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Originally Posted by ratbastid
To armchair-quarterback this thing, I've often wondered why they didn't lay one bomb just off the mainland, far enough at sea that it didn't directly harm anyone. The point was the threat, not the deaths. Japan didn't say, "Ah, well, see, you've killed many of us in one shot. Darn, I guess we lose." It was the existence of the weapon itself that ended the war. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were demonstrations. And I wonder if there mightn't have been a less massively lethal way to demonstrate the thing.
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I grew up reading my grandfathers books on the subject and listening to his first hand accounts. My first term paper I did was on the use of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima where I read pretty much every volume available on the topic of the war.
I knew as much as anyone who wasn't there about every battle, every move, every atrocity committed.
Most know about the atomic bombs but nothing about the firebombing of Tokyo, which were conventional, killed more people than both atomic bombs and did not deter the Japanese military from continuing the fight. They lost around 125,000 people in that bombing and it was written off. In fact the Japanese high command wrote off Hiroshima in much the same way after the atomic bombing, and only more rational minds said 'enough is enough', as it was they military tried to mount a coup instead of allowing the surrender, something which to them would have been an actual sin against the will of the divine emperor, who they felt was bring tricked into surrendering.
A blast at sea where a few Japanese observers could witness it I doubt would have changed any minds, this was not the Japan of today but a fanatical Japan where suicide for failure in battle was expected.
I'm convinced that it was the shock that a single plane in a single instant could do the damage of an entire airforce that led a government that was determined to fight till the death of all rather than surrender that surrender was better than extermination as a people.
Put me in his shoes and I would do the same, it would have been immoral not to in hindsight.