e these alternatives were never explored, it can only be pondered over whether or not Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs was a savior of lives, and it may never be known if Truman's monumental decision was morally just one.
             Japan had expansionist aims in Eastern Asia and in the Western Pacific. In July of 1940, the United States placed an embargo on materials imported to Japan, including oil. The majority of the American war effort was placed in Europe. Before the United States could fully mobilize, most of South-East Asia had fallen to Japan, including the Philippines. "The Japanese forces waged a stubborn, often suicidal battle."
             Truman learned of the project, then called by its code name, S-1 (and later as the Manhattan Project), from Secretary of War Stimson on 25 April 1945, only after becoming President. Concurrent with the Manhattan project, both Japan and America were making preparations for a final all-encompassing conflict. Both sides expected it would involve an American invasion of mainland Japan. The Americans expanded conventional bombing and tightened their increasingly successful naval blockade. The Japanese began the stockpiling of aircraft, amassed a giant conscripted military force, and commenced the creation of a civilian army, all who swore total allegiance to the emperor. This awe-inspiring army included "so-called 'Sherman Carpets,' children with dynamite strapped to their bodies and trained to throw themselves under American tanks."
             In the end, these final preparations were not effective. On, August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber, named Enola Gay by the pilot Paul W. Tibbets, dropped the "little boy" uranium atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Three days later a second bomb, made of plutonium and nicknamed "fat boy," was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. On August 14, 1945, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally and the war in Asia ended.
             Truman's monumental decision, ...