[KoRn]

I wonder if the writer contemplated, or even preferred an all out invasion of the Japanese home islands with millions being killed on both sides, having the war last perhaps another 5-10 years.

[Mrs. Don-o]

It’s by no means settled that the only alternatives were atomic bombing or a lengthy and costly Japanese Home Islands invasion. Let‘s look at who disagreed:

DWIGHT EISENHOWER
(General, U.S. Army; Supreme Commander of U.S. Forces in Europe);

• "..In July 1945... I voiced to him [Secretary of War Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."
  - Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380
  • "...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."
    - Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63

  Joined in this opinion by:
  ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY
  (Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman);

  HERBERT HOOVER
  (former U.S. President);

  GENERAL DOUGLAS MacARTHUR
  (General of the Army, U.S. Army)

  JOSEPH GREW
  (Under Sec. of State)

  JOHN McCLOY
  (Assistant Sec. of War)

  RALPH BARD
  (Under Sec. of the Navy)

  LEWIS STRAUSS
  (Special Assistant to the Sec. of the Navy)

  PAUL NITZE
  (Vice Chairman, U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey)

  ELLIS ZACHARIAS
  (Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence)

  GENERAL CARL "TOOEY" SPAATZ
  (In charge of Air Force operations in the Pacific)

  BRIGADIER GENERAL CARTER CLARKE
  (The military intelligence officer in charge of preparing intercepted Japanese cables - the MAGIC summaries - for Truman and his advisors)

  • "...when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs."
    Quoted in Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 359.

I'm not in a position to evaluate the strictly stragegic question from a military point of view. I don't have the knowledge or the experence. But these men were in such a position, and they did have the knowledge and experience.

This is enough to raise serious doubts.