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I just wish we had not used the A-Bombs on non-combatants. There are alternatives.

The actual, specific target of the Hiroshima bomb was the headquarters of the Japanese Eighth Army - a legitimate combat target - and not the civilian population of the city. That was the military installation to which Mr. Truman referred in his announcement that the bomb had been dropped. Not a one of us here would ever favour the loss of non-combatant life, but wish though we might the bitter reality of war is that people die. By no means was the Hiroshima bomb targeted primarily toward the city's civilian population. The absence of a Japanese surrender following the Hiroshima bomb prompted the Nagasaki bombing, a bombing that said, essentially, You thought we were kidding around? Guess again - we mean business here..

Harry Truman was hardly without his faults, but I have no doubt, based upon my entire reading of the era, that had the Japanese surrendered after Hiroshima, Nagasaki would not have gone down. And, if you consider the argument that without the atomic bomb the war might have dragged on more interminably, requiring a ground assault upon the Japanese mainlands which would have delivered far more lives lost - not to mention, a Japanese adversary which tended to count its wars in decades, not years, and would likely have fought deeply enough that civilian casualities would have been unavoidable no matter how the battles were traveled - it is small wonder that, among other writings, the critic Paul Fussell could write an essay of the bombings with the title that also became the title of an anthology of his which this essay led: Thank God For The Atom Bomb.

and would likely have fought deeply enough that civilian casualities would have been unavoidable no matter how the battles were traveled - it is small wonder that, among other writings, the critic Paul Fussell could write an essay of the bombings with the title that also became the title of an anthology of his which this essay led: Thank God For The Atom Bomb.

Death for anyone is a sobering concern. But revisionism does not change facts.

Okinawa was the site of the only land battle in Japan during the War. American forces landed on the Kerama Islands in Okinawa on March 26, 1945, then moved onto the main island of Okinawa on April 1st. Pitched battles continued on the ground until the Japanese army's last stand in the south of the island in June. Unable to rely only on the strength of its soldiers, the Japanese side drafted civilians into a "volunteer corps" and sent them into battle. As a result, a vast number of citizens in the prefecture, including both elderly residents and children, fell victim to the war. In fact, the number of civilian deaths surpassed the loss of military personnel in this battle. While the residents were fighting for their homes and lives, the Japanese authorities were using the Battle of Okinawa to buy time for what they thought would be the decisive battle of the war: the impending battle for mainland Japan.