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4 Comments

1. How many American lives did the use of the bomb save?

   1. My dad, for one. He’d just come back to the front after convalescing from leg wounds suffered during the Vosges Mountain Campaign and was being sent to the Pacific theater to prepare for the invasion. He was always most grateful that Truman made the decisions he did. As am I.

2. I have no problem with the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They ended the war and reduced the total casualties on both the Japanese and American sides.

   Six of my uncles fought in the Pacific, and all except one would have been likely involved in the invasion of the Japanese main islands, and that one was already dead on Saipan.

   Nope, no sympathy at all.

3. Not only no sympathy but Japan owes us a “thank you”. Their own estimates were that 20 million Japanese would die defending the homeland from an invasion. This two bombs were the greatest humanitarian act in the history of man.

   I also had two uncles on ships waiting for the invasion. One uncle was a radio operator on Tinian island when the Enola Gay took off. He confirmed to me that no one on the island except a handful of people knew anything about the bomb. Even his radio operator job gave him no hint of anything happening.

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