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Hiroshima.


observer

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Watched a history of the last stages of WW2, where Harry S Trueman odered the dropping of the atonic bomb, killing an estimated 140,000 and another 100,000 within the following week. Trueman's decision was prompted by US experience at Okinawa which cost 12,000 dead and 60,000 wounded; and the extrapolation that an invasion of Japan would cost an estimated 500,000 US servicemen's lives - believe it's called a judgement call! :shock:

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Around 12,000 US dead in the land operation on Okinawa. Plus many thousands more killed in the 300+ Allied ships damaged or sunk by kamikaze attacks in the run up to the invasion.

 

Plus over 100,000 Japanese servicemen killed, plus up to another 140,000 civilians killed in the fighting.

 

Over a quarter of a million dead, just to secure a forward base from which an invasion of the Japanese home islands could be launched. If that invasion had gone ahead the casualities on both sides would have inevitably numbered in the millions.

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