroshima was an important military center; however, Nagasaki was not. In Nagasaki there were about 250 Japanese soldiers. The number of Allied prisoners was the same (Thomas 28).

In the protocol of the second meeting of the Target Committee the reasons for choosing Hiroshima as a target were given. One requirement was that it was an important urban area with a diameter greater than three miles (Dannen "Minutes" 4-5). The key in this sentence was the word "urban." This word is a synonym for city or civilian area. Thus, the men involved in the decision of where to drop the bomb, reluctantly, decided to drop the bomb on a civilian center.

The last Article said that no religious, medical or cultural buildings may be destroyed. In his book, Hiroshima, John Hersey describes the memories of six different people. For example Dr. Masakazu Fujii saw his own hospital that was situated near the Ota, falling into the river (12). Another example involved a religious building, that of Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge's church which was completely destroyed by the bomb.

Additionally, in 1939 the then President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, wrote a letter to the governments of France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Great Britain in which he appealed to stop the bombing of civilians:

... hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who have no responsibility for, and who are not even remotely participating in, the hostilities which have now broken out, will lose their lives. I am therefore addressing this urgent appeal to every government which may be engaged in hostilities publicly to affirm its determination that its armed forces shall in no event, and under no circumstances, undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations or of unfortified cities, upon the understanding that these same rules of warfare will be scrupulously observed by all of their opponents. (Dannen, "International Law" 6-7)

It seems incredibly ironical that the President of the only nation that ever dropped an atomic bomb on a civilian city believed that the bombing should be stopped. Perhaps if Roosevelt had survived the war, and if he had been in charge of the decision, he might have decided not to drop the bomb on Japan.

The Official Bombing Order made no mention of destroying military targets or sparing civilians. That makes it logical to guess that it did not matter if civilians were hurt or killed (Dannen "Official Bombing Order" 1).

Too little knowledge about the bomb

The U.S. Generals on the Target Committee only discussed the effects the radiation would have on the aircraft that dropped the bomb. They