Why did enola gay drop the atomic bomb

The bomb had not yet been tested. Once it was proved to work, Truman would consult with allies and advisors, but the decision on whether to use it would be his. Truman said later that he had no great difficulty in reaching the decision. The question before him was how to end the war and save lives.

He regarded the atomic bomb as a weapon — an awe-some one, to be sure — but still a weapon to be used. Another B, Bockscar, dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki August 9. The unconditional surrender of Japan followed on August To understand the decision, it is necessary to examine the circumstances and the options as Truman saw them in the summer of In the Pacific, the toll from each successive battle rose higher.

The eventual military outcome of the Pacific war had been effectively sealed since the US took the Marianas inbut the Japanese refused to accept defeat. Inthe war had finally come home to Japan. Bs from Guam, Saipan, and Tinian were striking the Japanese homeland regularly, systematically destroying the industrial cities on Honshu and Kyushu.

Nevertheless, the war threatened to drag on into US and Allied forces prepared for a difficult and costly invasion of the Japanese islands. Surrender was dishonorable. Defeated Japanese leaders preferred to take their own lives in the painful samurai ritual of seppuku called hara kiri in the West.

Warriors who surrendered were not deemed worthy of regard or respect. This explains, in part, the Japanese mistreatment, torture, and summary execution of POWs. There was no shortage of volunteers for kamikaze missions or of troops willing to serve as human torpedoes or to ride to honorable death on piloted buzz bombs.

Japan was dead on its feet in every way but one: The Japanese still had the means — and the determination — to make the invading Allied forces pay a terrible price for the final victory. Since the summer ofthe armed forces had been drawing units back to Japan in anticipation of a why did enola gay drop the atomic bomb stand there.

The Japanese were prepared to absorb massive casualties. According to Gen. Korechika Anami, the War Minister, the military could commit 2. Commanders were authorized to call up four million civil servants to augment the troops. The Japanese Cabinet extended the draft to cover most civilians men from ages fifteen to sixty and women from seventeen to forty-five.

The defending force would have upwards of 10, aircraft, most of them kamikaze. Suicide boats and human torpedoes would defend the beaches. The Japanese Army planned to attack the Allied landing force with a three-to-one advantage in manpower.

American bomber drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima

If that failed, the militia and the people of Japan were expected to carry on the fight. Civilians were being taught to strap explosives to their bodies and throw themselves under advancing tanks. Construction battalions had fortified the shorelines of Kyushu and Honshu with tunnels, bunkers, and barbed wire.