Dbq help!! The atomic bomb on Hiroshima

well,

you know that the u.s. and britain kept ussr out of the loop for a lot of the war. they did not even tell them about the bomb they were creating until very shortly before they dropped it. russia was not to happy and the u.s. saw that and found that intimidation was necessary to keep russia from becoming an unfriendly power at the end of the war.
off the top of my head, that's what i got. hope it helps a little

sucapitan wrote:the u.s. and britain kept ussr out of the loop for a lot of the war. they did not even tell them about the bomb they were creating until very shortly before they dropped it.

No kidding! The bomb was kept so underwraps, when Roosevelt died, Truman (who was VP and became President) didn't even know about it!

marie_herndon wrote:No kidding! The bomb was kept so underwraps, when Roosevelt died, Truman (who was VP and became President) didn't even know about it!
You can't blame them. With the jap's attempting biological weapons and the germans trying to build their own nukes, thing's were very hush hush.

We just had this as a practice essay a couple of days ago. The class consensus basically went with the idea that although the Soviet Union was intimidated by the bomb, that it was not the prominent objective of the dropping of Little Boy on Hiroshima. Look at the death toll for some of the battles between America and Japan. The U.S. was winning, but only slightly, and the numbers lost were staggering. The bomb was a decision to reduce the loss of life of American soldiers...and the pleasing of the public ALONG with the intimidation of Russia was an added bonus. Of course, you can mention that at the beginning of the war, Russia and Germany were allies...until Hitler turned on Russia, of course, so there was a copious amount of distrust for the Russian nation. With the flimsy treaty to join in the war against Japan, I am sure that a show of the power behind us was a consideration of Truman's while he was deciding. Basically with this prompt, our teacher told us that the ideas were good, but we needed to work on specific support. Hope this helps.

personnaly I belive that when the bomb was droppeed ,there was probably two sides to it. Firstly the Americans wanted a quicker end to the war coz yu probably know of the kamikaze pilots. Having said that the U.S. probably knew of the damage that the bomb could have done due to the tsting that went on in new mexico. having said that the U.S. then went on to drop the bomb thus itimidating the ussr as they are known for their treachery. So this could be a good although thesis I think.

noshiz12 wrote:personnaly I belive that when the bomb was droppeed ,there was probably two sides to it. Firstly the Americans wanted a quicker end to the war coz yu probably know of the kamikaze pilots. Having said that the U.S. probably knew of the damage that the bomb could have done due to the tsting that went on in new mexico. having said that the U.S. then went on to drop the bomb thus itimidating the ussr as they are known for their treachery. So this could be a good although thesis I think.
The kamikaze pilots, statiscaly speaking, weren't all that effective. However, psyhcologly speaking, they did have an afffect on the soldiers.

Either way, that is not the only reason why America, and the other countries, wanted to "end the war quicker." War is brutal, lots of people die. This overall death and destruction caused by war itself, and not leaving out the cost of war, would lead the praticpants of the war to wanting to get to a quicker solution, in most cases.

O.K moderator I need you to explain to me exactly what you mean I kinda do not understand what you are getting at.

acutally i jsut did that DBQ in my AP hist class..my teach is insanely hard and i usually fail most of her tests/DBQ's however on this particular DBQ i got a perfect score...i stated that there were 2 sides to this. one was that the US needed to drop the bomb in order to end the war with Japan since japan had such a huge army and was able to fight back without any sign of retreat or surrender. The fact that Japan had been such a huge player in the second world war would lead the US to believe that there was a very aggressive nation that if the war kept going then many causualties on both sides including many thousands of americans would be lost...also dropping the bomb would reduce the amount that died..though mroe civilians would be killed, more american lives would be saved..and hey we are in american, what american doesnt want to save other american lives. The other side was that the Us knew that if the USSR got into the war at that time to help defeat Japan then another world power would come about..the USSR..the US at that time was very afraid of communism and didnt want it to spread. in order to keep check on it the US had to drop the bomb to keep the world safe for democracy..it would prove to the world that the US was dominant..also add in there information about where the bombs were dropped, okanawa, einstiens atom theories and taht he came from germany..talk about the developement of the bomb, the fact that japan was on the verge of surrender etc! i was very amazed at my grade and hopefully do well!
*jackie*

Good job jackie, that was also what i was kidna getting at.

bobert. wrote:Hey,
I am lost! The question is: The Untied States decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was a diplomatic measure calculated to intimidate the Soviet Union in the post-Second-World-War era rather then a strictly military measure designed to force Japan's unconditional suuender.
Evaluate this statement using the documents and your knowlede of the military and diplomatic histor of the years 1939 through 1947.
if anyone could help that would be great :)

i remember our teacher gave us that question to practice on and if memory serves me correctly, my arguments were something along the lines of that the japanese were going to concede soon anyways (as they had been on a losing streak) and the united states felt the ussr had to be kept in line. there was the whole balance of power between the two superpowers and the us needed a way to prove that they were stronger and what not.

hope that helped..