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I respect that nor do I dispute the human calculus, however, as I read the history, I believe the Japanese were ready to give-up save a vocal minority in the Japanese Army who proposed to fight to the death, no different than officers within Lee's Army who wanted to keep fighting.

For what it's worth...that "vocal minority" damn near wound up in charge on August 15th, 1945.

My late father, during his service in the Navy, talked to people who'd been junior high school students in 1945.

They trained to repel the American invasion, and they were perfectly willing to use suicidal tactics to do it. One tactic they practiced was strapping a satchel charge to their back and diving under an American truck, then detonating it. Others who've talked to ordinary folks who were in and out of the Japanese military have heard similar tales.

One thing that is interesting is that the Japanese military did NOT fight a guerilla action, and the incidence of lawless behavior by former Japanese soldiers was close to nil during the American occupation. (By 1947, occupation duty in Japan was much preferred to occupation duty in Germany; there was no analogue to the "Werewolf" movement in Japan.) The Emperor had commanded them to lay down their arms; they did so. That speaks to a very high standard of discipline. Had the orders come down to fight the gaijin to the last drop of Japanese blood...I believe that those orders would've been largely obeyed. And the results would have been sanguinary in the extreme, on both sides.

Your post is entirely my point in regards to the Japanese peace feelers that reached MacArthur in January 1945 who said much the same thing, and the time line of Japanese maneuvers bares out at least a few points that are not only worthy of further study, but demonstrate the case is hardly closed.

January 1945 - MacArthur forwarded to the President a Japanese offer to surrender to which was exactly what we accepted 7 months later.

5 April 1945 - Japan appointed Prime Minister Suzuki
Kantaro who was known to be a peace advocate.

8 May 1945 - Japan tried to surrender through the Soviet Union.

I have no doubt you are aware of the school of thought that indicates the bombs were dropped simply to gain a cease and desist from Stalin's advancing armies in Manchuria; that is a radically different scenario with radically different implications that simply military tactics. I'd suggest that historically minded folks like yourself and, as I told A-bert when we had this same discussion elsewhere, more effort be put into rectifying a bridge between the military command and Truman/FDR, especially when one considers Oppenheimer was on the phone to the Stalinists the entire time he was on the federal pay roll to build Fat Man and Little Boy.