Quote Originally Posted by Cuchulainn
4. Okinawa & Iow Jima were bloody as the battles occured during the transformation of governments. No word had reached the front line command of government change & change in policy. It was all due to occur in September 1945, Suzuki wanted the Cabinet sorted first. Sacking all the hawks in government (including every single member of Tojo's cabinet) and bringing in moderates.
Stop me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Iwo Jima in February, therefore before Suzuki's nomination?
Also, I was asking about Operation August Storm, which, despite starting between the two bombs, ended in a pretty bad way for the Japanese, and therefore seems to go against the idea that soldiers, or at least troops commands would follow any "peaceful surrender" order. What I mean here is, did soldiers really need an order to fight till they die or would they do it out of education/tradition/propaganda?

About Tokyo, like Dresden, I'm the one who mentioned them, to show that conventional bombing, which gets much less "press coverage" and debates than the atomic bombs, were nearly as destructive, and probably even less justified (Dresden in particular); yet, very little voice is raised against them compared to the A/H-bombs. The idea here is that regular bombings of the two cities would have been quite as deadly as nuclear bombing, albeit slower.

And thanks for the book reference, I'll keep it in mind and see if I can find a copy somewhere.

As for the decision of dropping them, I don't think Truman took it thinking it was "right no matter what", but more in a "what will put this whole war to an end, while allowing us to show the Russians we mean business?", which amouts to "what's the most effective decision I can take for us?". As I'm saying, I don't believe that Truman pondered if he'd save Japanese lives, no, I believe that retrospectively, we can say that it did more good than bad to the Japanese, and that, as far as I can see, any other solution would have turned worse.