Why did the US drop two bombs on Japan?

Answer 1

Japan would not surrender after the first one was dropped, so they dropped the second one.

By dropping the second so quickly, the Americans bluffed the Japanese into thinking the Americans had a huge supply of these weapons.

Had they known that just one or two more were ready, the Japanese might have gone ahead and toughed it out for another year. This would have resulted in even more catastrophic results for the Japanese people than actually occurred. Many were nearly starving already. Another year of fighting would have killed millions just from lack of food. Additionally ground fighting would have started and, as in Germany, that was much more destructive than the aerial bombardment.

As awful as they were, the bombs were a necessity to end the war quickly and in the end saved many Japanese lives and much property.

The US had 1 ready to drop in late august and a production schedule and operating facilities to drop 20 more before the end of 1945. These took time to make and they were to be used as quickly as they were made.

The US was just lucky to have had two different ways to make them that produced their first bombs at about the same time (BTW, there were no more plans to make anymore Little Boy bombs in 1945 as they wasted too much uranium).

Also had the Japanese not surrendered and the invasion had began it is virtually certain that the US would have used chemical weapons in Japan during the invasion. I am sure that Truman saw the atomic bomb as a possible way to avoid using chemical weapons (which is a violation of the Geneva Protocol).

The Japanese military actually had a plan to continue the war for another 10 years at the cost of 100 million Japanese (more than the population of the main islands in 1941), which while they would lose in the end anyway. The US would be so tired of the war that Japan (with a residual population left of under 3 million) Japan could then dictate all the terms and conditions of their surrender to the US.

Answer 2

Yes in fact the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan during the closing days of WWII in the pacific theatre. The first was dropped on Hiroshima and the second on Nagasaki thus forcing the Japanese Government to capitulate and bring the war in the pacific to an early end.
the Us dropped an atomic bomb on Japan to end war with them, Russia was meant to help instead but when the Us managed to get the atomic bomb, they thought they would use that instead :)

Answer 3

We had already dropped every type of bomb we had except chemical gas bombs and the atomic bomb on Japan! The chemical gas bombs (e.g. nerve gases, mustard gas, phosgene gas) were reserved for use during the invasion of Japan, scheduled for October or early November.

We had been bombing Japan since the Doolittle Raid on April 18, 1942 and since early in 1945 had been firebombing with multiple 500 to 1000 plane raids on various cities every night. Each firebombing raid (using conventional incendiary bombs) killed about as many Japanese as each atomic bomb did... we only attacked 2 cities with atomic bombs, we had already carried out several hundred firebombing raids before that. Had we not used the atomic bombs, by the time the war ended in late 1946 or sometime in 1947 there really wouldn't be any Japanese cities left to bomb with any kind of bomb!

Answer 4

Because the US had 23 nuclear bombs scheduled for production before the end of 1945 and they would each be dropped in Japan "as soon as they become available" according to the orders written in May 1945.

Two of these nuclear bombs were available on Tinian at the beginning of august and allowing for final assembly time for each of them one was dropped on Hiroshima on the 6th and the other on Nagasaki on the 9th. This interval barely allowed the Japanese leadership the time to begin to understand what had happened in Hiroshima before the same thing happened to Nagasaki too.

Meanwhile Los Alamos completed the third nuclear bomb and shipped it to San Francisco, from which a B-29 would fly it to Tinian where it would go through final assembly and be dropped on another Japanese city sometime in late august. However before it reached San Francisco the Japanese leadership realized what was being used against them and signalled their willingness to surrender, which prompted president Truman to make his onedecision on the use of nuclear bombs during the war and order their use on Japan stopped. When this bomb did arrive in San Francisco it was thus returned to Los Alamos, becoming the first bomb of many in the US nuclear stockpile.

Had the Japanese not surrendered after these two nuclear bombs not only would the remaining bombs scheduled for 1945 have been dropped in Japan "as soon as they become available" (followed by more in 1946, 1947, etc. as fast as they could be produced), the ongoing multiple 1000 plane firebombing raids (each of which caused similar damage and deaths as each nuclear bomb) would have continued, two D-day invasions were scheduled (each larger than the 1944 Normandy D-day invasion) one in late october or early november and the other sometime in spring 1946, the use of chemical weapons against the Japanese during these invasions would begin, etc. would have all proceeded as planned (none requiring presidential authorization, that was implicitly assumed until explicitly revoked) until Japan no longer had the physical ability nor manpower to continue the war.

It was completely expected implicitly that the population of Japan would have to be at least decimated before they could no long fight and all means available were going to be employed to achieve the necessary number of Japanese deaths while minimizing Allied deaths. I believe that president Truman was completely taken by surprise that the Japanese leadership surrendered after only two nuclear bombs and before there were Allied troops on their home islands!

Answer 5

It was World War 2 and the United States was against Japan. On August 6 and 9 1945 the nuclear weapons were drooped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki under the command of President Truman.

Answer 6

Basically to end World War 2. After the first bomb was dropped Japan didn't surrender. So the only thing left to do was drop another bomb. BOOM! The pacific theater comes to a close.

Answer 7

To end the the war