The Day the War Ended-- Part 6:

Thankfully, there was no need for an invasion of Japan and all the casualties that would occur on both sides.  By this date in 1945, U.S. bombers had turned most Japanese cities, made mostly of wood and paper to wastelands.  Many more Japanese civilians died in conventional bombing than from the atomic ones.  I have heard that the reasons Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen was primarily because there wasn't enough left standing in the other cities which would not show the power of the bombs' destructiveness.

Still, the Imperial Army and what was left of the Imperial fought on.  Then those two bombs fell, one on August 6 and the other three days later.

Now, seventy years later, "we recall how America won a war it had to win because the freedom of the world was at stake.  We pause to commemorate, to express thanks and pay respects to all who died, as we do on each anniversary of August 14, 1945.

"the day the war was over."