[AndrewC]

Believe me, I was engaging in no revisionism.

Oh, no. I was not calling you a revisionist, those are others. I was using you to expand on the civilian casualty/innocent aspect. Think how horrific the mainland battle would have been had it occurred.

[BluesDuke]

I was using you to expand on the civilian casualty/innocent aspect.

Ah, I understand. :)

Think how horrific the mainland battle would have been had it occurred.

"Horrific," somehow, seems far too polite a term for what would in reality have transpired in such an instance. I dare suggest that, in comparison, the Battle of the Bulge would have resembled a WWF tag team farce.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The Russian destruction of the Japanese army in Manchuria shows that the Japanese army wasn't nearly as good as the US thought (or maybe the Russians were really that good or both.)

I think that the us would have lost 100,000 dead and about 1,000,000 wounded in an allout attack on Japan. Japanese losses would probably have been at least 20 times higher. WWII was probably the last war of attrition in which the destruction of the enemy industry could contribute to the war effort. So I think the bombing was correct. War isn't nice.

On the other hand, I'm looking back after 60 years; a better case (for or against using the bomb) could be had by looking at what Truman had to work with.