Pros & Cons of dropping the Atomic Bomb For Pros & Cons of dropping the Atomic Bomb Against The two targeted cities would have been firebombed anyway Firebombing not as bad as the radiation from an atomic bomb Japanese would not quit, wanted to fight to the death including kamikazes Japan was ready to call it quits. home islands were being blocked so they couldn’t get anything Invasion of Japan would have caused more casualties than the death toll at Hiroshima & Nagasaki Those deaths would have mostly been military and not civilian Japan was warned to surrender or face destruction and did not Japan would surrender with right terms, one bomb could have been used in Tokyo Harbor as a demo The bomb's use impressed Soviet Union enough that they did not demand joint occupation of Japan Civilian were sacrificed simply for power politics between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

My older aunt, my dah ahiee (big aunt), is actually very small My older aunt, my dah ahiee (big aunt), is actually very small. Her wrists are the size of napkin rings, as delicate as rice paper--and the clothes we pass around in our family do not fit her small frame. She is shy, especially in English. And during one heated family discussion on the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, she kept quiet. I had pointed out to her rather talkative husband that the U.S. government was still the only government that had dropped the atomic bomb on human beings. Hiroshima, I could maybe see, but Nagasaki too? At this point, my petite aunt spoke up. “They raped us and killed our people. I think they should have bombed the whole country!" she bellowed, and then lapsed back into silence. It was the first time I realized how profoundly the Chinese were affected by World War II. Even then, I was not familiar with what had happened in the country of my mother's birth during the war. As Americans, we are almost all familiar with the Nazi-sponsored Holocaust, spawning unspeakable horrors, starvation and genocide. Many will never forgive the Nazis. But now I see how the Chinese feel about their Holocaust. The lesson of a Holocaust is to never forget. (From Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking)

It all began that August day in 1945 It all began that August day in 1945. My father had been sent to fight in the war and my mother worked in a dormitory for employees of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. I was 9-years-old and my job was to look after my two younger brothers, aged 5 and 2, in our home in Nagasaki. "I was washing dishes in the kitchen after feeding my brothers their breakfast when there was a bluish-white flash and huge boom," "Suddenly, the windows broke and the furniture was strewn about the room. The shattered glass had hit my brother and sliced into his leg. My other brother was trapped under books and a book case the had fallen. I helped my brother get from under the bookcase, he cannot walk, I think his leg is broken. I took towels to help my other brother stop bleeding. I then took my two little brothers up in my arms and fled to the nearest air raid shelter.“ Our neighborhood was in ruins.