[fhayek]

My mother, who was only 10 years old at the time, said that everyone thought that the dropping of the bomb was a gift from God. It mercifully ended a long and devastating war. Millions of lives, on all sides were spared.

[Phlyer]

Millions of lives, on all sides were spared.

No one can say for sure what would have happened if another course had been taken, but the expectation that there would have been enormous numbers of US casualties was real.

The US ordered so many Purple Heart medals for expected casualties from the invasion of Japan that those same medals were still being handed out all the way through the Korean War, Vietnam, Lebanon, and all the "minor" battles (a term that never applies to the people involved) in Panama, Grenada, etc.

The US only ordered additional Purple Heart medals in anticipation of casualties in Gulf War 1 (1991), 46 years after the end of WWII. And they didn't need them.

I don't know if they have yet run out of the Purple Heart medals ordered in the expectation that they would be needed for the invasion of Japan. That's how bad they thought it would be.