is all fair in love and war?

“All’s fair in love and war” is a very controversial statement when it comes to the extreme issues in life. Certainly, the hot debate on whether the Atomic Bomb was a justified decision has come across this statement more than once. 110 000 people were instantly killed in the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and many more died after from injuries or radiation poisoning. But did this attack end up saving more lives than if ground troops were sent to Japan? If the attack were on land, would the war have ended as quickly as it did after the Bombing?

Many people claim that the introduction of the Atomic Bomb brought an overwhelming worldwide fear of the destination of future war, especially to the Japanese. However, this overwhelming fear of an extraordinary weapon may have been the only way to stop the Japanese soldiers. Although Japan may have been defeated by a ground invasion, many Americans would have been killed, resulting in a higher overall death toll. President Truman estimated that as many as one million American soldiers could have died had there been an invasion because Japan knew their weak spots and were well prepared.


The Japanese Soldiers fought under the samurai code of Bushido, which obligated them to fight until the last man, a man who surrendered was a coward and was treated as such. This style of warfare along with the harsh treatment that Prisoners of War were put through was supposed to discourage the men to surrender, resulting in the most deaths possible. The Atomic bomb tested the Japanese soldiers pledge to fight until the end and showed them the reality that every one of them could now be wiped out without being able to put up a fight.

The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in many innocent lives lost, but then how many more lives would have been lost if the Japanese had fought longer or won the pacific war? The Japanese style of warfare was rather ruthless, they often sent their men out on Kamikaze, or suicide missions in airplanes loaded with explosives that they were told to crash into American warships. Sometimes the Japanese soldiers even sent young boys around the age of 13 and 14 out on these missions. Shortly before the Americans dropped the Atomic bombs, they released over 5 million leaflets that warned the civilians in Japanese of a potential attack as well as very frequent radio warnings to civilians in Japan to evacuate the targeted cities. The main reason many of Nagasaki and Hiroshima residents stayed in their homes after the bombing was that the Japanese government thought it might be a trick to get the people out of the cities for a surprise invasion because now that they had been warned the anti-aircraft guns could be very well prepared. The Japanese Government ordered the civilians that read the leaflets to be arrested because he didn't want anyone leaving the city now that there was possibility of an invasion or an attempt to scare the Japanese to surrender through psychological warfare. 

World War Two brought injustice on both sides, from the torture of prisoners to the wiping out of whole cities. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has sparked many debates but although the reason for the end of WWII wasn’t the Atomic bomb alone, it certainly was a high contributor to provoke the Japanese to surrender. But does that completely justify the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because it was revenge against Pearl Harbour and “all’s fair in love and war”? Well unless new information is somehow uncovered, the answer will continue to be debated through the rest of history.

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/008604.html

http://www.damninteresting.com/ww2-america-warned-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-citizens/

http://cmoodle.sd69.bc.ca/mod/book/view.php?id=22836&chapterid=22386

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Hiroshima%20%26%20Nagasaki%3A%20Was%20it%20justified%3F