It is a deflection - insofar as said fact does not directly answer the central question here: "Was there a quicker / more-compassionate way to end the war than dropping the A-Bomb?"
In fact - as an aside - I might note that, quite apparently, fire-bombing the hell out of Japanese cities didn't force the Japanese to capitulate. Continuing to drop conventional bombs on Japan might have eventually done the trick - but dropping the A-Bombs demonstrably did!
Captain Walker suggests that a naval blockade would have been more effective than our conventional bombing missions - but a naval blockade of Japan was already in force, so I don't know what he is expecting.
While it's quite likely that a continued naval blockade and continued fire-bombing of Japan would have eventually forced them to capitulate, the war might very well have dragged on until 1946 or 1947.
So I frankly confess that I don't know what Captain Walker says we should have done instead of dropping the A-Bombs to end the war early. Or is he saying that he would have been perfectly fine with the war continuing for months or even years - while Allied POWs languished in Japanese death camps, and the Japanese people themselves starved? And while Japanese scientists perfected their anthrax bombs? (See Unit 731.)
Regards,
Thank you Herr Busek for your East German replies.
You brought up Unit 731.
The people who ran Unit 731 were tried by the Russians, not the Americans. In fact, the Americans (the Good Guys) went so far as to protect the psychopaths who ran it from any prosecution.
So how bad were they, really, if the Good Guys took pains to protect them?