There is a saying that the Opera isn’t over until the fat lady sings. On August 9, 1945 the crew of a B29 named “Bockscar” dropped the second Atomic bomb ever used against an actual target. The bomb was called “Fat Man” because of it’s appearance. The target was the Japanese city of Nagasaki, which was the secondary target. The primary target, Kokura, had been obscured by cloud cover and despite three attempts could not be bombed. Nagasaki wasn’t so fortunate. When all was said and done, about 80,000 people were killed in that attack.

Three days earlier a differently designed Atomic bomb “Little Boy” had been detonated over Hiroshima in an attempt to convince the Japanese government that continuing to fight was hopeless and surrender was their only option. For whatever reason, the Japanese refused to surrender and so Nagasaki was bombed.

Despite the second bomb, it took the Japanese government five more days to agree to surrender unconditionally. August 14 is officially Victory over Japan Day, although the Instrument of Surrender was not signed in Tokyo Harbor until September 2, 1945.

I mention all of this because in the years since 1945 there has been much made of the fact that the United States use of the Atomic bombs against Japan was a racist act and that the Allies wouldn’t have used them against Germany.

Which is wrong.

The original decision to make an Atomic bomb was impelled by intelligence information that Germany was working on development of a bomb to use in the European theater of war. By the time the American Atomic bomb was ready for testing (July 1945) Germany had surrendered. Japan was still fighting and giving no indication of surrender.

The American experience with the landings on Iwo Jima and Okinawa convinced the government and the military that an invasion of Japan would involve up to 1,000,000 US and Allied casualties and many more than that Japanese lives. Using the Atomic bomb would hopefully convince the Japanese to surrender and save the lives of American soldiers and Japanese military and civilian personnel was well. The British were also planning for heavy casualties if they had to execute “Operation Zipper”, the planned invasion of Malaya. Malaya was to have been used as a staging and launching area for the invasion of Singapore.

It took an overwhelming use of force to convince the Japanese Government that further fighting was futile. Given their fanatical resistance during every island campaign during the War in the Pacific, an invasion was likely to prolong the war, not end it.

Finally, let’s not forget which nation initiated the conflict. I speak not about the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1945. I speak about Japanese aggression in China starting in 1937. The Japanese really were racist in their treatment of Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Filipinos, and Polynesian civilian populations. The Japanese killed millions of innocent civilians and their treatment of military prisoners was nothing short of barbaric.

The Atomic bombings saved far more lives than they took. It ended a horrific war in the Pacific and for that we should be thankful.