WASHINGTON - NEARLY two-thirds of Americans think the United States was right to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 64 years ago, ending World War II, a poll showed on Tuesday.
Only 22 per cent of those polled said then-US president Harry Truman was wrong to order the devastating bombings of the two Japanese cities in August 1945, according to the survey by Quinnipiac University.
An atomic bomb dropped from a B-29 Superfortress plane exploded over Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945, killing more than 140,000 people either instantly or in the days and weeks that followed as radiation or horrific burns took their toll.
Three days later, with Japan still reeling from the devastation wrought on Hiroshima, the United States dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki.
Another 70,000 people died in that attack, and Japan surrendered less than a week later, ending World War II.
The Quinnipiac poll showed that support for the bombings rises significantly with age, with nearly three-quarters of poll respondents aged 55 and older supporting the devastating bombings, compared with just half of 18-34 year-olds and six in 10 Americans aged 35-54.
'Voters who remember the horrors of World War II overwhelmingly support Truman's decision,' said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
'Support drops with age, from the generation that grew up with the nuclear fear of the Cold War to the youngest voters, who know less about World War II or the Cold War,' Brown said.
Quinnipiac University surveyed 2,409 registered voters across the United States between July 27 and Aug 3 for the poll. The margin of error was plus or minus two per cent. -- AFP
