Yesterday, August 6, 2025, was the 80th anniversary of the U.S. government’s atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. The bombing of Nagasaki followed on August 9.
The bombing was unnecessary and immoral.
The Bombing Was Unnecessary
The bombing was unnecessary; Japan had already been defeated and was prepared to surrender. See the information presented by Doug Long, “Hiroshima: Who Disagreed with the Atomic Bombing?“
One of those who disagreed with the bombing was Dwight D. Eisenhower. In his Mandate for Change:1953-1956: The White House Years (1963), he writes,
During [Secretary of War Stimson’s recitation of the relevant facts [in July 1945], I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face.’
See, too, the overlapping information presented by Barton J. Bernstein in “American Conservatives Are the Forgotten Critics of the Atomic Bombing of Japan,” including the following three examples:
General Douglas MacArthur: “In 1960, in discussing that bombing with ex-President Hoover, MacArthur condemned it as unnecessary ‘slaughter.'”
General Curtis LeMay: “[He] periodically criticized the atomic bombing. In mid-September 1945, for example, he publicly declared that it had been unnecessary and that Japan would have speedily surrendered without it. The bomb, he asserted, ‘had nothing to do with the end of the war.'”
Admiral William Leahy: “In his 1950 memoir, … Leahy declared, ‘the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of not material assistance in our war against Japan.’ That nation, he contended, was defeated and ready to surrender before the atomic bombing.”
The “real purpose” of the bombing, as Ivan Eland writes in “Why Blockading Would Have Been Better than Bombing Japan,” may have been to demonstrate the power of the new weapon to a then ally and likely future enemy—the Soviet Union.” Of course, this would have been “morally questionable,” in Dr. Eland’s extreme understatement.
The Bombing Was Immoral
While the bombing was unnecessary, it was immoral, regardless of whether Japan was prepared to surrender.
Robert Higgs, in “August 9, 1945, a Date that Will Live in Infamy,” observes, “To kill another huge number of people–men, women, and children, prisoners of war, foreigners, and other innocent persons in [Nagasaki]–was a war crime, plain and simple. That many Americans continue, even today, to defend this senseless and flagrantly brutal act is shameful.” While the article is focused on the bombing of Nagasaki, Dr. condemns equally the bombing of Hiroshima.
Dr. Higgs also rejects the view that the wrongs committed by the Japanese military excused the atomic bombing:
“An attempt to justify killing, wounding, and destroying the homes of, in particular, scores of thousands of babies, children, women, old people, and others who had nothing to do with the crimes committed in Nanking—nor any responsibility for the war in general—substitutes tribal savagery for defensible moral thinking.”
Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, “one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century,” recognized the immorality of the bombing. In their entry on her in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Eric Wilder and Julia Driver write,
In her infamous pamphlet ‘Mr. Truman’s Degree’ (MTD) (1958), Anscombe protested Oxford’s decision to award Harry Truman an honorary doctorate. ….
She opposed [the decision] on the grounds that Truman was a murderer. He was a murderer, because ‘choosing to kill the innocent as a means to your ends is always murder’ (MTD, 66). The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were by and large noncombatants, neither fighting the Allies nor supplying Japan with the means of fighting them. She argued that killing these innocent people seemed necessary only because the Allies stupidly insisted that Japan unconditionally surrender.
Japan Remembers
The remembrance of the bombing and the promotion of peace are deeply embedded in the culture of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Hiroshima
The Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation was established in 1976. It describes its purpose as follows:
“Based on Hiroshima’s A-bomb experience, collaborating with peace research institutions and related organizations in Japan and abroad, this Foundation seeks to convey the facts about the bombing and contribute to the dissemination of thought promoting peace and international understanding/cooperation. The overall goal is to contribute to world peace and human happiness.”
The city’s Peace Memorial Park includes the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome), the Cenotaph for the Victims of the Atomic Bomb, and the Children’s Peace Monument. And every year, the city holds a Peace Memorial Ceremony.
Nagasaki
The Nagasaki Peace Park is “a place of prayers for world peace and the souls of the atomic bomb victims.” “Every year on August 9, the anniversary of the atomic bombing, a peace memorial ceremony is conducted in front of [the Peace Statue and a peace declaration is made to the people of the world.”
The Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims “is a place where visitors may commemorate those who lost their lives as a result of the atomic bombing and offer prayers for everlasting peace.” The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum “displays a story that includes the devastation caused by the atomic bomb, the events that led to the bombing, the history of nuclear weapons development, and the desire for peace.”
Nobel Peace Prize
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo (The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations) in 2024, explaining,
“This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”
Conclusion
We, too, must remember.
We must acknowledge the immorality of the bombing, for the sake of decency and historical truth. We are also called to embrace the principle that killing the innocent is wrong; to recognize the violation of the principle, now and in the past; to demand that the principle be honored; to seek peace; and to condemn the initiation of war.
Remember Hiroshima. Remember Nagasaki.
……..
References
“Hiroshima: Who Disagreed with the Atomic Bombing?”
http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm
“American Conservatives Are the Forgotten Critics of the Atomic Bombing of Japan” (7-27-23).
Barton J. Bernstein.
https://www.independent.org/article/2023/07/27/american-conservatives-are-the-forgotten-critics-of-the-atomic-bombing-of-japan-2/”
Why Blockading Would Have Been Better than Bombing Japan”
(8-7-20). Ivan Eland.
https://www.independent.org/article/2020/08/07/why-blockading-would-have-been-better-than-bombing-japan/
“August 9, 1945, a Date that Will Live in Infamy” (8-9-08).
Robert Higgs.
https://www.independent.org/article/2008/08/09/august-9-1945-a-date-that-will-live-in-infamy/
“The Rape of Nanking and the U.S. Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” (6-2-16). Robert Higgs.
https://www.independent.org/article/2016/06/02/the-rape-of-nanking-and-the-u-s-atomic-bombings-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/
“Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe”
(First published 7-21-09; substantive revision 5-30-22).
Eric Wilder and Julia Driver.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anscombe/
Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation
https://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/hpcf/english/
“Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation” (About)
https://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/hpcf/english/about/index.html
Peace Memorial Park
https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3400.html\\
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
https://hpmmuseum.jp/?lang=eng
Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome)
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/775/
Cenotaph for the Victims of the Atomic Bomb
https://peace-tourism.com/en/spot/entry-46.html
Children’s Peace Monument
https://www.japan-experience.com/decouvrir/hiroshima/musees-galeries/monument-paix-enfants-statue-sadako-sasaki
Peace Memorial Ceremony
https://www.city.hiroshima.lg.jp/english/peace/1029871/1009572.html
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
https://nagasakipeace.jp/en/visit/abm/
Peace Park (Nagasaki)
https://www.discover-nagasaki.com/en/sightseeing/130
Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims
https://www.peace-nagasaki.go.jp/en/
Nihon Hidankyo
https://www.ne.jp/asahi/hidankyo/nihon/english/about/about1-01.html
Nobel Peace Prize 2024: Announcement
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2024/press-release/
Additional Resources
“Elizabeth Anscombe” (6-22-23).
BBC Radio 4: In Our Time
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001n1yy
Hiroshima Peace Organizations
https://hiphiroshima.org/hiroshima-peace-organization-resource/
“Hiroshima anniversary: mayor says Ukraine and Middle East crises show world ignoring nuclear ‘tragedies'”
(8-5-25). Justin McCurry.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/hiroshima-mayor-ukraine-middle-east-nuclear-history-atomic-bombing-80th-anniversary
