Dambusters, Nagasaki, and ....

There is a lot on the news pro and con about dropping the atomic bomb...

I just scanned an article that said those who dropped it did not regret doing it...

Those waiting to invade Japan were happy about it, needless to say...since the estimated casualties were half a million dead Americans and a couple million dead Japanese...(in Saipan, 40,ooo Japanese civilians committed suicide)...

I did have a cousin who was scheduled for the invasion, and figured he would be killed, so went out and got drunk...and woke up, and "walked out" of a second story window, breaking his leg...but you have to excuse him, since his ship had been hit by kamakazi shortly before this, and needless to say was not looking forward to another similar episode...

However, back to Nagasaki: one fact little known in the US is that one pilot who was an observer of the Nagasaki bombing did affect his life.

Leonard Cheshire spent the rest of his life caring for the disabled and dying...

Ironically, most people know him not for either of these deeds, but because he is one of the pilots who devised the flying technique that was celebrated in the the WW2 movie "Dam Busters"...