Hiroshima 70 years ago

[Minimalist]

If they were that important Lemay would have taken them out. 

http://fdr4freedoms.org/wp-content/theme...ombing.pdf

From
mid-May to mid-June 1945, the USAAF
wreaked havoc on Japan’s most important
industrial centers, devastating Japanese
industry and killing more than one hundred
thousand civilians. By the end of July 1945,
the USAAF had virtually run out of targets.
With the Japanese economy shattered, its
industrial capacity cut by more than half,
its lines of communication in shambles,
and more than 8.5 million people rendered
homeless, the emperor and civilian
Japanese leadership questioned the wisdom
of continuing the war.

Gen. LeMay had two juicy ones if he had been allowed to hit them.


But don't take my word for it.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html

In a trenchant new book, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb (Praeger, 1996), historian Dennis D. Wainstock concludes that the bombings were not only unnecessary, but were based on a vengeful policy that actually harmed American interests. He writes (pp. 124, 132):

... By April 1945, Japan's leaders realized that the war was lost. Their main stumbling block to surrender was the United States' insistence on unconditional surrender. They specifically needed to know whether the United States would allow Hirohito to remain on the throne. They feared that the United States would depose him, try him as a war criminal, or even execute him ...
Unconditional surrender was a policy of revenge, and it hurt America's national self-interest. It prolonged the war in both Europe and East Asia, and it helped to expand Soviet power in those areas.

General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of US Army forces in the Pacific, stated on numerous occasions before his death that the atomic bomb was completely unnecessary from a military point of view: "My staff was unanimous in believing that Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender."

General Curtis LeMay, who had pioneered precision bombing of Germany and Japan (and who later headed the Strategic Air Command and served as Air Force chief of staff), put it most succinctly: "The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war."