re: #194 Higgs Boson’s Mate

The combined big guns of every capital ship we could bring, plus air raids from nearby islands, plus the purely for hell raising bombardment ships that were already being built, aided by carrier air would have been brought to bear on the Japanese home islands had we not dropped atomic weapons.
Debating the relative morality of the methods of mass destruction is like yelling “Marquis of Queensbury Rules!” when a bar fight breaks out.

A good friend was on a yard minesweeper that was used as a buoy to mark the line of departure at Okinawa. He would have done the same off Honshu. He really, really, liked the bomb.