Every expert historian I’ve ever read about tells us that the Pacific conflict would have dragged on for many years later if it were not for Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Carpet bombing would have been futile.
We had bombed the crap out of Japanese cities prior to dropping the nukes. 100K died in Tokyo from one bombing run with incindiaries.
I watched the old movie of H.G. Wells called “Things to Come”. From 1936 - Hitler had just had the night of long knives, pulled out of the League of Nations and rebuilding his army in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.
The movie starts out as “Anytown” goes about it’s lives. Then the blitz rains down on them. It then fast forward with images of war and gas and bombs (1937, so it is pretty lousy special effects compared to now - but it tells a good story). As it fast-forwards the years tick by. 1936, 1937, 1940, 1945, 1950, 1960, 1966. The war is over and Anytown and the world is in ruins.
I thought - “H.G. Wells got a lot of things right in his future - but he didn’t see nuclear bombs. Ended the war quickly - and kept another one from beginning.”
Although I guess it didn’t take the nuke to beat Hitler, so over time we would have beat the Japs too. Or the Soviets would have. I’m guessing that if the Soviets had Japan that would have changed a lot of things.