Or we could have just blockaded and slowly starved millions to death without much risk to any Americans.
Not that I have any moral qualms about what we did, but there WAS an alternative besides dropping it on a city.
Might have taken a few years or a decade, but simply starving them with a blocade.
Would a blockade have taken away their war making capabilities? Wouldn’t they still have been able.to run their armaments factories? And send kamikaze pilots to attack the ships blockading the islands?
The Japanese were hot on the trail of an atom bomb too. Delaying would have been disastrous. Not to mention the
enormous cost to our economy of decades of blockade.
Besides, the anti-bomb people have already moved on: they now claim the war was practically over before the bombs were dropped (and they claim our generals knew it!), and they didn't stop the war anyway.
Yeah. Revisionists...
Country would not have tolerated the time needed for a blockade to be effective. Had Japan refused to capitulate the Soviets would have extended their land offensive in Manchuria and possibly attempted an invasion of Hokkaido. And my uncle had just completed basic and infantry training and was on a train to San Francisco with troops who would board transports for the Philippines to prepare for the assault on Kyushu. Till the day he died he celebrated Aug 6.
They had thousands of kamikazis to drop on ships. Lotsa sailors would have died.