Was the atomic bomb necessary to end war with Japan?

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. The decision by the United States to drop atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 remains one of the most controversial moments in modern history. In this episode, we hear from the Historian Professor Richard Overy, whose new book Reign of Ruin considers the role of Oppenheimer's bombs and the firebombing that paved their way in forcing the Second World War to an end. Speaking to Ellen Evans, Richard traces the varied factors that complicate the argument that the atomic bomb was a war-ending weapon, from American misreadings of Japan's willingness to surrender to the scientists' eagerness to test out their creation.

Richard, your new book rethinks how we should regard this later stage of the war and and what the role of the bombs meant in ending the conflict. I wanted to start with a little bit of context from you, please. In what listeners need to understand about the US plans to bombing Japan, what historical elements do we need to appreciate that paved the road for the atomic bombs being dropped in August? Well, the Americans had thought for a long time about the possibility of war with Japan and what they would do and how they would solve the geographical problem, because Japan's difficult to get to. And they had planned really from the 1920s that if it ever happened, that they would force their way across the Pacific using the US Navy, and when they got to islands near enough, they would

They would then bomb Japan and in that way might be able to avoid an invasion altogether. Now, I think most people don't know that this is something that the American military had already been considering long before the outbreak of war in Pearl Harbor. But after Pearl Harbor, and once the United States found itself at war with Japan, Basically that strategy was the one they pursued. They fought the Japanese across the islands of the Central Pacific in a series of bloody engagements until they got to the islands near enough to the Japanese home islands to be able to bomb effectively.

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