Samantha Johnson HIST 1700 Document Analysis 5

“ Truman’s Diary on the Atomic Bomb”

In 1945 president Truman wrote about the United States discovery of the Atomic

bomb and the experiment done in New Mexico on the bomb. He notes it is the most

terrible bomb in the history of the world, stating it could be the fire of destruction

prophesied in the bible. He says he thinks they have found a way to cause

disintegration of the atom and outlines the damage caused by doing this/the explosion

of the bomb. The explosion caused the complete disintegration of a steel tower 60 ft

high, created a 6 feet deep and 1,200 ft in diameter crater, knocked over a steel tower

½ mile way and knocked down men 10,000 yards away. Truman goes on to talk about

the purpose of the bomb and that it is to be used against Japan between now and

August 10th. He goes on to go over the fact that although japanese are savages,

ruthless and merciless he plans to use the bomb on military objectives, soldiers and

sailors, not women and children. He plans to ask the Japs to surrender first and then

says that he is sure they will not do that. He closes by saying it is certainly a good thing

for the world that Hitler’s crowd or Stalin’s did not discover the bomb as it is the most

terrible thing ever discovered.

At this time WW2 was coming to an end because Germany had surrendered and

the U.S. was eager for another victory over Japan. Before Germany’s surrender but

during their fall the U.S. was in a race with Russia to get to Berlin. This race to Berlin

was to determine the outcome for Germany and to determine much of what happens

after the war. This lead to an underlying tension with Russia and is key to Truman’s

date for the atomic bomb. Russia had planned to “help” the United States by invading

Japan on August 8th, thus creating another race between the United States and Russia.
Samantha Johnson HIST 1700 Document Analysis 5

These races soon turned into the cold war and also added pressure for Truman to

defeat Japan and truly end the war. The cold war changed technology, social beliefs

and many other things for the U.S. and played a huge part in where we are as a nation

today.

The war against Japan had been going on for many years and had started with

economic issues between Japan and the U.S.. These issues were mainly related to

WW2 and Japan expanding to China. The Japanese were trying to expand due to their

lack of natural resources and to become larger and more powerful. The U.S. did not like

this and began placing economic pressure on the Japanese. They did this by adding

trade restrictions, freezing Japanese assets and eventually cutting off their oil supply.

This led to Japan bombing Pearl Harbor and the U.S. officially declaring war on

December 7th, 1941. The bombing of Pearl Harbor changed everything for the United

States, it officially pulled them into the war and made them also hate the Japanese even

more. We can see by Truman’s description of the Japanese how Americans viewed

them. The Pacific West during war time was much different than in Europe because of

this hatred and views about the Japanese.

There were many strategies that the United States had used to defeat Japan.

They attacked battleships at Coral West and Midway leading to Japanese warships

being destroyed. This was a turning point for the U.S. because they knew Japan could

not rebuild these ships and broke the “red ring”. Then they began Island hopping which

allowed them to slowly close in on Japan. The closer they got though the harder the

Japanese fought. This lead to “carpet bombing” where the U.S. sent 1,000 planes to

cover cities with bombs almost like laying carpet over them. The first target of these
Samantha Johnson HIST 1700 Document Analysis 5

bombings was Tokyo, 330,00 people died but Japan still did not surrender. They then

continued to bomb 60 cities this way but never did Japan surrender. Soon the U.S. had

to begin another plan. They then planned a land invasion in November 1945 but they

got word civilians would be involved and so they did not do the invasion. This then leads

Truman to use the atomic bomb. It was not an easy decision because he saw first hand

the damage it can do and is still a controversial decision today. He decided to use the

bomb for 5 main reasons 1. To end the war quickly 2. To avoid the land invasion 3. To

deter Russia and intimidate them 4. For science and 5. Racial issues ( it was more

acceptable because of feelings towards Japanese). So on August 6th, 1945 they used

the atomic bomb on Heroshima and on August 7th, 1945 they asked Japan to surrender

to which they said no. Then on August 8th, 1945 Russia invades Japan which is what

the United States was trying to avoid. The U.S. then did another atomic bomb on

August 9th, 1945 and the next day Japan would surrender. The war was now over but

without the Atomic bombs it could have lasted longer with more American lives lost and

the U.S. may have been very different.