Last night, I was asked if nuking Japan during ww2 was justified. The casualties of the bombs, just about 300,000, are by far more humane than invading the country itself. Operation Downfall was the proposed Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War II. The projected invasion plan included a force of 6 million soldiers.Because the U.S. military planners assumed that they will be opposed not only by the available organized military forces, but also by a fanatically hostile population, high casualties were thought to be inevitable. They estimated about 50,000 allied casualties in the first 30 days, including 5,000 at sea and over 125,000 after 120 days from the invasion. It was estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities. Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan; the number exceeded that of all American military casualties of the 65 years following the end of World War II, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock. Point being is that war is an ugly business, and hard decisions have to be made. If you're talking about how civilians died in the bombings and what not, the same has to be said about Pearl Harbor. Let us know your thoughts on this. #stayzero #zerofoxtrot #ww2 #war