The Manhattan Project in World War II

p On August 6 and August 9 , 1945 , the world saw the first and only usage of atomic weaponry in the history of the world . President Truman said that his decision to use the bomb was for the chief purpose of ending WWII , the deadliest war in human history , as quickly as possible Multiple warnings were given to Japan about this new weapon in the hope that they would surrender . Japan did not heed these warnings before or even after the dropping of the first bomb on the city of Hiroshima . An invasion

of Japan , which was planned for the spring of 1946 , would cost an estimated 500 ,000 American lives and in the event of such an invasion , it was learned that plans dated August 1944 , for the murder of more than 100 ,000 Allied POWs would be carried out . Goodwin , Doris Kearns . No Ordinary Time . New York : Simon Schuster 2003 pg . 334

However , the major scientists of the day who worked on the project as well as the chief Allied commanders in the field , believed that the use of the bomb was unnecessary as Japan was planning to surrender in the immediate future without the influence of the bomb and that further usage of atomic bombs , was not only unnecessary but immoral and constituted a war crime as it was a crime against humanity

The atomic bomb started with the Manhattan Project . This was the name given to the highly classified , top secret project in to beat the Germans in their pursuit of obtaining the first atomic bomb in the history of the world . The project was initially started by refugee European scientists , most notably , Albert Einstein , who in a letter to President Roosevelt in the spring of 1939 , warned that the Germans were aggressively seeking out the use of such a bomb and that the atomic age whether the world liked it or not , was upon us and it would behoove the United States if they were to be the first ones with this technology and not the Axis powers . This letter sparked what would become the largest and most costly development research project of its time

The Second World War accelerated the need for America to be the first with the atomic bomb . However , even before America entered the war American scientists were well aware of the power that a bomb which split the atom , would have on mankind . This realization prompted Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard , two European Jews who had come to America in to avoid the horrors of Hitler 's rise to power , were instrumental in presenting the dangers of an atomic bomb . Their desire to inform , not the American people , but rather only President Roosevelt and his closest of associates , stemmed from the belief that the Germans were racing to infuse uranium in their own bomb production . All of this was highly secretative in nature and also speculative : First , it was not known whether or not , the Germans were realty desirous...