By July ‘45 Admirals King and Nimitz had seen the massive build up on Kyushu where the initial landings were planned. By this time the Japs had 800,000 dug in troops on the island, not the 150,000 MacArthur was peddling. Our landing forces totaled 780,000. Truman, properly informed, would have cancelled Downfall in lieu of allowing Operation Starvation, started in the spring, to run its course. There is no doubt many millions would have starved in blockaded 1946 Japan. Many millions would have starved with the damage already inflicted had the US not fed a beaten, at peace, 1946 Japan. People fret about 200,000 nuked Japanese who were sacrificed to save tens of millions.
And they don’t care about over a million civilians murdered by the J’s in Nanking, Manila, Rangoon, and other places.