Here's what it looked like when it happened, 67 years ago this day:

Following a firebombing campaign that destroyed many Japanese cities, the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of Japan. The war in Europe ended when Nazi Germany signed its instrument of surrender on 8 May, but the Pacific War continued.

Together with the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, the United States called for a surrender of Japan in the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945, threatening Japan with "prompt and utter destruction". The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum, and the United States deployed two nuclear weapons developed by the Manhattan Project. American soldiers dropped Little Boy on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, followed by Fat Man over Nagasaki on 9 August.

On 15 August, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan announced its surrender to the Allies, signing the Instrument of Surrender on 2 September, officially ending World War II.

The bombings led, in part, to post-war Japan's adopting Three Non-Nuclear Principles, forbidding the nation from nuclear armament. The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and their ethical justification are still debated.

Let the debate go on . . . and on, and on.

Let us have moments - or more - of silence and remembrance for the occasion.

There were and are reliable estimates that had it been necessary to invade Japan in order to win the war, the death toll - military and civilian - might well have exceeded one million.

At the age of four, I watched and wondered the delirium in the streets of my hometown - no doubt replicated across the land - when the end of the war was announced to a war-weary people, when the Sword of Damocles was taken from the up-raised hand of warriors in the Pacific Theater and put aside for all time, or so it is to be hoped.

For those who won the war and came home, and for those suddenly relieved of their sacred duty to defend the Japanese homeland down to the last man, woman and child, I'm not sure it's much of a debate at all.

Or that, all things considered . . .

It should be.

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