Perhaps a little more reading of history? The first bomb let them know we could do it, and encouraged them to surrender. The military officials refused. The second bomb forced the Emperor to surrender, over riding the military polity.
In fact, the second bomb was needed so much, that they dropped it....leaving our nuclear arsenal with an inventory of....0.
So yeah, the second bomb was absolutely needed, and history proves that out (since they now have access to all the internal communications of the Japanese empire).
Hey, I ain't agreeing with fucktard here but the way it's laid out to me is that's a popular myth they wanted the population to believe. The lawyers always come in after... I have two books that were printed during the war that FBI rounded up --these were hidden in an attic and given to my father in Detroit in the early 60's. They showed graphic photos, graphic by today's standard with decapitated children, that kind of shit. They were banned as propaganda though and govt. used the excuse that it showed dead servicemen in undignified poses. What the fuck is so dinified about dying in war? Anyway, these books have the ability to suck the lust for war out of the most hardened psychopath. One of the few times I ever saw my father cry. Fuck, the ONLY time. "WWII in Pictures" Vol.1 and 2. No, it won't be in your library, that's a different book (got that one too). These have Nazi red covers and are printed on newsprint, so they're falling apart. They paint a very different story about war and they don't tell you what to think.
Neither bomb was needed. Japan knew they were fucked, their head of the military said it but they replaced him over it IIRC. He's the guy that got shot down in a mathematical raid if you will, timing was key to make it look like an accidental crossing of paths. He orchestrated Pearl Harbor but was completely against it. Anyway, they just discovered his corpse and a gold bridge that proves it was him despite decades of people pouring over the wreck site, which is literally in the middle of nowhere. He's the guy that went to Ohio and Nebraska after going to Harvard or Yale and told 'em a war was impossible to win. Oh, he was also a Naval attache in DC prior to the war so nobody knew better what we were capable of circa 1930's.
The emperor was a tool the generals could use. The others, according to this admiral, were simply naive and Pearl Harbor and WW2 was simply a result of greed and ignorance. Sorta like when a moth flies into a bug zapper.
We were on Japanese Imperial soil --Okinawa. It was over. At this point we literally could have pulled a Caesar at Alesia and make it a war of attrition that they cannot win. They were besieged. It's an island. Russia was NOT an ally and they were deathly afraid of them getting into it now that Germany was over and we'd done it together. Remember, Russia had a bone to pick with Japan having fought 'em just ten or fifteen years prior. Forget the ideological concerns or fact that our generals wanted to keep on going to Moscow at the time.
So you tell me, how much longer could Japan keep up the war if we just sat the fuck still? They already ran out of material for making planes. Their pilots were all dead. Navy just shot to shit. What army? Training went to shit and they were damn near out of fighting age men. Not all were so fanatical about crashing a plane full of TNT into a ship by 1945 either.
So I'm not sold anymore the bomb was needed. I'm also under the impression that Japan tried to surrender but the surrender was delayed so they could drop the bomb.
But history also happens one way and it is irreversible. You can argue intentions of characters but you cannot argue the facts of what did happen. A war happened, a nuke was invented and used against an enemy. But let's not delude ourselves, had we just sat put then everyone in Japan would have starved to death in short order.
It's how Caesar won Alesia without a shot fired once he circled the city. Just sat 'em out. Why risk one man? Why use a cannonball to crush mosquito?
And with the discovery of Pu, that arsenal would explode to thousands including megaton hydrogen devices that were air deliverable. We still live under that threat. On the other hand, maybe it was best we dropped it then and everyone saw what it did vs. waiting to use it in N. Korea during the cold war --we may not have been born in that case. And you can't argue it wasn't better for us to use it vs. an invasion. But I can argue neither were necessary in the end.
