17. The Controversy Surrounding the Atomic Bombing of Japan
After WWII, critics of the atomic bombing of Japan claimed that it was unnecessary because Japan was about to surrender. Supposedly, the Allies simply had to blockade Japan, and the Japanese government would have given in. However, the war was not confined to Japan’s home islands, where the Japanese could have been isolated. At the war’s end, Japan still held an extensive empire in the Pacific and Asia, in which hundreds of millions were subjected to a barbaric occupation.
Additionally, millions of Japanese soldiers were still fighting Allied forces in China, Burma, and in the Pacific. Whether or not the Japanese homeland was blockaded, the war still went on beyond Japan. Also, the Japanese held hundreds of thousands of Allied POWs, whom they treated brutally. In short, every day the war continued was another day in which millions suffered, and in which thousands more became casualties. So Japan’s enemies were justified in treating her as a formidable foe who was inflicting significant harm every day and would continue to do so indefinitely if not stopped.
