Science has no moral code—unlike religion. In truth we shouldn’t have used it on a city-—the first one should have been on a military site after telling Japan what we had and offering a chance for surrender. Blow up a military target—wait a week—THEN start to blow up cities. The fire raids were almost as bad in terms of loss of life. No invasion, just starve them out and keep offering a peace deal. BUT, hindsight is 20-20. Ask yourself this—if they had the bomb—would they have dropped it on San Francisco? You bet.
See my #105—Hiroshima was a major military base and the headquarters of the home armies that would defend Japan. We killed many of Japan’s military officers that day and decapitated their military.
“Science has no moral code—unlike religion...we shouldn’t have used it on a city-—the first one should have been on a military site...” [Forward the Light Brigade, posts 101, 102, 103]
You are arguing in favor of a targeting scheme that did not exist in Japan at the time.
There were no cities without military targets.
There were no “pure” military targets away from cities, save a small number of subterranean manufacturing and storage facilities - which the Allies did know of until after the war. Air reconnaissance had limitations.