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In retirement I am always motivated to study WW II history by the men I grew up around and admired. At about nine my father began taking me out golfing with him on the weekends and most everyone we played with was a veteran. I remember there was a man who used the first golf cart I ever saw, because as a brigade commander in New Guinea he was permanently debilitated by sickness. One fairly good golfer had a weird back swing, because he was crippled while serving with the Big Red One in Sicily. Later I often ended up as a dishwasher at our club. The chef noticed my puzzled look as he limped around the kitchen. He said he got the limp from a wound received when he was with the Rangers at Pointe De Hoc.

There are many other stories I overheard and could relate, but one consistently repeated theme was how their unit or ship was scheduled for the Japan invasion. They always thanked God they didn’t have to become fodder for that killing machine. Therefore I developed and now rework from suggestions I receive and from additional sources this narrative about dropping the atomic bombs. I also break it into four letters I send to papers.

Based of feedback so far this time I need to add a discussion about the increasing fragility our leaders were noting concerning support for continuing the war. The casualties beginning in June 1944 into summer of 1945 were much greater than the experience of this country in the previous two and half years. I remember the story told by one man who was too young to serve, but as an adolescent delivered telegrams part-time for the local Western Union office. He eventually quit, because every day he had to deliver the death notices and people began looking at him as a death angel with some combination of anxiety and hatred.

The partial biography of the sources I used contains a lot of helpful insights and perspectives I didn’t emphasize. The recently published book Hell to Pay by D. M. Giangreco is especially valuable. I was able to find confirmation of so many of my other sources in his book. About 30% of the book is bibliography, appendices, and notes.

Potsdam required the Soviets to aid in the defeat of Japan after Germany’s fall. It was getting clearer and clearer that had a longer war permitted Stalin to really, really contribute that a very stark division of Japan would be required, much as we saw Europe and Korea carved up.

Dropping the bomb would provide a quick way to keep Uncle Joe’s greedy mitts off of Japan.

The only really “Japanese” land Japan lost was not lost to America, nor to Britain, nor to Holland —they were AND ARE NOW lost to the Soviets, now Russia.

Japan wanted to keep it’s bureaucracy intact, and she knew if the Emperor system were preserved then she’d have that.

The American side knew if they dropped the bomb not only would countless American and Japanese lives be saved but the Soviets could also be cut out of the deal.

One good book missing from your bib is “Japan’s Longest Day”; lots and lots has been written about the causes of the war but comparatively little has been written about the causes of the peace:

After the Emperor’s recording in fact there were all kinds of hi-jinks that ensued in the effort to prevent the broadcast of that recording:

There was a full-fledged fire-fight on the grounds of the Imperial Palace (where you can go, sort of, on most days) and they tried to kidnap the Emperor “who was being used and tricked and LIED TO…!!”

These guys were nutty radicals but they had pretty clear political goals.

I believe there were two copies of the recording and being anywhere near the records before the broadcast was…..extremely dangerous, physically.

My father was a Corpsman on the front lines saving Marine lives on Okinawa.

He saw close up how the Japanese were fighting. he was always deadly serious when he told me as a kid that I would not have been born if the bombs had not been dropped.

You will not find a Pacific War vet that ever thought the nuclear strikes were inhumane or unnecessary. That is purely an invention of latter day leftists.

My dad served w/ 511PIR 11th Airborne Div. He received a serious
head wound during the liberation of Manila so he was out of the
fighting by the end of Jan ‘45. However, the 11th AB led by the
511 PIR were the very first of the occupying forces in Japan (no,
it was not the Marines). Among the first jobs of the paratroopers
was the confiscation of weapons from the civilian population.
The task proved monumental according to my dad’s army pals
who made it that far.

In ‘02 I had the honor of interviewing Brg General Henry Muller
USA Ret at his home in Monticedo, CA. As a Major in WWII
Muller was G2 for the 11th AB. He was a key planner for the
Los Banos Raid, the most successful rescue operation in US
military history. By the end of the war Muller had been promoted
to asst G2 of the 8th Army. I asked him what had been his
assignment when the war ended. He explained to me that he
was in the process of gathering info to determine the likely
casualty numbers of the 8th Army should the Allies invade
Japan. I then asked him if he recalled the number of 8th Army
casualties his G2 unit predicted. He indicated 90,000 soldiers.
Mind you, that was just among several divisions of many
dozens of divisions that would be utilized in an invasion of
Japan.

When the war ended in Europe many outfits were placed in camps named as follows.
Camp Camel
Camp Lucky Strikes
“” Chesterfield
“” Pall Mall
“” Phillip Morris, etc.
These camps were set up to get these veterans of the European ready for the battle in Japan. A few Regiments boarded troops ships. I understand that some troop ships made it through the Panama Canal and riots broke out on several ships. I don’t know how true this is. Have you read or heard anything related?

You post was well written and accurate. However, it could be easily distilled into two paragraphs as follows:

We obliterated Hiroshima and the Japanese did not surrender. A few days later we obliterated Nagasaki and the Japanese did surrender. The atomic bomb killed many. A conventional invasion of Japan would have killed far more. The Japanese thought we had an ample supply of atomic bombs. We did not. We did have a very amply and robust supply in the technological pipeline and we did have the ability to drop many atomic bombs on Japan in the near future.

The atomic bomb "gave face" to the warlords of Japan when the Emperor demanded of them to surrender. Thus the atomic bomb saved Japan from total annihilation that they would have suffered in a conventional invasion of their homeland.

I ran across a a little bit of info a few years back that offers a glimpse into the question of how many casualties were expected in the invasion of Japan.

The existence of the atomic bomb was known to only a few people in our government (and Stalin, of course, but that is a story for another day), so--after the defeat of Germany--everyone involved in the war effort was preparing for the invasion of Japan.

As part of this preparation, the U.S. government ordered and received 490,000 Purple Heart medals. No one expected that this number would be sufficient; it was just the first installment.

As it turned out, there was no invasion, and these medals were not required. There were so many of them, however, that the government did not need to have any more made until the First Gulf War (when they contracted to have 9,000 more made), and that was only (you're going to love this!) because the government had "lost" the remainder of the 490,000! (Hey, if the State Department can "lose" six Billion dollars...)

At one point the government did award a contract to have the remaining unissued medals cleaned and re-ribboned.