The Pros And Cons Of The Atomic Bombs

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One question that many people still have today, is whether or not the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was morally acceptable. There is evidence that creates arguments for both sides. To fully understand whether the dropping of the atomic bombs was morally correct, it is important to look at the events that led up to dropping the bombs as well as the events after. I believe that it was morally correct to drop the first atomic bomb, Little Boy, on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945; I do not believe that dropping the second atomic bomb, Fat Man, on Nagasaki, on August 9, 1945 was morally correct. There were five main reasons that President Truman decided to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while trying to end the war…show more content…
To understand whether or not the second bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki was morally acceptable, you need a good understanding of the events that happened after the first atomic bomb was dropped. In the book Hiroshima, Hersey says, “In a city of two hundred and forty-five thousand, nearly a hundred thousand people had been killed or doomed at one blow; a hundred thousand more were hurt” (Hersey). With such a major impact on the capability of Hiroshima’s population, I don’t think that the second bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki was morally correct. Any nation that is hit by a weapon that can deal the amount of power that the atomic bomb did certainly needs time to understand and survey what happened. Hersey describes a scene where Father Kleinsorge is going through a forest to get help and sees a horrific site. Hersey wrote, “…their faces were wholly burned, their eye sockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks” (Hersey). If something that terrible happened or any other form of death happened to nearly half the population of Hiroshima, the main concern of the entire country of Japan would be getting medical help to aid the wounded, clear the dead bodies, and clean up all of the ruble that the first atomic bomb turned Hiroshima into. Japan had to have its army medical units come to Hiroshima to treat the citizens there rather than the soldiers, because so many citizens were in need of help. Mr. Tanimoto was looking for people to help the wounded. “Since this had long before been designated as an evacuation area, he thought he would find an aid station there. He did find one, operated by an Army medical unit, but he also saw that its doctors were hopelessly overburdened, with thousands of patients sprawled among corpses across the eld in front of it” (Hersey). Only three days later on August 9, 1945 the United States dropped a second atomic

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