Hiroshima Day is a good time to contemplate the utter uselessness of war.

However, the alternative plan for stopping Japanese religious aggression would have caused far more death and destruction than dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshima.

Whether or not the dropping of a second A-bomb on Nagasaki was necessary is debatable.

Today is August 6 and on this date in history, in 1945, the USA dropped a nuclear device on Hiroshima, Japan.

This act continues to cause debate, and since I have followed it to a moderate extent, I conclude that the historical tide is turning against the use of the weapon. Realizing that the revisionist historians have the benefit of knowing a vast amount more of facts than Truman did at the time, the question is really interesting and still topical.

My generation until recently never had any doubts about the bombing. My dad was in Central Europe on VE Day in Patton's Third Army, and the War Department was starting to mobilize forces for the Japanese invasion by rotating them home from Europe. The individual soldier who fought Germany thought that he had done his bit and it was another's turn to invade Japan. I doubt that there would have been mutiny but to force the soldiers who fought in Europe also to fight Japan would have caused great bitterness. I personally know this from those poor folk who were called up for Korea after their WWII service.

I went to many veterans affairs with my dad, and I never met a person who did not approve of the use of the weapon. Almost all of the WWII veterans are gone from the scene. My dad died early this year at age 95. This question will live on for centuries. I am interested in reaction from the learned members of RIA.

It ended the war, didn't it? Unfortunately, we didn't have it earlier. We could have saved hundreds of thousands of soldiers lives.

President Harry S Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki will forever be debated. Some say it was unnecessary, and that given time the Japanese would have eventually surrendered. Others cite the countless llives which perished at the tremendous destructive power of the bombs. Either way, Truman saw this issue in terms of right versus wrong, and acted upon it (and never regretted his decision thereafter). Truman saw dropping the bomb as a quick way to end the war in the Pacific, and later argued that he would have not been able to face the American public had he not used atomic bomb to quickly end the war- as opposed to what likely would have been a costly ground attack on the shores of Japan. However, what has to be noted was Japan's ruthless mentality to fight to the bitter end. Moreover, even after the bombs were dropped, the Japanese public and Emperor Hirohito's cabinet were still largely in favor of fighting to the bitter end. It took Hirohito's decision to surrender (steadfastly hastened due to the destruction of the atomic bombs and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan). If any proof of Japan's ruthless metality was needed, it was during the course of the war when Japanese fighter pilots would use their planes (and themselves) on suicide missions, torpedoing American ships throughout the Pacific in an attempt to sink and destroy the enemy. Does this act make it look like they actually wanted to surrender? Also, hearing stories of atrocities done to survivors (like my late Filipino grandfather) of battles won by the Japanese (or being captured and tortured as in the Bataan Death March), Japan's military was intent on using their war machine to achieve its means- and if it meant destroying villages or the wholesale massacre of innocent lives, then that was it. Though there were so many lives lost on both sides (and yes, there were innocent lives on BOTH sides), Truman's fateful decision to drop the bomb WAS necessary and justified- and he made the decision to use the atomic bombs to quickly hasten the war's end. By the way, it is totally misguided and irresponsible to say this was 'an evil act' as the effects of war and the destruction it leaves never discriminates between good and bad! I dare the person who argues that this was 'an evil act' to ask most veterans of World War II whether the decision to drop the bombs on Japan was justified, and they will tell you it DEFINITELY was, and that they are so grateful to President Truman for it. The fact of the matter is that war is hell for everyone, and Truman responded accordingly to end this costly struggle. For me, there is no question he did the right thing.

This might be an unusual viewpoint, but I think one of the reasons no nuclear weapon has been used for the last 60 years is because we DID use them, once, at the one juncture in history when we needed to do so for the greater good. Those images of destruction burned into the collective world consciousness are a very major reason the Cold War never turned hot. On a personal note, I would not be here today writing this without the bombings, since my father was training for his part in the assault troops of the first invasion wave when the bombs fell. Instead of being killed on the beaches of Honshu he came back to the U.S. and went to college and met my mom--so I have a rather strange personal relationship to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki events. Horrible as they were, they brought the war to a quicker end.

