Whilst I feel sorry for the civilians who were under the Hiroshima bomb, it is important to put it in perspective, the Japanese were not innocent victims, they did expand a brutal war against China into the other half of a world war, it would also be a little tough to find many nations who were occupied by the Japanese who would have a great deal of sympathy for them.
The Japanese military also were more than a touch atrocity prone compared to WW2 averages and were hardly averse to conducting their atrocities against civilian populations.
The options facing the allies at the end were Atomic Bombs, Blockade and Invasion.
Blockade - Occupied countries continue to suffer, POWs continue to suffer, the old, very young and not "defence valuable" Japanese suffer disproportionately as scarce resources are diverted to the military.
Invasion - Around 1 million allied casualties (estimated), which would be hard to justify when it came out that you didn't play your trump card), almost total Japanese casualties (based on Japanese defence plans and allied invasion planning), Occupied countries continue to suffer, POWs most likely massacred.
Atomic Bombs - ended the war quickly and did not preclude moving on to one of the other options had Japan refused to surrender.
I'm glad they dropped them and, I hope, under similar circumstances, they'd do it again.
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