Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes.

Yesterday August 6th was the anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima to be followed on Thursday by the bombing of Nagasaki .
It is difficult not to see both as War Crimes,

Frankly I have always seen this assessment as due to hindsight . but as Brian Quail over at Bella Caledonia tells us, the argument that

".Like a child with his comfort blanket, we cling irrationally and passionately to our myth. The universally accepted justification of this atrocity (that it shortened the war and saved allied lives), apart from being morally worthless, has no historical basis. The tragedy is that he truth is so counter-cultural as to be unbelievable".

He explains  

 For a start, the dates don’t mesh. The bomb was dropped on August 6th, but Japan did not surrender till the 15th. Why this 10 days delay?We cannot understand Hiroshima without placing it in its historical context. The USSR and Japan had a non-aggression pact during the war against Hitler, for obvious reasons. Neither wanted war on two fronts. As agreed with the Allies at Yalta, three months after the surrender of Germany, the Soviet Union broke this pact, and declared war on Japan. Vast amounts of military equipment were trundled half way round the world from Europe (where they were no longer needed) to Manchuria. There, Marshal Aleksandr Vasilievsky inflicted a crushing defeat on the Japanese army. South Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands were seized (they’re still Russian controlled). The USSR now occupied Japanese territory, and was poised to invade mainland Japan itself by August 10 (note the date).  Aleksandr Vasilievsky’s role in Japan’s surrender is absolutely crucial. But I have never yet met anybody who has even heard of him. This put the gun to Hirohito’s head. He had to do a deal with the Americans – and quickly – or face a Soviet occupation, which would have meant the elimination of the Japanese ruling class, and his own execution as a war criminal (which he undoubtedly was). The Americans did not want to see Japan occupied by Russia, so they accepted the continuation of the Emperor as Head of State, (the one condition the Japanese had been asking for since May), and accepted the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces on August 15th.

 See more here  and you must do so.

I have no doubt that if the truth is told then the argument today  would shift from that this atrocity "shortened the war and saved allied lives" to that it saved Japan from an invasion by the  Soviets and atrocities  

According to Soviet historian Vyacheslav Zimonin, many Japanese settlers committed mass suicide as the Soviet army approached. Mothers were forced by Japanese military[to kill their own children before killing or being killed themselves. The Japanese army often took part in the killings of its civilians. The commander of the 5th Japanese Army, General Shimizu, commented that "each nation lives and dies by its own laws." Wounded Japanese soldiers who were incapable of moving on their own were often left to die as the army retreated.

British and US reports indicate that the Soviet troops that occupied Manchuria (about 700,000) looted and terrorized the people of Mukden, and were not discouraged by Soviet authorities from "three days of rape and pillage". In Harbin, Chinese posted slogans such as "Down with Red Imperialism!" Soviet forces ignored protests from Chinese communist party leaders on the mass rape and looting.

There will be many who will argue that Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where there  were 129,000–226,000 largely civilians killed and will point to Japanese atrocities to help to justify it.

But under any impartial assessment  Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes and it should be seen as such.

If we do not  then as Brian Quail  ends his eye opening article

"Perversely, we continue to rationalise and justify Hiroshima, our nuclear Original Sin. And because we justify it, we are prepared to do it again.  That’s why we have Trident".