Yes! We also learned how nasty they were and quickly came to the conclusion that they shouldn't be used unless we were ready to turn the planet over to the noble cockroach. I think we would have used it sometime and its good at least that we used it when it was a baby rather than when it was all grown up and ready to trash the whole world.

Whereas I understand why the Bomb was dropped, being an ex-military man, I would not say it was the best way to deal with the situation. Anyone that knows what an Atom bomb does and saw the devastation, will know that it is a very cruel punishment for Civilian people; let alone what it does on the long term.

The decision to drop the bomb had already been made, while FDR was still alive. It would have been very difficult for Truman to stop this. In any case, yes, it was the right decision for the reasons Autz and irish outlined. The only good thing about any war is the end of it.

In the context of the time, and with the knowledge at hand, it was a defensible decision. It is always a mistake to look at historical decisions with the perfection of hindsight. Were the targets military? To the degree that had already been established by precedent in the war, yes. Did it shorten the war, thereby saving American and Japanese lives? Clearly yes. Was it a shocking, horrific act, the long term consequences of which linger today? Clearly yes. But in the contest of the time, only the first two questions could have been clearly answered by Truman.

Yes. It ended the war earlier than planned. It showed that the USA was a superpower. Considering the atrocities the Japanese committed in the war, an A-Bomb was a fitting retaliation.

No, what he did was an evil act. Thousands of innocent Japanese civilians and children died under those bombings. The war was already coming to an end anyway. Japan was vulnerable so why drop two bombs at them?

How is this still up for debate it is a well known fact that dropping the bomb saved thousand of lives. If Truman had not dropped the bomb the war would have dragged on for months even years. Any one who says the bomb should not have been dropped needs to go back and read the history books. If nothing else it showed the world what the technology was capable of and gave the super powers the fear not to use it again. If Truman had a better option I am sure he would have used it and he should be remembered as hero for using such a terrible weapon to save so many lives.

It really is terribly sad that some areas of Japan are still living with the effects of radiation because of what happened nearly 60 years ago. However, the Japanese had a code of honor that told them to never surrender, to fight to the death if necessary. How many more millions of our troops would have died in the Pacific had we not dropped the bombs? We'll never know, but having lost so many already, we didn't want to take the chance. I can see why they did it and I can't say it was a bad choice. Truman had a hard decision to make and he made the choice he thought was best for America at that time.

Sometimes, a leader has a really tough call to make. You have to decry the inhumanity of this weapon, its destruction is so widespread and so horrific. The development of this weapon was inevitable, good thing America developed it before Germany, Japan or Russia. One can only imagine the restraint those militaries would have shown in its use. The proliferation of this weapon continues and, someday, it will fall into the hands of a madman. Would you like to be President then, making the decision whether to pre-emptively strike or wait? Blaming Truman for using it misses the point. It would have said more about America had he not used it, kept it holstered, and allowed countless soldiers, sailors, airmen and possibly civilians to die. Truman did the math, knowing he would be second guessed ad infinitum, by many people not fit to carry his shoes. Four years of war was enough for him. He signed the paper and, in his biography by David McCullough, said, I went to bed that night and didn't lose a bit of sleep over that decision. I couldn't afford to, I was President of the United States and had to make more decisions the next day.

This is a tough call. By estimates, 1M Americans may have been killed invading Japan. I wonder though. Could we have dropped only one? We had 2 obviously. Could we have dropped it 15 miles off the coast as a warning? I really don't know, and am glad I didn't have to decide. It's hard to critisize Truman though, didn't walk in his shoes.

america didn't start world war 2, but we definitely ended it.

Do you love america or do you wish you were german or japanese right now? While I sympathize with the effects of the bomb on the people that are still seen to this day, I am convince had they had the same technology they no doubt would have done the same thing. We did it in defense.

Had President Truman not dropped the bomb there would have been a land invasion of Japan which certainly would have resulted in more casualties on both sides. Sad as it seems, he actually saved many lives.

