The POWs is one consideration I had not thought of when considering if the nukes should have been used. I've always focused on the forces it would have taken to conquer the mainland. That alone was staggering to me. Now it's obvious to me that we save many POW lives by droping the nukes. Most Excellent.
I confess to the same mistaken assumption. This is a great story that increases our understanding.
Harry made the right decision..
I know of a Navy man, now deceased, who was slated for part of the invasion. It saved his life too. I know all his grandchildren and children, and his widow. He married after the war, as I recall. The children were all born after the war.
Some think we could have ended the war without the bomb. But no one can say for sure. The bomb certainly showed the Japanese where the power was. It was the right decision.
General MacArthur told Secretary of War Stinson that the invasion would cost over a million casualties to American forces alone, and the War department report concluded that the Japanese would suffer between 5 and 10 million dead, and the United States between 1.7 and 4 million casualties.31,617 American POWs were liberated.
Secret intercepts indicated that Japanese defenses were far in excess of original estimates.
D Day in Europe was conducted with 175,000 troops.
Seven million American troops were in the Pacific now...
From Flyboys. pages 291-295
And this little gem:
-snip the POWs will be concentrated and confined.... until final disposition may be made...-snip Whether they are destroyed individually or in groups, and whether it is accomplished by means of mass bombing, poisonous smoke, poisons, drowning, or decapitation, dispose of them as the situation dictates. -
It is the aim not to allow the escape of a single one, to annihilate them all, and not to leave any traces. - Minister of War, Shitayama.