If it weren’t for these atom bombs, one or both of my grandfathers may have died in the invasion of Japan. Tl;dr: ‘Murica!

The Japanese were preparing to surrender anyway. The bombs were there to rush them into it before the Soviets opened a front with them.

Two civilian cities massacred only because we didn't like our ally.

We're the only country ever to be evil enough to use nuclear weapons in war and we did it twice.

Having studied modern Japanese history in college, I have a different take on it.

I think the Imperial Japanese generals were rigid and hidebound in their thinking and prepared to sacrifice as many of their countrymen as necessary. Indeed they were prepared to fight on ever after the destruction of Hiroshima/Nagasaki except that Emperor Hirohito invoked his Godlike status as emperor in a one-shot deal to overrule the military government and sue for peace.

“Honor” to the point of individual and even national suicide ran deep within this archconservative Japanese thinking. See: My SN.

The war was lost from Japan’s perspective a long time prior. After they still didn’t give up after the devastating firebombings in Tokyo and other cities, it’s hard to see what would have forced them to the negotiating table apart from a ground invasion.

Perhaps the first nuclear bomb should have been detonated in an out-of-the-way place first. There is a counterargument that that would have dented its psychological impact and given the Japanese time to prepare.

Anywho, I can’t be too moralistic about this since both my grandparents were slated to be part of the mainland Japan invasion, serving in the Army and Marines respectively.

I think they dropped the bombs to show the USSR that having the strongest army in the world meant nothing anymore. If the soviets went to far in europe or asia then Truman might've nuked Moscow.

*too far*

Then you know full well and indeed mention that the military government was at odds with other factions in the government that never wanted the war to begin with. As the failure of the war became more apparent, the military faction was losing power. For God's sakes, they were people - some of them bought into the never surrender mentality but a lot of them knew better. Anyone who has even a casual knowledge of Japanese history will know that their most fanatic of traditions were upheld inconsistently at best. The surrender was going to happen, and we knew that - the bomb was purely to get a lead on the Cold War, not to end the Second World War.

And with all due respect to your grandparents - with ALL the respect due to them, sincerely - they signed up to risk their lives and the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't. I *know* how that sounds to you, but the casualties of war should be the warriors and not the civilians. I know you don't like to hear that, and hell, I'll even go one further - the casualties of war should be volunteer warriors not conscript warriors, but they definitely shouldn't have been civilians who were so close to surviving a war they had nothing to do with.

Other thing: If Japan hadn’t quickly surrendered to the U.S., we may have ended up with a North Japan/South Japan split like we had with the Koreas. The USSR had just declared war and was moving in at that point. How would the Cold War have played out then?

Indeed Russia still owns part of those northern Japanese islands. A small but unresolved geopolitical dispute to this day.

Yet no jewish lifes saved