If the Omaha Beach push had failed.....

[HardToHandle]

The biggest challenge in the Japanese surrender was getting the collapsing government together. The pre-war Japan was a cluster, with the civil government under frequent assaults of the militants. The Prime Minister was murdered in a 1932 coup attempt and other coups were tried throughout the 1930s.

The crazies stayed around even after Tojo resigned and were greatly feared. Even the Emperor had real issues finding anyone to communicate a surrender and the people so tasked expected to be attacked by their own countrymen. Japan made Nazi Germany look like a sane place - Admiral Yamamoto had to hide out at sea to avoid being murdered prior to Pearl Harbor.

The expected Russian advance into Manchukuo/Manchuria was the worst fear of the Militarists. Much of the cause of the 1941 war against the US was rooted in the Chinese expansionism. The pending loss of 15 years of wasted China warfare and the occupation of Korea was heaped on top of an attack on the northern islands.

Whether the US could have reached X-number has some conjecture. The various production lines were working by 1945 but still much was to be refined. The story of the jackassery of the Demon Core shows that experimentation was still the order of the day [URL="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core”]. Certainly the intent was to bomb until all the targets and opposition were eliminated.

[sundance435]

U.S. Planned to Drop 12 Atomic Bombs on Japan
[B]

Interesting - I did not know we had that many ready.

That is interesting. I always thought we shot our wad with the 2 and that the next ones were a ways off.

[sgtrock82]

That is interesting. I always thought we shot our wad with the 2 and that the next ones were a ways off.

This has always been my understanding as well, that we had enough material ready for 3 bombs including the trinity test device. I dont recall how far off other bombs would have been.

Sent from my SM-J727T using Tapatalk

[Pi3]

Speaking of Japan, some claim it was not the nukes that ended it, but the commies declaring war on them that did it. A combo of both possibly, but had the Japanese wanted to sit there and get nuked into oblivion, I'm sure we could have and would have delivered that too until they either surrendered, or their was no one left to surrender:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-...ersary/6672616

and

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion...-world-war-ii/

Regardless of why they actually decided to surrender, Hirohito used the atomic bombs as an excuse for ending the war and a way to save face. Also, he got to remain as a figurehead after the war. See his speach to the Japanese people.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...orever/261166/

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/hirohito-1

[Pi3]

This has always been my understanding as well, that we had enough material ready for 3 bombs including the trinity test device. I dont recall how far off other bombs would have been.

Sent from my SM-J727T using Tapatalk

Some have said dropping the atomic bombs as well as the fire bombing of Dresden was the start of the ocld war as much as the end of WWII, sending a message to the Soviets as to our capabilities.

[ABNAK]

Some have said dropping the atomic bombs as well as the fire bombing of Dresden was the start of the ocld war as much as the end of WWII, sending a message to the Soviets as to our capabilities.

Sure, there may have been some sublime assertions being made, but make no mistake about the main reasons: Dresden was firebombed for REVENGE (don't blame them, but let's not sugarcoat it), and The Bomb was dropped to prevent another half-million American casualties.

[Pi3]

Yes. A friend was sent to the Pacific right as the war ended. He would have probably died in an invasion of Japan. Instead he was part of the occupation force. He said the Japs were so re leaved that we didnt treat them they way they had treated everyone they had occupied that he had a good time.
About Dresden, I imagine the Brits were still a little pissed about the bombing of London.

[SteyrAUG]

Sure, there may have been some sublime assertions being made, but make no mistake about the main reasons: Dresden was firebombed for REVENGE (don't blame them, but let's not sugarcoat it), and The Bomb was dropped to prevent another half-million American casualties.

Absolutely. If we thought Iwo Jima and Okinawa were bad, we hadn't seen anything yet. Japan was prepared to recall nearly every soldier from Manchuria, China and all other occupations to join with every citizen of Japan in a sacrificial defense of Japan and the Emperor. The realization that we might simply atom bomb and fire bomb them into oblivion without a glorious sacrificial battle is the only thing that brought them to terms, that and the fact that our "unconditional surrender" actually afforded them more than a few considerations such as the pretense that the Emperor was not involved and had no knowledge of any war crimes.

As for Dresden, yeah not a military target and killing women and children who had no ability to change nazi ideology even if they wanted to is pretty horrible, but war is pretty horrible and it was horrible for women and children in Poland when Germany and Russia decided to rape them mercilessly from both sides, so they earned their Dresden and Hamburg as much as Japan earned their Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Probably the worst war crime of WWII is that Stalin was never charged or made to accept responsibility for his early actions when he was allied with Hitler.