HistoryPorn

There were studies done on the loss of human life that a blockade without an invasion would incur.

It was horrific. Literal millions of deaths were projected.

The terror bombing (and that's what it was, by 1945) was considerably bloodier than the atomic bombings.

That would've worked, but "working" would involve a large portion of the civilian population of Japan starving to death.

The use of the nukes was dual purpose, and yes, one of the purposes was to show to the Soviets that we not only had nukes but were willing to use them.

The other purpose was to demonstrate to Japan that continuing the war was hopeless, regardless of the number of schoolgirls with machine guns they had. It was to show that we didn't need to invade to flatten their cities. One plane, one bomb, one parking lot. Perhaps luckily for all involved they did not know we did not have the capability readily available to make any more atomic bombs just yet.

That would result in millions starving to death. There were no good options.

I really don’t get Truman’s calculus to use the bomb except to inflict massive casualties, which may have been what he wanted to show the Soviets after all — Truman was willing to obliterate entire populations.

Since there were plenty of other examples of this (ex Dresden) with conventional explosives and fire bombing, I’m pretty sure he just wanted to test his new toy.

The Japanese weren't exactly known for surrender. It's easy to arm chair judge but I'm doubtful anything less than terrifying overwhelming force would have been enough. Sometimes there's only bad options.

But either you'd be strategically weakening the country to give invading forces an easier time, at which point you're throwing civilians into the meat grinder anyway, or you're starving the country until it devolves into literal anarchy, because the only people in the position to surrender were entrenched enough that they'd be the last one to see their power structure fall apart.

maybe you’re being a bit silly with the lowball 50,000 estimate from an Operation Downfall

Well, it wasn't me saying that. However, it's worth considering that the US only had about 90,000 soldiers killed in France and Germany from D-Day through to the end of the war, and while they were only facing about a fourth of the German military (the rest being occupied with the Soviets), that still represented manpower greater than what Japan had available with most of its army being trapped in China. And Germany had a still-mostly-intact industrial base more than capable of equipping its troops with as much modern weaponry (guns, artillery, ammunition, tanks and armored vehicles and airplanes) while Japan's industrial base (which had never been anywhere near Germany's in terms of productive capacity to begin with) had been smashed almost to nothingness. Schoolgirls with machine guns (and very little ammo) have much less military effectiveness than perhaps people imagine.

If 50,000 casualties would have proved to be an underestimate of the cost of an invasion, it likely would have been the result not of angry common Japanese armed with sharp sticks and fighting to the bitter end, but of the 6,000 to 10,000 planes the Japanese had amassed and hidden away for use as kamikazes. These piloted bombs (which were really one of the most devastating weapons of the war) caused considerable carnage despite the US' air supremacy; unleashed against large troop transports carrying thousands of soldiers each which of necessity would have had to have come very close to the Japanese coast, they might well have killed a lot more than 50,000 soldiers.

My hair gets that way after a night's sleep or when taking it down sometimes. That expression on her face makes it seem like she just doesn't care any more and let it go.