Use the excerpt from the article "Harry S. Truman’s Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb" to answer the question. Select the two examples that identify reasons why President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.
The United States could launch a traditional ground invasion of the Japanese home islands. However, experience showed that the Japanese did not easily surrender. They had been willing to make great sacrifices to defend the smallest islands. They were likely to fight even more fiercely if the United States invaded their homeland. During the battle at Iwo Jima in 1945, 6,200 US soldiers died. Later that year, on Okinawa, 13,000 soldiers and sailors were killed. Casualties on Okinawa were 35 percent; one out of three US participants was wounded or killed. Truman was afraid that an invasion of Japan would look like "Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other." Casualty predictions varied, but all were high. The price of invasion would be millions of American dead and wounded.
Estimates did not include Japanese casualties. Truman and his military advisers assumed that a ground invasion would “be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population." Documents discovered after the war indicated that they were right. Despite knowing the cause was hopeless, Japan planned a resistance so ferocious, resulting in costs so appalling, that they hoped that the United States would simply call for a cease fire where each nation would agree to stop fighting and each nation would retain the territory they occupied at the time. Almost one-quarter million Japanese casualties were expected in the invasion. Truman wrote, “My object is to save as many American lives as possible but I also have a human feeling for the women and children of Japan.”
In August 1945, it appeared inevitable that Japanese civilians would have to suffer more death and casualties before surrender. A ground invasion would result in excessive American casualties as well.
The United States could launch a traditional ground invasion of the Japanese home islands.
In August 1945, it appeared inevitable that Japanese civilians would have to suffer more death and casualties before surrender.
Truman and his military advisers assumed that a ground invasion would “be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population."
Casualty predictions varied, but all were high. The price of invasion would be millions of American dead and wounded.
- Truman and his military advisers assumed that a ground invasion would “be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population."
- In August 1945, it appeared inevitable that Japanese civilians would have to suffer more death and casualties before surrender.