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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.

Believe me, I was engaging in no revisionism. If anything, my point kind of knits with yours. The casualties which you describe are precisely what might well have occurred and in far thicker volume had the land war on the main Japanese islands gone to such depth as I described was possible above (remember: this was - and probably remains - a people which counts its wars in decades, not years), prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.