Our cousin was on a troop ship; headed for an invasion of
Japan - an American ship. Their CO lined them up & said,
“Look to your right, then to your left. After this invasion,
one out of every three or you will be dead. - On their way
over, Truman dropped the A-bomb. Their ship turned around
mid-way & returned home. Every Japanese citizen was ordered
to fight to the death to defend Japan with anything they
could use for a weapon. - My father was a hardened combat
veteran of N. Africa, Italy & Germany. If not for the bomb;
he would have had to go to Japan & fight them. He was in
for the duration plus 6 months. I wasn’t born ‘til after
the war. - I do not second guess President Truman.
*Correction: That should read “TWO out of every three of
you will be dead.”
If I had been President in August 1945, I would have dropped both bombs and slept very soundly the night afterward.
HOWEVER.
It is 71 years later, and I don’t think it’s a criticism of Truman, nor is it an excuse of Japanese war crimes, to acknowledge that the consequences of the firebombings of Hamburg, Dresden, or Tokyo and the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki visited enormous and terrible suffering on people, including children, who were themselves powerless to change the course of German or Japanese war policy.
And probably your cousin would have been a casualty. Without the A-bomb the invasion timetables didn’t envision an end to the Pacific War until ‘48 — at the earliest. Look at how few Soviet soldiers survived at the front the entire war. US troops would have had a similar experience.