Quote:
Originally posted by Food Eater Lad
Estimates say that to get Japan to surrender would have cost 100,000 Japanese lives and up to 60, 000 American lives. The bombs reduced the number drastically.
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Actually the number estimated was 2-3 million Japanese lives and 200,000, to 500,000 American casualties. This was based off the resistance we faced in Okinawa and the suicidal nature of the Japanese civilians there. They jumped off cliffs rather then surrender to the US forces who they assumed were going to do horrible things to them. Anyone who thinks Japan would have surrendered without the A-bombs being dropped doesn't understand the mentality of the WWII Japanese. Even after the bombings it was only the direct intervention of Hirohito that got the armed forces to surrender (and they still tried a coup d’etat). My grandfather at the time was on a transport waiting to invade the main land. He was a survivor of the Iwo Jima invasion, and said everyone on the ship thought he was going to die in Japan had the invasion taken place.
Any historian who thinks that Japan would have surrendered without an invasion and without the use of the A-bomb is just someone trying to wish away history. The Japanese main strategy for the invasion was to cause as MANY US causalities as possible, and hope that the high death toll would make Americans back home lose stomach for the war and allow Japan a negotiated surrender. Even as it was, we did not get an unconditional Japanese surrender since we let the Emperor remain and not face war crime charges. Contrary to what was said in the press, the Emperor was NOT a figurehead but was deeply involved in the war and sanctioned such activities as the bio-weapons program in China, and he was well aware of the conditions of the US/UK/AU prisoners of war. We thought it worth keeping him, rather then face the invasion.