[Urbane Guerrilla]

And that was the kind of thing the Bomb trumped: the Japanese were going to try and defeat Operation Olympic with war emergency production fixed-sight Arisaka boltaction rifles, bamboo spears in phalanx, and smoothbore matchlocks. This up against the most experienced large amphibious forces in the world.

Southern Honshu and all of Shikoku would have been depopulated. Not merely decimated: empty. Then defeat still would have come to the Japanese. They knew full well that the only off switch to the world war was their unconditional surrender. Who lives, who dies? It's only a matter of timing. Hirohito, whatever his sins may have been, certainly had timing.