Have you really thought this through?
The islands are blockaded, famine and disease run rampant.
Then, food and medicine suddenly starts falling from the sky, marked “For Humanitarian Purposes Only”, in Japanese, and big red letters.
Do you seriously believe, for an instant, that the IJA wouldn’t instantly claim every bit of it for itself?
If you manage that willful suspension of disbelief, how would it even be logistically possible?
The Berlin Airlift managed to supply West Berlin, a city of a few million as opposed to a nation of 70 million, a 20-minute flight away rather than a 7-hour flight (3 or 4 if you’re trying to run it from Iwo). And that was “just barely” for a long time.
The unpleasant truth you’re doing your absolute best to ignore is that Little Boy and Fat Man saved the lives of tens of millions of Japanese.
> Have you really thought this through?
Whether or not you believe it, yes I have. I did a great deal of research in this very matter some 40 years ago, when research was done in libraries and typewritten on onion skin paper.
I don’t have all the references handy right now, and my paper has long since been lost.
Suffice it to say that there were other forces at work to compel us to use The Bomb, as well as good reasons not to have used it.
We may have been able to successfully blockade Japan, but we may not have been able to keep the Soviets from mounting an invasion.
For all intents and purposes, by Aug 6, 1945, Japan had been effectively blockaded for months, while their industrial capacity was being destroyed from the air.
They had no air force, no navy, and the emperor was becoming more and more concerned with the survival of his people.