In light of the massive decisions Truman faced at the time, I think that he made the right choice concerning the Atomic bomb. Yes, it was horrific, but we needed the end the war on our terms. We didn't want a resurgent Japan to continue on the world scene. They were about to be defeated, but word was that a military junta was prepared to take over the government and make the United States fight a bloody battle on the home islands. Truman had a choice here, limit the destruction to one or two cities or risk thousands of American soldiers lives for a war that could have gone on for a least two more years. Also we wanted to use this technology as a bargaining chip against the Russians. Really Truman was sticking his hand into the dark with this decision; he did what he had to do. Nuclear technology was largely untested; we really didn't know what a nuclear weapon could do to people in a large city. In the end, it showed us that we can never use these weapons again arbitrarily. A nuclear war can destroy civilization as we know and indeed in retrospect we probably would have been much better off without this technology. If nuclear weapons fall into the wrong hands, we could have some very large problems as a world community. Imagine a terrorist with a small nuclear bomb? This small, disgruntled minority can really bring society to its knees with such technology in their hands. Not a good vision for the future...

Well, older folks who were around back then say Truman had to do this to stop by the war, but I've always thought it was cruel to kill all those innocent civilians and destroy their country. Call me a bleeding heart liberal-but I just think it was wrong.

How the hell can any decent person advocate the use of nuclear weapons in any context? So many innocent people burned alive, thier homes destroyed, thier crops irradiated, the survivors infected with radiation that causes slow painful death. Say whatever you want about how dropping nuclear weapons on civilians (including innocent children) is a good thing but... there must have been another way besides this insanity, there had to be.

Well.....It's hard to say. I still cringe when I see the footage of the victims in Hiroshima, all burnt up and melting. Plus this was an attack on unarmed civilians. It was just such an atrocity. It just makes me so sick. I've seen so much footage of what people had to suffer through in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that I've never gotten over it and to this day, I'm petrified to bring up World War II to anyone.

Truman was a patsy who had not one clue at what he was doing. Japan was screwed anyway, talk about overkill. I have a hard time believing that most of you have ever seen footage of the victims. This is one of the greatest travesties in the history of man.

What other option was there? We could have either ignored the pearl harbor attack and wait for the next assault or take the offensive. What makes any of you think that the japanese would have been willing to negotiate?

The loss of civilian life was horrible, and the second bomb seemed more like a scientific experiment, as it was totally unnecessary at that point. However, the fire bombing of Berlin and Dresden and Rotterdam, etc., were just as catastrophic but don't get as much attention because it was many bombs instead of just one. The world has changed since WWII and it's now passe to bomb civilian targets.

Sure, it was a hideous thing and when you think of it OUT OF CONTEXT it seems even worse. But before you get your panties in a bunch answer these questions - what right did Japan have to bomb Pearl Harbor? Why didn't Japan have the balls to give in when they knew it was over for them? Uh, it just boiled down to a lethal combination of pride and stupidity. Either way, the war ended and that was a good thing.

Absolutely. In my opinion it saved more lives than it cost in the long run. WW2 needed a firm halt.

This is probably the most humane thing the U.S. could have done to end the war AT THE TIME. All of these stories about Japan being on the threshold of surrender prior to its use is total utter bullshit. Japan's Emperor and their culture and ethics demanded that they fight to the death. You never, ever surrender - it's better to die with honor. Truman did not make his decision alone although he had the final say. He consulted with Churchill and Stalin at the Potsdam Conference in Germany and came up with the the Potsdam declaration in which Japan surrenders unconditionally or faces certain destruction. The Emperor flat out rejected the proposal and put up the lives of every citizen in Japan. The rest is history. Notice that Japan refused to surrender after the first bomb dropped. If we would have continued to try to use millitary force a million or more american soldiers would have died. Consider these numbers: 50 million total people died in WW2, 405,399 Americans died according to the American Battle Monuments Commission so the atomic bomb casualties pale in comparison. Now, quit acting like your panties are bunched up.

Yes. The object of a war is to win and to defeat the enemy. Period. In the case of Japan during WWII, they were the aggressor and we the defender. I feel no remorse whatsoever when it comes to defending this nation against aggressors.

Tough call. I have to agree with PBeavr completely on this one--I do wish they would have chosen different targets, but dropping the bomb caused horrific loss of life, but so would the continuation of the war. That's not a choice I would have wanted to make, that's for sure.

Yes. Why did we use it? Because they work. I would not be against using any nuclear powered missile in any war. They are effective. If you are going to attack us, you are going to be killed. Can't get any more easy than that.