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Because they believed it would shorten the war and eventually save lives as millions would have died if the US had to invade mainland Japan, . The Japanese would never have surrendered in such a fight and the war would have lasted a lot longer, but also i think it was the beginning of their expansionist ideas and the test of such a weapon helped them to become a superpower
The Japanese were a beaten people, but were fighting to to death, their culture has to be taken int account, better to die than dishonourable surrender.
before an invasion of Japan could go ahead, two outposts had to be taken, Iowa Jima, and Okinawa, so that US plane had the range of the main Japanese islands.
Iowa Jima was defended by 20.000 fanatical Japanese, and without going into the whole story, the US invaded with 30.000 Marines, of which approximately 2.400 were killed.
Okinawa was garrisoned by approximately 100.000 men, the American used, 3000.000, it took them three months to taake the island, with the loss of 12.00 killed, and 36.000 wounded.
The Japanese still, at that time had their Empire virtually intact, and with no sign of Surrender, it was consdered that an actual seaborne invasion would be too costly in manpower, and I would think that this thinking would have been correct, when you consider that they only surrendered after the second Nuclear device had been exploded.
Lonnie is correct. To the Japanese death was preferable to surrender. They did not surrender after the first, the second was needed to convince them. The intonation was that Tokyo would be next, they didn't know how many bombs the US had.
I know a lot of people cannot do Paradoxical thinking but essentially many thousands of live where saved by forcing the surrender. The nation where at the time being told to fight with anything they can to defend the Emporer, even after the second bomb it was only the Emporer that ordered surrender not the military. Hundreds of Samurai Committed Hari Kari because of the dishonor of surrender.
There is no doubt that the Japanese would never have surrendered, they where fearless, fanatical Warriors, who considered death preferrable to surrender.
During the war there was a delicate balance of power in Japan. The Emperor was nominally the head of state, but his powers were limited. There was a prime minister, but he was in a perilous position as the real power lay with the cabinet which was controlled by the army. Most of the army command were hawks and wanted to fight to the bitter end, but there were a few who saw the need to end the war with minimum loss of life. Up till Mid 1945, the moderates had no chance of prevailing, but when the atom bombs were dropped the Emperor plucked up the courage to announce to his cabinet that he didn't want his people to suffer any more. This galvanised the moderates to take control and sue for peace. Whatever the morality of dropping the bombs, there is no doubt that it swung the balance of power in Japan in favour of the peace faction.
a controversial topic, in fact the japanese were making conditional surrender overtures(primarily, keeping their emperor). america could not accept a conditional victory, and was determined to humiliate them. america demanded an unconditional surrender( no emperor). meanwhile with the war in europe over , russia was preparing to enter the war in the pacific and would have accepted japan's conditional surrender, and claimed a portion of the country as it had just done in the eastern half of europe. not wanting to lose its prize in the pacific truman had to act quickly. hiroshima! russia did join the war two days later, days later nagasaki ! it was the official kick-off to the cold war giving the russians a good look at what they were up against, and truman was said to loath the japanese as a race. and all this crap about shortning the war and saving millions of lives was just the official rationalization for probably one of the most horriffic, cowarldy acts of terrorism in history which they still have not politically publicly apologized for. with the war in europe over the japanese surrender would have been in months without any bombs.they did keep their emperor but only as a symbol. and don't forget about the fire bombing's of every major city in japan that killed thousands upon thousands of innocents. wmd's some things never change!! ah.... i feel better now.
Without the Atom Bombs, the war would have gom=ne on for many months, and costing the lives of countless thousands, the Japanese were training their women and children at the time.
Also, Japan still had most of its Empire, Malaya, java, Sumatra, Thailand, Ido-China, Taiwan, and large parts of China, so they could call on all these troops defend their homeland, and after Pearl Harbour, the Americans, in my book rightly so, didn't trust the Japanese one bit.
The first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, because it was a military target, it had a Garrison of 150.000 soldiers there, plus oil refineries and other aids for the war.
As johnmof says, the Emperor was only the nominal head of state, the real power was held by Tojo.
Russia's spoils for their two day war, was North Korea.
I think another important reason why the USA dropped the bombs was that Russia had declared war on Japan a few weeks earlier.
The USA were worried that Russia would sweep down into the south east to "help" the US, and would move into many countries like Korea and Vietnam, and we would never be able to get them out.
(Look what happened in Eastern Europe after the war, Russia never left much of it until recently).
The longer the war went on the more excuse Russia would have to move south east into other countries, and the US had to stop that.
It was the begining of the battle between the US and Russia and the cold war.
Also note that the two bombs dropped by the US were not the same technology.
I do not know the details, I think one was uraniam, the other plutonium, but both bombs were not the same, they had been designed by different teams using different methods.
The dropping of the first bomb did not prove the second was going to work.
This was an incentive for the US to drop the second bomb.
The Japanese got themselves into WWII by attacking Pearl Harbour, and started something they couldn't finish.
Does no-one remember how the Japs treated the Allied troops that surrendered to them... starved, crucified, beheaded !!
All IS fair in love and war. The Yanks would rather have seen every Jap killed than lose another American life so they dropped the bombs... and quite right too.
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