IMHO, both were horrible but unavoidable in that war. We saw every man, woman and child in Japan as a possible enemy combatant that we had to eliminate. The battle for Okinawa and the suicidal nature of not only the Kamikaze’s, but the civilian inhabitants as well, forced us to rethink what the populatin of mainland Japan would do if we invaded.

If the U.S. forces had invaded mainland Japan , you can bet your bottom dollar that every civilian over the age of 8 would have been enlisted into the Impereal Japanese Army as a resistance fighter. Nuked, firebombed, or shot with an M-1 Garand, we would have been forced to kill them one way or another. We should all thank God that it ended when it did.

The Japanese were sending out feelers to the U.S. for peace terms.  The Japanese knew they were beaten, and all that they originally fought for was already lost by the time we were firebombing Tokyo.  We, however, wanted an unconditional surrender and the removal of the emperor from power.  Had we agreed to a conditional surrender, the Japanese would have taken it and saved face with the realization that their homeland remained in tact.  Having said this, I think that we made our terms unconditional just so that we could demonstrate our new atomic weapons to our current and future enemies.  Of course, this is just my opinion and there are other interpretations that can be and have been made.

Thats an interesting point you make Don, I am reading a Truman Bio right now and in it they touch on the fact that Trumans advisors advised Truman to that fact, that a demonstration would be beneficial to the U.S. If the world knew the military might of the U.S.

That could very well have been the case – demonstrating for future enemies what can happen.  I wonder if it did in fact have an impact throughout the Cold War.  I'm not talking so much because people would doubt that the atomic bomb could kill, but rather because it was tangible, emotional evidence of what kind of effect the bomb could have on a city or a people.  Perhaps it made it all the more real.  That said, I don't really think the dropping of the bomb was the moral thing to do…

Just now I read this:Japanese official: A-bomb was inevitableThe story includes this:

This jives with what Donnie had said before about the show of new technology to the USSR.  But read the article as it gives some modern-day Japanese reaction to the bomb.

We have to be careful not to judge the actions and decisions of the leaders of 1945 through the hindsight that we have from our positions 60+ years later.Washington had made it known that unconditional surrender were the only acceptable terms (although in the end, we did agree to a "conditional" surrender).  When it is brought up that the Japanese were making peace overtures, it must be remembered that they were talking to Moscow, not London, Washington, or Canberra.  At this point of the war, Moscow and Tokyo were to at war.  Likewise, they were in no position from which they could bargain.  Their forces were either being defeated or bypassed on all fronts, the Combined Fleet was no more, and the Allied blockade of mainland Japan was virtually complete.  I think the dropping of the atomic bombs was as much to convince the Japanese populace that they were defeated as it was to convince the military leadership and the Emperor.Two interesting points to perhaps discuss further -- many folks talk about whether or not the U.S. should have conducted an atomic demonstration to convince the Japanese to surrender.  While that point has merit on the surface, when in history has a demonstration of force brought two active combatants to peace terms?  And what in the previous four years of war indicated that the Japanese would respond favorably to such a demonstration?  Had Tokyo demonstrated that they valued the lives of the citizens and soldiers to a point where they would have bowed to such a demonstration?  When soldiers and citizens are indoctrinated that the noblest thing they can do is give their lives for the Emperor would they have surrendered (and stayed non-hostile for the next decade) without that loss of life?  Remember that the "War to End All Wars" had ended less than 30 years before - when the carnage wrought was such that man would never engage in a similarly terrible conflict.Second - the bombing of civilian populations.  Throughout the 1930s the debate wore on that strategic bombers / strategic airpower could bring a nation to it's knees.  So much so that effective fighter aircraft were often given second (or third) priorities for aviation expenditures.  Yet throughout the air raids on Guernica, London, and throughout Germany the bombing of civilian populations by and large only cemented national resolve -- far from causing the civilian population to rise up and overthrow their governments.One thing that the massive daylight raids on Tokyo (and the rest of Japan) did was to show hundreds of B-29s filling the skies.  Then a single bomber destroyed an entire city.  The mental image had to be drawn back to fleets of hundreds of aircraft carrying similar bombs.