LSource 5 On the first day of July (1945), Sato (the Japanese Ambassador in Moscow) sent a long message to Tokyo. He strongly advised accepting any terms. The response of the Japanese Cabinet (government) was that the war must be fought with all the energy that the nation was capable of so long as the only alternative was unconditional surrender. (A Japanese telegram intercepted by US Intelligence in 1945)
LSource 6 Allied Attacks on Japan, 1945
Communist China Mao Tse-tung
C H I N A JAPAN
Nationalist Chinese Chiang Kai-Shek
British Admiral Mountbatten
INDIA BURMA
October 1944 Greatest naval battle in history. Japanese lost 27 major warships to six major American warships
HONG KONG
Hiroshima Nagasaki
OKINAWA IWO JIMA
Leyte Gulf PHILIPPINES
MALAYA SINGAPORE
SUMATRA JAVA
Darwin AUSTRALIA Major battle BORNEO
US General MacArthur
GUINEA
Guadalcanal Coral Sea
May 1942 Naval battle halted Japanese invasion of the South Pacific and ensured Australia was safe
NEW Tokyo PACIFIC OCEAN
MIDWAY ISLANDS
WAKE ISLAND
Pearl Harbor
HAWAIIAN ISLANDS
GUAM
MARSHALL ISLANDS
TARAWA
March 1945 Air-raid caused firestorms; over 80,000 people killed
June 1942 Decisive
Battle of Midway. Four Japanese aircraft carriers sunk. Turning point in the war.
1. What do Sources 1 and 2 show about the effects of the bombing of Hiroshima?
2. Why did the US drop the atomic bomb, according to Source 3? 3. Does Source 4 agree with the reasons given in Source 3?
4. Which does the evidence in Sources 5 and 6 support – the reasons given in Sources 3 or 4?
5. Are the sources primary or secondary? 6. Are some of the sources more reliable than others?
7. Which side of the argument do you agree with – should the atomic bombs have been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or not? Explain your answers using evidence from the sources.
