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The dropping of the bomb occurred on August 6 (Hiroshima) and August 9 (Nagasaki). V-E day (Victory in Europe day) was May 8th. The first testing of an atomic bomb at the Trinity site in New Mexico didn't occur until July 16. Therefore, it couldn't have been used effectively in Europe. It wasn't ready.

Political background: Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), who had been the president since his inauguration in January 1933 (the same month that Hitler took power, by coincidence) and was the only president in US history to be elected to four terms in office, died on April 12, 1945, leaving behind the running of the biggest war this world had ever seen to his vice president, Harry S. Truman. Poor Harry inherited a war on two fronts (Japan and the Pacific on the west and Hitler and the Axis powers on the east). Upon his inauguration, he was also swamped with information that only the president was allowed to know; one of these little tidbits being the ultra-secret Manhattan Project. It's like, "Welcome to the Oval Office, Mr. President. By the way, we've got the most destructive force on the planet being built right here in the US. What do you want us to do with it?" A tad overwhelming for your first day, dontcha think?

Anyhow, Truman had been keeping his finger on all of the war reports, learning exactly what had been happening and what was projected to happen. The victory in Europe was pretty much inevitable at that point, but Japan was another matter. We'd chased them out of the Pacific, but the next step in the war was to attack them on their home soil. We couldn't NOT; they'd attacked us first (Dec. 7, 1945), caused us far too many casualties, and were still far too imperialistic for their own good. The fear was that if we didn't crush them for good, they'd just start conquoring again within five years. Not something we wanted; the Philippines had been in our possession since 1901, Guam since 1898. They were important ports for us in the Pacific; a great deal of our trade depended on these territories, both of which the Japanese had captured over the course of WWII. Have you ever heard of the Bataan Death March? 1942. Japanese decided to move 75,000 American POW's and Filipino nationals to a different camp. They were force-marched 100 kilometers, on little rations, no water, under threat of beatings and death, in suffocating heat beneath a tropical sun that the US soldiers at least were not accustomed to. If any fell behind or begged for mercy, water, shade, food, anything, he was killed - either shot, bayonetted or beheaded. For the last leg, some of them were stuffed into boxcars as tight or tighter than Hitler's famous transport of the Jews and most of those suffocated to death. 54,000 arrived at the camps alive. 21,000 killed in approximately a week. That little Death March of theirs kinda poisoned any sympathy the US might have towards the Japanese. Now I'm not saying that revenge is a good reason to do anything, but back then, I'm sure it figured pretty heavily into their decision. Besides, we'd been fighting the Japanese for two-and-a-half, three years. We knew how ruthless they were. Guerilla tactics were one of their specialties. They weren't afraid of death, and one would gladly sacrifice himself to protect his country and his personal honor - kamikaze pilots ring a bell? They tortured any soldiers they captured, in the most hideous ways. And they knew the country; our soldiers didn't. They were sitting ducks. Casualty projections for a direct ground assault of Japan itself were in the millions. We would win, the Japanese didn't have enough resources to repel a full-scale invasion (or so they thought, I'm not sure what their numbers were), but it would take another year and the cost in resources and human life were intolerable.

So thoughts turned to the Manhattan project and the nearly-completed atomic bombs, of which there were three. The first one was detonated at the Trinity site in New Mexico, to prove that it would work. Nobody knew how much power and destruction it would unleash; there are pictures of men walking around ground zero with nothing on but shoe protectors to shield them from the fallout. Radiation wasn't all that well understood back then. They chose the targets carefully. Hiroshima was an army depot and port, ideal for the dropping of the first bomb, to both put the fear of god into the Japanese and to take out some of their resources should it come to a ground assault. The Americans expected prompt surrender from the Japanese emperor following the destruction of Hiroshima. When it wasn't forthcoming, they decided, three days later, to drop the final bomb. They feared the Japanese, and what they could do to "our boys." That fear prompted their action. The second target was to have been another city (the name escapes me) but due to heavy cloud cover disrupting visibility from the air, Nagasaki was chosen to recieve the second bomb.

Looking at things from the perspective in which the events happened, I have to say that yes, we were justified. We can't judge the people of that era from what we now know some sixty years later. Things don't work like that. I wish we hadn't; I wish to god that Einstein had just kept his stupid idea to himself and never told anyone about the immense power that might come from splitting the atom. But I can't, in good conscience, condemn the men of the past for making what they thought was the best decision at the time.

Well, it's a controversial opinion to hold. If, as in my case, you believe that we were justified in dropping the bomb, then you'd damn well better be able to back up that opinion with plenty of facts. Otherwise a crucifixion with your name on it usually isn't too far off. (I've learned THAT the hard way.)