[Fraxinus]

One thing that irritates me about many air-power advocates is that they leave the impression that the A-bombs, by them selves, caused Japan to surrender. As this article makes clear the Japanese high command knew that an invasion was planned. Also occurring in roughly the same time period were Soviet invasions of Manchuria, fire bombings of many Japanese cities, and the 5th(?) fleet was destroying anything along the east coast that was judged worthy of sending in a sortie.

I think it unlikely at best that any one of these activities in isolation would have caused the Japanese to surrender.

[Comstock1]

That's very insightful and something that most folks overlook. Few historians or anyone else bother to look at the "totality of circumstances". The Japanese could see the darkness all around them. The atomic attacks were likely to show that the possiblity of staving off an invasion was now impossible.

I am willing to bet that the thinking in the upper echelon staff rooms was that if it could do this to a city,"What would these bombs do to a division?"