[Old Sarge]

Let’s see here...

The bombs fell in August of 1945, just as the Allies were planning Operation Olympic, the amphibious invasion of Japan.

Initial casualty estimates were ove 1 million Allied soldiers would be KIA as a result.

The bombs fell, and Japan surrendered a few weeks afterwards - meaning Operation Olympic was cancelled.

Meaning that ONE MILLION men woudl return to America and eslewhere and make babies in the postwar Baby Boom.

How many baby boomers, now in their 60’s and older, would never have been born?

How many hipster millenial Leftists would also never have been born, if their grandfathers died on the beach in Japan?

[dhs12345]

Yup.

And don't forget how many Japanese (military and civilian) would have died in the invasion and eventual blockade of the islands. Mass starvation, perpetual bombing runs and destruction. The WHOLE continent of Japan would have been destroyed with millions of dead.

Also, it was clear that the Japanese were willing to fight to the death, ie, the kamikaze if their emperor told them to do so.

[mrmeyer]

My grandfather was a combat engineer that went ashore with the first amphibious assault wave on Omaha Beach. He was part of the breakout of the bocage and liberation of France, the battle of the bulge and relief on Bastogne, the invasion of Austria and the liberation of Gusen concentration camp.

After surviving all of that he told me when I was a boy that had the bomb not been dropped, he would not have survived the invasion of Japan.

The Japanese surrender saved his life. It also ensured an existance for my mother and my uncle, myself, my brother, my two cousins, my own two children, and eight second cousins.

[Axenolith]

My Grandfather recalled the machine guns being set up outside their barracks and being told they were for killing all the POWs I their camp the moment landings occurred on the home islands.

Atomic Bomb apologists rank right at the top of my “worthless bags of shit” list. As far as I’m concerned 1 American life would have been worth carpet bombing the home islands with them.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

How many baby boomers, now in their 60’s and older, would never have been born?

My father was on a cruiser participating in the shelling of the coastline when the bomb was dropped. Japanese submarines and kamikazes were still active at the time, and there is a very good possibility that I owe my existence to the bomb.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

My father was en route to staging locations in the Pacific when the war ended. He served in the occupation forces in Japan for perhaps a year before returning home to attend college and law school on the GI Bill. And then about 8 years later my brother was born, about two years later I showed up. What was the likelihood of that happening if there had been a conventional invasion of the home Islands of Japan? Not great, I would think.

I still remember reading Fussell's piece when it was first published in 1981. I later read The Great War and Modern Memory which is an excellent analysis of how the experience of WWI impacted literary culture.

In this piece he cut to the essential evaluation that was, it seems, inescapable. The choice to deploy the two bombs preserved the lives of countless Japanese and Americans. But in 1981, amazingly, you still had a debate on his topic.