Dropping Atomic Bombs on Japan Was Imperative

Self | August 9, 2014 | Self

[GeronL]

The names don’t really bother me that much, but if there too many that are too similar it would.

Try Korean with a third to half of them named Kim, Lee and Park

[rmh47]

I ran across a a little bit of info a few years back that offers a glimpse into the question of how many casualties were expected in the invasion of Japan.

The existence of the atomic bomb was known to only a few people in our government (and Stalin, of course, but that is a story for another day), so--after the defeat of Germany--everyone involved in the war effort was preparing for the invasion of Japan.

As part of this preparation, the U.S. government ordered and received 490,000 Purple Heart medals. No one expected that this number would be sufficient; it was just the first installment.

As it turned out, there was no invasion, and these medals were not required. There were so many of them, however, that the government did not need to have any more made until the First Gulf War (when they contracted to have 9,000 more made), and that was only (you're going to love this!) because the government had "lost" the remainder of the 490,000! (Hey, if the State Department can "lose" six Billion dollars...)

At one point the government did award a contract to have the remaining unissued medals cleaned and re-ribboned.