Their joy obviously doesn't resolve the ethical questions about using the appalling weapons. Nor can that be done on these pages — or, probably, any pages. Certainly the libraries of previous writings haven't done it. All that can be done here is to ask whether the Battle of Okinawa can throw any light on the tortured question, remembering that the sum of its civilian and military deaths probably exceeded those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, and that the cultural devastation was greater and longer lasting.
