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how many allied troops would have died island hopping all the way to tokyo.
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Well given that the Japanese had already decided to surrender and in fact had made attempts to surrender and those attempts had not been recieved, I would suggest not very many
Real History
From that page-:
"For Tokyo the writing was on the wall. On June 18, Truman's chief of staff Admiral William D Leahy voiced the opinion that a surrender could be arranged "with terms that can be accepted by Japan."
By that time Japan had begun running discreet surrender flags up the flagmasts of several of her diplomatic missions around the world, particularly in messages radioed to ambassadors in Moscow and Stockholm. They were using, intriguingly, a code -- PURPLE -- which they knew both the Americans and British were capable of reading."
and-:
"Washington too decided to squelch every sign that Japan was trying to quit. When the International News Service wired on July 7, 1945 that three influential newspaper publishers captured in Okinawa had confirmed that Japan would surrender immediately provided that the United States put in only a token occupation force, the State Department forbade publication of the news.
On July 8, the Department learned that the Japanese military attaché at Stockholm had told Prince Bernadotte over dinner that the Emperor Hirohito would ask Sweden's King Gustav to contact the Allies when the right time came, and that he had stated only one Japanese condition of surrendering: namely, that the Emperor himself remain in office. (This term was subsequently adopted by the Allies).
So even on this date it was plain that all American talk of a million soldiers losing their lives in an invasion of Japan was at best ill-informed, and at worst a deliberate deception of the British and American publics. It was obvious that there was not going to be any opposed invasion."
So.....sledgehammer to crack a walnut for no good reason. America the good, America the great.
Look down on you guys from our colonies? Are you really serious? Shall we discuss the genocide committed on your soil? Do you really think you guys can cause such utter devastation to another country and then look like the good guys? Britain has done some shady things in her past . I wold hold up my hand and say yes we have caused grief and devastation from one sea to another and we have left a raw and weeping legacy in parts of the world. But......you are the Empire now. You forged your empire in blood and suffering. You arenot the brave young rebel colony now. You are the ones with the power and you seem as judicious with it as the British Empire ever was.