Editor says, what if the atomic bomb had been ready six month earlier? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the July 2011 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.

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Editor says, Carnage Unfathomable is the description of the German-American Kurt Vonnegut who was an allied prisoner of war at Dresden during the bombing. In 1969 he published the satirical novel "Slaughterhouse-Five" or "The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death" recalling "But there were too many corpses to bury. So instead the Nazis sent in troops with flamethrowers. All these civilians' remains were burned to ashes. The Dresden atrocity, tremendously expensive and meticulously planned, was so meaningless, finally, that only one person on the entire planet got any benefit from it. I am that person. I wrote this book, which earned a lot of money for me and made my reputation, such as it is. One way or another, I got two or three dollars for every person killed. Some business I'm in".
Please note that significant content has been repurposed from Wikipedia.

Allen W. McDonnell commented on 2011-07-09 22:04:17 ~ In July 1945 the war in Europe was months over, does the author intend to say July 1944? Post dated 13th February

Eric Lipps commented on 2011-07-10 00:36:01 ~ If so, the bomb project would either have had to have started earlier or poceeded faster than in our history. In our July 1944 the Manhattan Project was a full year away even from the trinity test, let alone a deliverable bomb. Post dated 13th February

Robbie Taylor commented on 2011-07-10 03:26:04 ~ Would this huge demonstration of firepower ended the war in the Pacific as well? Maybe the Japanese would have surrendered without a direct bombing

Eric Oppen commented on 2011-07-10 03:40:50 ~ I'd have thought they'd use it on Berlin, or maybe Munich.

Matthew Dattilo commented on 2011-07-10 06:21:27 ~ Assuming for the moment that the atomic bomb had been ready in February, 1945 (it wasn't---it was a very rushed job. When the Trinity test took place on July 16th, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was already on the way to Tinian island with the Hiroshima bomb parts.), I still don't believe an atomic weapon would have been used in Europe. Millions of Americans are of German ancestry and this fact would have been taken into consideration by the very politically-aware FDR. The Japanese were not so lucky: they represented a tiny minority of Americans' ancestral roots. FDR had already demonstrated how much he was worried about the Japanese-American vote when he signed the Executive Order allowing them to be round up and put into camps in early 1942. I also believe it is important to remember how little was understood about radiation and fallout. Use of a nuclear weapon in western Europe was simply too big a risk given the population density and proximity of Allied nations and armies. Japan, however, is an island nation and the prevailing winds carried fallout in the direction of the Pacific Ocean.

Eric Lipps commented on 2011-07-10 11:49:28 ~ I share Matthew Dattilo's doubts that the Bomb would have ben used in Europe. It's possible, of course, but it would have had to be to break the back of a powerful German military resistance--perhaps to force a surrender before the Germans could launch a nuclear attack of their own. By February 1945, the Germans were in retreat. (The same was true in August 1945 of the Japanese, but the "little yellow monkey men of Nippon" were viewed differently.) By ear;ly '45, too, it was known that the German A-bomb project was going nowhere. (The same was true of the far more limited Japanese project.)

Allen W. McDonnell commented on 2011-07-10 11:54:05 ~ Sorry Mathew but perhaps you are unaware that the Dresden bombing in our real history was as deadly or worse than the bombing of Nagasaki six months later in Japan? Also when the administration of FDR was rounding up people and placing them in camps the Germans and Italians were included, not just the Japanese. War means fighting and fighting means killing, mass bomber forces attacking cities were not a new idea by 1945, they were standard operating procedure! The A-bomb was seen as a cheaper way to wipe out a city, not as some mystical weapon like the media has turned it into in the 1960-2011 time period.

Jeff Provine commented on 2011-07-10 19:01:49 ~ Russia may be held back, but there would still be a crazy arms race. And if precedent had been set for use on Europeans (sad as the race issue of the day was), things could have gotten even crazier.