The Indianapolis was returning from Tinian Island, where it had dropped off several crates.  The crates carried the parts of the Atomic bombs thought to valuable to send by any other means of transport.  The mission of the Indianapolis was so secret that it would take days before anyone even knew the ship (steaming under radio silence) was missing and more days before the remaining sailors were rescued.  The loss of the Indanapolis is considered one of the worst tragidies in United States Navy history.

    But the cruiser did make it to Tinian and the "Enola Gay" did fly, and days later, "Bock's Car" carried out it's mission.  And these two missions are the only times Atomic weapons have ever been used in warfare.  The first mission was a 100% success.  The second mission barely made it at all.

    The Japanese Generals accepted the atomic bomb and even after the Russians entered the war, the Japanese leaders were prepared to fight on.  The nation was to be destroyed, rather then captured.  Death before dishonor.

    But something happened.  Something unthinkable.  In his afterword to the his book The Kamikazes, Hoyt sums it up as well as I've ever seen it put down on paper:

"... In spite of the general belief to the contrary, it was not the atomic bomb that stopped the war. The generals and admirals of the war party had said they could and would accommodate themselves to the bomb.
    "Nor was the surrender of Japan brought about by the depredations of the American submarines, or the holocaust brought by the B-29s, effective as these were. "The war party would have accepted all these punishments and fought on.

   "Even to the last, in the meetings of the Imperial War Council, the peace party had the greatest difficulty in counteracting the arguments of the warmongers.

   "The Emperor alone did something that he had been taught never to do. For one moment in history he ruled rather than reigned. The result was the salvation of Japan, and the prevention of an invasion in which literally millions of Americans would have lost their lives. So would even more millions of Japanese have lost theirs."

    But in the distuction of Japan as a society it is interesting to remember that less then 3% of the total damage was due to the atomic bombs.  Between 200,000 and 300,000 people lost their lives to the fire bombings (83,000 in Tokyo on the first night) while only 86,000 lost their lives at Hiroshima and 23,000 lost their lives in Nagasaki.  We tend to look at the destruction of  the Bombs in relationship to the small force used to deliver them.  When we remember that conventional bombing ruined the lives of  22 MILLION Japanese; when we compare the damage done with conventional bombs to the damage done with the atomic bombs we see that there was really very little difference.  In many cases, more damage (if not direct loss of life) was done by conventional bombing.  When looked at in the context of time and place, the atomic bombs were just one more weapon used to try to end a war that should have been over years before.  There could be no better Epilogue the the words of Hoito Edoin, in his book The Night Tokyo Burned :

"... One further irony remains. Once the war was ended, and the shock and horror of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki raids began to permeate the consciousness of the people of the world, all sorts of help came to the survivors of the atomic bombs. The Japanese government made provisions for the assistance as well. But as for the survivors, ten times as many, of the firebombings of Japan, there was no help of any international attention. There was noting romantic about the devastation of their lives. The just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when General LeMay's B-29s came along."