MICHAEL GRAHAM: Happy Peace Through Victory Day! My grandfather was slated to be in on the invasion of Japan, after slogging across Europe prior to V-E day. He was very pleased about the atom bombs, and their result.

UPDATE: Dave Ivers writes:

My father, a gunny sgt was in NC training to be a 2nd Lt and lead Marines ashore in the attack on the Japanese homeland. He had already survived Guadacanal, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, among other battles. He had nothing but praise for dropping the bombs as opposed to [in his words] “needing to kill about 3 million tough Japanese troops and maybe 15 million civilians” given what he had already seen. Plus, he didn’t expect make it through the first day.

I think those views were widespread among those who had something at stake. The kvetching began later.