[Mick]

The only way Japan gave up was after nuclear bombs were dropped on them.

Not that this changes your overall point, but there is a vigorous debate over this statement.  As a kid, my parents told me that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were what ended the war--that without them, my father would have been in the invasion force and would likely have died, I never would have been born!  Quite a conversation stopper.

However, over the years, I think the evidence has grown that the end of the war was much more complex, and H&N may indeed have not been necessary.  Bart Berstein at Stanford was one of the first to really put forward the alternative theory--probably more than a few here on this board had his class.  But this is an excellent popular summary of the arguments:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the...talin-did/

I'm not enough of an expert to say whether my Dad or Ward Wilson was correct--but I've read enough to realize that use the A-bombs is no longer uncritically accepted as necessary--or even useful--to ending the war.

A professor at UC-Santa Barbara, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, published a book on this topic eight years earlier in 2005 titled, "Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan."

Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan: Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi

Counterpoint to the book from Richard Frank:

Frank-HasegawaRoundtable (issforum.org)

[Mick]

The only way Japan gave up was after nuclear bombs were dropped on them.

Not that this changes your overall point, but there is a vigorous debate over this statement.  As a kid, my parents told me that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were what ended the war--that without them, my father would have been in the invasion force and would likely have died, I never would have been born!  Quite a conversation stopper.

However, over the years, I think the evidence has grown that the end of the war was much more complex, and H&N may indeed have not been necessary.  Bart Berstein at Stanford was one of the first to really put forward the alternative theory--probably more than a few here on this board had his class.  But this is an excellent popular summary of the arguments:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the...talin-did/

I'm not enough of an expert to say whether my Dad or Ward Wilson was correct--but I've read enough to realize that use the A-bombs is no longer uncritically accepted as necessary--or even useful--to ending the war.

A professor at UC-Santa Barbara, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, published a book on this topic eight years earlier in 2005 titled, "Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan."

Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan: Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi

Counterpoint to the book from Richard Frank:

Frank-HasegawaRoundtable (issforum.org)