In the context of a bombing campaign for a war, yes, a month and a year are a massive difference. And while they hadn't done the Trinity test, you don't do a te

In the context of a bombing campaign for a war, yes, a month and a year are a massive difference. And while they hadn't done the Trinity test, you don't do a test like Trinity until you're pretty damn sure it will work. Apparently, when you're ready to do the test you're also ready to start picking targets. Saving Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be proving grounds for the scale of destruction is horrifying. However, all war is a series of horrifying and unnecessary events. Pointing out that some of them near the end were also horrifying is just not a very compelling criticism. It's not out of character for what happened during the rest of the war.