Honestly, from everything I've read over the years I don't think that very many people looked at Fat Man & Little Boy as punishment. They saved hundreds of thousands of lives on BOTH sides.

It's just a good thing that Truman and his folks kept the fact secret that they only had a couple more of them. If the Japanese had known that only one or two more were available, they might have forced the invasion. It would have been UGLY.

Of ALL the stuff I've read about the Japanese in WWII, I think what effected me most was a story that Pappy Boyington told. After the fire bombing, he and some other POW's were taken out to do clean up work. A nice, very elderly Japanese man sauntered by and Pappy had found a butt of a cigarette for which he asked the old man to light for him.

The old man, kindly and respectfully lit the butt for Pappy and a guard saw the act. The guard came and smacked the elderly gentleman down with the butt of his rifle.

It's one thing for an Army to be mistreating POW's and doing things like the Bataan death march, and that's plenty bad enough. It's quite another to brutally injure one of their own civilians, a somewhat helpless one at that.

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Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

at that time, I don't think many in the US cared how many japanese were saved by not invading, but certainly we had had enough with our own combat losses.

You may be correct about that. People were pretty fed up.

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Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

It's said that humanity has never invented a weapon and not used it. The full horror of nukes was not as appreciated than as much as now, and it did appear that the Japanese were tough nuts to crack. Given their conduct, unconditional surrender did seem to be the proper goal to hold out for.

I suspect if they hadn't dropped the bombs, I'd not be here banging on a keyboard as my father was stationed in the Philippines in '44,'45. Invading the main islands would have been a serious donnybrook.

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the Pacific war would have lasted a few more years and we would have lost scores of men.

Where they occupied wasn't a picnic either. Decapitation and rapes were common. I'd say Russians and Japanese are a tie when it comes to letting the inner beast out.

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Nope. Just because a man does things for my wife don't mean he is doing it out of altruism. He could be doing something for her because he is hoping for a BJ or ******* or a little backdoor action.

Can it not be that A is doing something to preserve B simply because B is important to him? What if B did nothing for him and he got nothing out of it? Would he still do the action? Just because you are paid in a different coin doesn't mean you are NOT getting paid and thus doing an altruistic action.

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Did they kick our as in economics? I think not. I think we kicked our own ass for them. We had the upper hand. Instead, we squandered it and let our stuff go downhill while they upgraded their stuff.

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Amazing that some folks consider it proper or even relevant to characterize a whole nation by actions in warfare.

If this thread was to mourn for the slain writer, I don't believe it did him, or the Russian people, any justice.

Question. Which tells more about your character? Your behavior in good times or tough times? Look at all the nations having tough times and how they behave and you might get the idea that people are basically bad.

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How would you know if a weapon was invented and never used?

No their are no other contenders, the scale of the Eastern front dwarfs all land combat from the Romans to present.

WW1 came close, but it was mostly stationary, and was not total war.

The Eastern front spanned thousands of miles and revenged the land as it moved across it.

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Have we ever used the Hydrogen bomb or the Neutron Bomb?

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well, i know some posters here who were given a brain - potentially a powerful weapon - yet never seem to use it. instead they only seem able to regurgitate tired old ideas that they were spoon fed.

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No kidding, huh? That's deeply insightful. Thanks for that valuable contribution.