Originally Posted by leiden

I know that my response will be so three pages ago, but I feel I must interject here. When the bombs were dropped, the war in Europe was almost over, correct? And the US had invasion plans drawn up to estimate the force needed to attack the Japanese mainland and win. One show that I saw on the History Channel stated that this force would be in excess of 500K Allied infantry to attack the mainland and even then, the chances of success were not good and casualities to Allied forces would be extremely high. Remind yourself of the Japanese mindset. This is the culture that gave us samurai and kamikaze. This is the culture that sees surrender as cowardice.

When the Japanese took a couple of Aleutian islands and the US went there in what was supposed to be an easy rout to remove the Japanese forces from Alaska, America suffered casualities to almost 2/3 of the force that it sent to remove a JApanese force that was half the size.

What I am trying to say is that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrible events in our history, both as a nation and a world. However, if given the choice, I believe Truman chose the most expedient, least harmful method with which to end the war. (In case anyone cares, the US did warn Japan that another bomb was coming if they didn't surrender. They didn't. Thus, Nagasaki.)

Pride goeth before the fall.