If Truman hadn’t bombed the bejeebers out of Japan with the two nukes the US had, the war would have dragged on for much longer. That extended war would have included Operation Olympic, the invasion and conquest of Japan. Given how fanatical the Japanese had been in the defense of various smaller islands in the campaign leading up the the nukings, experts in the US knew that as soon as Americans set foot on Japanese turf, it would be a virtually unstoppable Holy War. The death toll would have been astounding. Less known at the time was the massare that would have happened – and had already started – in China as the the Soviets started in on slaughtering the Japanese forces there.
So, since most people in the military didn’t know about the nukes and assumed an invasion was forthcoming, they planned for it. And part of that planning was planning for casualties. And part of planning for casualties is planning on handing out Purple Heart medals to injured servicemen. So, a bunch of those medals were made.
A bunch.
And unlike Brazilian Olympic Silver Medals, these Purple Heart medals were made to last. This fact is known because… the DoD is *still* handing them out. In other words, after Korea, Viet Nam, Leng, Grenada, Iraq (1 and 2), Afghanistan, R’lyeh and every other damned place that American forces have fought and bled over… there’s still a big box full of WWII-era Purple Hearts that the government dips into.