Hiroshima was a legitimate military target that housed the 2nd General Army and 5th Division with 40,000 enemy military combatants stationed in the city.
It was estimated 80,000 people died, but while most of the dead were enemy civilians (half of them were shown to be employed in munitions factories), 20,000 were enemy military combatants.
Japanese leaders clearly rejected the treaty and as a result, as promised by that treaty, they received a rain of ruin from the air with the newly-developed atomic bombs and more attacks from conventional firebombs.Īlso, it was not millions of enemy civilian deaths in Hiroshima. Japan alone could have prevented the deaths of its own citizens in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by signing the paper that said: "Surrender now or face a rain of ruin from the air the like which has never before seen on this earth". Japan woke up the sleeping giant with the unprovoked bombing of Pearl Harbor that killed 2,402 non-combatant military personnel and civilians. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride." I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. Sherman said it best: "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.