YOUR correspondents’ views on the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima brought back vivid memories to this reader. I was one of the thousands of men waiting to be shipped out to Japan. Some of us had come from the Normandy beaches, some from North Africa, others from Italy.

We had one thing in common – we wanted to go home. We hadn’t lived with our families for years, in my case almost six. We were war-weary.

For us the bomb was a miracle. The Japanese fought a vicious and merciless war. They slaughtered millions, yes millions, of civilians when they invaded China. To this day, unlike the Germans, they have never apologised for their many crimes but just taken America’s money and developed a successful economy.

A 14-stone friend of mine came back from Burma weighing six-and-a-half stones. I believe that President Harry Trueman made a brave and correct decision as the military experts had predicted that an island-by-island invasion would have cost 500,000 allied soldiers’ lives. Ask any old war vet M/s Pickard!

Roy Powell, Scottwood, Cawood Common, Selby.