Moiaussi wrote...
Almostfaceman wrote...
I don't mean to be argumentative but the Japanese military was preparing to defend the mainland down to the last man, woman and child. It was a pattern seen with horror by U.S. marines on just about every Japanese-held island they had to take. It's part of bushido. To be captured was the ultimate dishonor. The Emperor didn't want to see his people annihilated with no honor, so he capitulated. Even then some of the military leaders performed seppuku (they killed themselves) in shame for having to bear surrender. You are right that we were winning, but if we had attacked with infantry they would not have surrendered so quickly.
And if having run out of planes and munitions, having also run out of the raw materials to build more (having lost China's resources), they were continually bombed my many times the tonnage of those two bombs, why would they have held out longer? The military might well have been prepared to fight to the last man, but the Emperor and people were not neccessarily so willing. Use of those bombs might have made it easier, but it was as much a test run for them as an absolute neccessity.
Don't get me wrong, if they had had to resort to carpet bombing Japan, the casualties would have been a lot worse for Japan... if the Emperor let it continue.
Not mentioning other islands, Okinawa was a template the American military was looking at when it estimated it would lose massive amounts of ground troops in a mainland assault. As you can see from Okinawa's example, the civilians didn't fare well at all, and the Emperor didn't put a stop to it.
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