“Please elaborate.”
Simple. Each island battle had been very costly in American lives.
More costly in Jap military lives, and native residents, such as Okinawa.
My Dad was healing at a Honolulu hospital, from a wound suffered landing and invading Okinawa.
He would have been among those Marines to land on Japan’s main islands, were it not for the nuclear bombs.
Estimated casualties for Americans numbered in the hundreds of thousands; perhaps topping half a million.
Without the nuclear bombs the Japs would not surrender.
The two bombs saved many human lives—Americans plus Japanese.
And those two bombs may have averted wars that could have followed.
I consider Truman’s tough decision correct, and an act of humanitarianism.
I agree with everything you said. I know this is just one story, but when I was in high school we had a Japanese exchange student down the road and we became friends. On Dec 7th she came up to me and apologized! I was caught a little off guard, only 15, and being my stupid high school self, I said “Don’t worry we got you back later.” We just kind of left it at that. Later, I told her that wasn’t a very nice thing for me to have said. She said to me “well, it was true. My parents told me we (Japan) would have never surrendered without the Atom bomb. They were being told an invasion was immenant and civilians were also expected to fight.” Her parent’s families were also on the verge of starvation if the war went on, all resources went to the military. We kind of came to an agreement that the carnage left by the atomic bombs was the only possible decision Truman could have made.
He told me many times over that I would not have been born if not for Truman and nuking the Japs..............
He was in prep for the invasion of Japan, I believed him..............