An alien scout spaceship arrives in orbit in early July 1945 and observes the Trinity nuclear test. It begins to track movements of fissile materials on Earth and observes the atomic bomb's transfer to the air base on Tinian. The aliens, having lived through a nuclear war on their home world, respond by using an armed orbital re-entry vehicle to shoot down the Enola Gay on August 6.
Variation on this theme: A human deep space exploration vessel encounters a civilization on the verge of developing its first atomic weapons (in the middle of a war) and must decide whether to not interfere and allow it to be dropped on a city or to prevent it.
Same story, but told from different perspectives (1st version is told from the homeworld perspective, 2nd from the spacefarers' perspective).
Another variation: aliens arrive in orbit in late (December) 1944 by which time most of the German death camps have already been overrun by the USSR and destroyed. Thus, when they observe the world, they see Japanese internment (not to mention continued bombing of the home island cities) from the USA, Gulags in the USSR (and Red Army atrocities in Eastern Europe), and colonial oppression from Britain. They conclude that the Allies are the "bad guys" in the war, and intervene on the Axis' behalf.
That's all I got for now: pacifist aliens. I'll post more when I come up with them.
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