Every year at this time the issue comes up: Should the USA have used the atomic bombs on Japan? It is an absurd discussion usually began by people who have no concept of the topic. First, one cannot apply early 21^st century ideals to a mid-20^th century situation. Beyond that, does anyone doubt that during World War II, if Japan had the atomic bomb, they would have used it on US forces? Okay, so that does not “make it right”.

Consider this: On the night of March 9-10, 1945, US B-29s firebombed Tokyo. Approximately 16 square miles of the city were destroyed it is estimated 100,000 were killed, 41,000 were injured, and over a million residents lost their homes.

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed, by the end of 1945, from 90,000 to 166,000 people.

So if dropping the atomic bombs had not caused Japan’s surrender, firebombing could easily have killed more Japanese than the two atomic bombs.

Before the dropping of the atomic bombs it was believed that Japan could only be forced to surrender after all the Japanese major islands had been invaded and conquered. How many Japanese civilians and military would have been killed prior to the invasion is anyone’s guess.

Operation Olympic was the name of the US plan for invasion of Kyushu (the southern-most main Japanese island) scheduled for November 1945. This was to be followed up by Operation Coronet the invasion near Tokyo, scheduled for spring 1946.

Approximately 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the invasion.

The invasions and fighting would have caused an inestimable number of people killed and wounded: US military, Japanese military, and Japanese civilians. Estimates for the US soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who would be killed conquering the Japanese home islands range from 400,000 to 1,000,000, with 1,300,000 to 3,200,000 wounded. Estimates of the total Japanese killed range from five to ten million.

It could be suggested that killing 200,000 Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved over five million Japanese lives.

In 1945 that was irrelavent, no one in America, certainly not the President or the Chiefs of Staff, much less the soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines cared about saving Japanese lives.

It was a simple equation, killing 200,000 Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved over a million American lives.

On a personal note, after participating in the invasion and conquest of Okinawa, my father was schedule to part of the invasion of Japan. But for the dropping of the atomic bombs most likely I would not be here. How many millions of Americans and Japanese have lived because of those bombs?