The bombing of Hiroshima has been a long debated topic. Starting from shortly after the bomb was dropped on August 6th, 1945. Many people questioned the use of such a deadly weapon. Able to instantly vaporize 70,000 people and kill another 70,000 in the blast that follows. To justify the use of the bomb many Americans argue that the bomb saved countless lives that would have been sent into war. This point is hard to argue and depends severely on ones biases. Americans value the lives of their soldiers over the lives of those who would have other wise taken them. The bomb was targeted at the largest industrialized and militarized city left in Japan. Hiroshima was the headquarters of Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's Second General Army and responsible for the defense of all of southern Japan. Eliminating Hiroshima destroyed the defense of southern Japan and would have made the invasion much easier. A strong counter point to this is that Hiroshima had at least a 2:1 ratio of citizens to military personnel, but all of these citizens were trained to defend them selves and ready to fight to their death in the defense of their country. Making them threats to the American soldiers. When a country is at war, everyone in the country is at war. all of the people in Japan were putting in effort and work to produce weapons and planes that would be put to use on the battle field. Destroying a huge industrialized city would severely cripple Japans war effort. The final point against the use of the bomb is the long lasting effect that the radiation had on the city and it's civilians. The initial explosion killed around 150,000 people but the radiation had an effect on people that no doctors had seen before. The radiation killed off an estimated 150,000, increasing the death toll to 300,000. The effect of radiation were unknown until after Hiroshima. The Americans used Hiroshima as a test. A test to see how much destruction one bomb could do.
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