[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Yeah my Dad was on his way to some sort of staging area when the little darlings surrendered. The survival rate among TBF flyers and crew was not too high.

[A Jovial Cad]

*Yeah my Dad was on his way to some sort of staging area when the little darlings surrendered*

So was my grandfather, only it was P-38's.

*The survival rate among TBF flyers and crew was not too high*

My grandfather swore, till the day he died, that had it not been for Hiroshima & Nagasaki his whole squadron would've been wiped out down to the last man, himself included. He also estimated that they would've probably killed, in strafing runs & fragmentation bombing runs, *at least* 1,000 Japanese defenders for every *one* of them whom went down due to flak, A.A. fire, etc.
The Atom bombs *saved* lives in light of that terrible arithmetic, IMHO. My grandfather was speaking from the perspective of the Army Air Corps.--just imagine what would've happened after the Army Divisions and Marine Units had splashed ashore in an invasion of the Japanese Mainland!