The pictures of Hiroshima Americans are shown were taken weeks or months after the attack, long after all the bodies and most of the rubble was cleared away

Leading to the ‘everybody just gets vaporized’ myth

To be blunt the bombs in Japan were not nearly as strong as what both the US and the Soviets had pointed at each other for a few decades. To also be blunt it's not only the US who has or has had nukes ready to strike foreign soil. That list includes Russia, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, France, China, and the UK.

What people also seem to be blind to is that the Manhattan Project was the only successful attempt to build a bomb, but it wasn't the only attempt. Germany was working on it as well. Once the war ended the Soviets got quite a few scientists and had no problems building their own nuclear arsenal.

As far as whether the bombs in Japan were necessary to end the war - we really can't say one way or another. We can say that a ground invasion of Japan would have cost many more lives than the bombs did. We can also say that in spite of the US firebombing Japan, Japan did not surrender, and had plans for every civilian to fight. Even with the Soviet pressure in Manchuria, we can't say that Japan was already going surrender without the bombs.

We can't also forget what Japan did in the war as well, and we can't forget the things they did that they still haven't acknowledged or apologized for. We also can't forget the things the US did. In fact, the only country out of WWII that publicly acknowledged all of their crimes was Germany.

Not to mention the risk of what if the bombs didn't work. I think we only had two bombs at the time, and if the 2nd didn't work it would have taken us months to build another. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that?

The bottom line is war is absolute hell, and what is done is done. We can't really play revisionist history and say what would have and what wouldn't have been better in order to swiftly end the war. In war, both sides are desperate, and desperate acts aren't always clear. I can't really blame Truman for wanting to end the war swiftly after the years of hell everyone went through, either.

I'm not sure the bombs were the right call, but we did need to end the war as quickly as possible. I'm not sure what else we could have done though that would have been a better option. Sometimes the best option isn't the best option. Sometimes you just have to try whatever works and hope for a result. Japan wasn't surrendering. We had the bombs. The result might have been inevitable.

I will say though for those who think it should have never happened, what would you have done if you were Truman? What would the alternative had been? How would your alternatives be any better, or any worse?

HarrietTubmanPI I recommend watching this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCRTgtpC-Go

TL;DW: the war was pretty much over, and everyone knew it except the population. The US wanted to use the bombs and make a show of force to the post-WWII Soviets. The bombs were completely unnecessary.