In the years of 1944-1945, U.S. troops were fighting on two fronts in the Second World War; American troops were fighting with the allies against Germany and Italy in Europe, and American troops again, were fighting alone in the Pacific Islands against Japan. The allied invasion of Europe in 1944, which begun by the invasion of Sicily, then the invasion of the Siegfried Defensive Line in Normandy, in June 6, 1944 (known as D-day), was very successful, but with extremely heavy prices in men and equipment. The war in the pacific was different; the Americans were controlling more and more strategic Islands and waterways that used to be under Japanese rule, but the advance was slower, and more painful than in Europe. Japanese Kamikaze air fighters were periodically hitting and sinking supply ships and U.S. naval targets. The scenario of the battles in Europe was extremely fast, and it didn't take more than 3 months for the German capital Berlin to fall in the hands of the Soviet Red Army by October 1944. Moreover, the allies met the soviets on the shore of the Elbe River in Germany. The Nazis declared their defeat in November 1944, and by this time, the tragedy of the war in Europe had ended.
The war in the Pacific was proceeding very slowly, and with unexpected casualties, but the American forces were able to control some islands such as Guam and Okinawa, from which air raids on Japan's mainland could be launched. The air raids on Tokyo alone in the late 1944 killed more than 200,000 people, and destroyed nearly two thirds of the city in only one month. Despite of the massive number of Japanese casualties, Japan didn't surrender, and this situation made the American government anxious. They knew that Japan won't be defeated with air raids alone, and that any possible full-scale military operation to invade Japan would put their troops face-to-face with a highly trained army, and a massive Japanese population, in a land that wasn't invaded by any foreign power since the beginning of known history. The U.S. officers estimated the casualties on the first two days of the full-scale assault on Japan to be 200,000 American troops, as a least estimation.
The Manhattan Project's Team informed President Harry Truman about the new device they had produced; Oppenheimer told him that a Uranium Bomb could destroy a whole city within few minutes; however, Szilard's calculations predicted a more destructive potential of the bomb. Szilard told Truman that a weapon with such ability to derail people and buildings represents a future threat to the whole human existence, and that using the bomb against Japan, would be equivalent to letting all the enemies of the U.S. know the secret of the bomb, which would put the future Americans under atomic and nuclear threats. Despite of Szilard's long-term speculations, Truman was put under the pressure of increasing war casualties in the Pacific Ocean, as well as the public anxiety about the Billions of dollars that are spent on the Manhattan Project, and without a clear outcome. The fault of Truman, who later had took the decision of throwing the Uranium bomb on Hiroshima, is that he didn't look ahead; although the bomb had done its role in ending the war, and with the least amount of casualties with respect to the U.S. side, the bomb's technique became since then, available to any searching team all over the world, which makes the possibility that such a bomb can hit a big American city in the near, or even in the far future. Yes, Truman saved the lives of thousands of American soldiers, but he didn't realize that he is the responsible for any nuclear crisis that will happen in the future. In fact, Truman started a new era of black science. The fact that emotions played the greatest role in taking that hard decision is not negotiable. Truman knew that Japan at that time was extremely away from making an atom bomb. He knew also that the new weapon had to be tested practically, on a real target. When the first Uranium bomb was tested in the Desert of New Mexico, Truman was impressed by the results. An internal feeling in him was pushing him towards showing America's power to the whole world.
After long thinking, Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. He refused the option of bombing the city of Kyoto because of its religious monuments whose bombing could raise the anger of the Japanese till the top, and can make them refuse to surrender, so that they would fight till death. Truman sent the Japanese a message asking them to surrender unconditionally, after disarming the Japanese army. He printed this message on papers and threw them on civilians in large amounts. The Japanese replied that they refuse to negotiate and they sunk an American battleship and 883 men were killed. Truman gave the order to bomb Hiroshima with the Uranium bomb. He didn’t listen to the advice of Szilard and accepted the other destructive option that the people around him advised him with it.
The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and caused total destruction of the city, moreover, 130 thousand people were killed; most of them were civilians. Truman described the effect of the bombing when he new the results for the first time as “an overwhelming success”. It is believed that the honesty of the scientist Szilard was useless and gone with the wind in front of the decision of bombing. Stalin invaded Manchuria in those difficult moments for Japan. He was aiming to divide Japan as he did in Germany. Truman used the bomb to end the war before the Soviets could attain a remarkable progress on the Japanese front, so that Japan would be his country's dependency, without any Soviet interference. He aimed also to show the deterrent threat of his nuclear arsenal to the Russians. When Truman saw the pictures of Hiroshima after bombing, he knew the value of the disaster there. He thought not to make the American people see it, but people around him told him that the American people paid 2 billion dollars as taxes in order to build the bomb, and that it’s their right to see the result of the money they had paid. Therefore, Truman gave unavailable reasons and said through media that America bombed Japan because it refused to surrender, and that there was a race between the nations to build the atomic bomb. He added that Germans were just about to produce it but the Americans were faster, and when the opportunity came, the bomb was used against the Japanese. He said that America would not hesitate to use atom bombs against the Japanese again, if they refuse to surrender unconditionally. The Japanese thought that America does not afford having many atomic bombs for threatening them with random bombing, so they refused to surrender. America then bombed Nagasaki with the last bomb it has. This second Plutonium bomb gave the exact impression America wished to deliver to the Japanese, which believes what America had said about bombing at any time. Although General Anami, the commander of the Japanese armed forced assured that America does not have any other bombs, yet, the emperor refused to continue the war saying that continuing in this war means the elimination of his nation completely and total destruction to the Japanese people. There was an attempt to make a revolution by some of the army officers who wanted to convince the emperor not to surrender, and to get rid of the people around him. The coup-d'état failed by the suicide of Anami, who signed the paper of the surrender decision by his blood when he put the paper with a sword together in his abdomen, and killed himself. Finally, the Japanese emperor decided to accept the unconditional surrender.
It all began with the ambition of a scientist to do the best to serve his case, but it turned to this monster called the atomic bomb by the rules of the authority, neglecting the right of innocent civilians to live safely even if they belong to an enemy nation so that to free the American war prisoners and to protect the other from being killed just by killing the others which is totally unethical, immoral and a selfish decision. I believe that this is the best example of a case when the morality of science is mixed with the immorality of politics.
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