I used to argue with my mom about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She told me the US was definitely losing the war in the beginning. I always thought that the US had a moral responsibility to demonstrate the bomb publicly to convinced Japan to surrender. More info has made the issue complicated with me. If the U.S., particularly CA was not so racist against Japanese immigrants, things may have been different. It was a two way street. Most people believe that Roosevelt either knew Pearl Harbor was coming for a fact or should have known.
What changed my mind was when I read that the fire bombings of cities like Berlin and Dresden with conventional bombs killed far more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I just read a bio of Hirohito. A demo probably would not have succeeded in changing the minds of the Japanese authorities. It is so sad that civilians died and paid the price. Tokyo was not nuked. I've also read that despite the Marshall plan in Europe which many Europeans loved and truly admired the US, the victims of the firebombed cities hated the U.S. to the core. They were civilian cities. The extent of the bombing was not necessary for a military strategy.
I lived downtown Manhattan and once worked one block from the WTC complex. My dry cleaning was done there, clothes shopping, wine shopping, restaurant eating and dating occurred there. I was so terrorized by 9/11. 9/11 was absolutely nothing compared to the war bombing. I feel very different about the blitzkriegs against England now. Living something is very different from reading it or watching a film. NY was hard for me b/c my mind compartalizes my mundane life with NY images and legends. NY was the scene for countless fictional terrorist attacks.
As long as the WWII generation is alive, there will be no apology.