What If the A-Bomb Was Never Dropped and Japan Was Invaded?
The consequences of a full-scale invasion of the Japanese mainland.
In August 1945, the United States Army Air Force dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The bombs utterly decimated both cities and killed thousands, leading to Japan’s surrender, which brought World War II to a close.
For decades, the debate has raged on about whether these bombings were ethical or not. Those against the use of nuclear bombs argued that Japan was already on the verge of surrender and that the bombings were unnecessary. They killed over 200,000 innocent civilians, which could be considered a war crime.
Indeed, the US Army Air Force speculated in its own Bombing Strategic Survey that even without nuclear weapons, Japan would have surrendered by November of that year. Further evidence from documents leaked in 1993 showed that US Intelligence knew of the Japanese government intentions to surrender months before Hiroshima was bombed.
People who view the bombings as unnecessary also state that the US government dropped the bombs due to a sunk-cost fallacy. After all, they had spent nearly $2 billion on the Manhattan Project.
