World War II: Asia and the Pacific
...conventional bombing raids over Tokyo. In March, 1945, the Air Force had launched the first incendiary raid on the Tokyo area. In this raid more damage was done and more casualties were inflicted than was the case at Hiroshima; therefore, it is very plausible that had the atomic weapons not been dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki the number of conventional bombings casualties of the continued air raids would have been much greater than those of the atomic bombings. The last credible strategy that would force Japan to surrender would be a naval blockade. This would involve the Navy patrolling the waters around Japan and stopping any supplies from getting through. Japan had sufficient military supplies to fight off an American invasion despite a blockade. This meant that if the blockade were to be successful the Japanese would have to be starved into surrendering. The Japanese mainland could not produce enough food to sustain its massive population for very long. Had a blockade been attempted, any remaining food supplies would have been allocated to the military forces leaving the civilian population to starve. This would have lead to a massive amount of deaths due to starvation amongst the civilian population. This strategy would have lead only to the death of civilians and not weakened the Japanese military or brought Japan closer to surrender. The side effects of atomic weaponry had not been discovered at the time that Truman gave the order to drop the bomb over Hiroshima. Scientist and military personnel who knew about the atomic bomb were not aware of its radiation side effects. Therefore President Truman was also unaware of these effects when he made the decision to drop the bombs. We now know of the deadly lasting effects of atomic weaponry, but these side effects were unheard of during the war. To Truman in the military aspect the atomic bomb was no different than ordering a squadron of bombers to level Hiroshima with firebombs. In the unconditional surrender that the United States presented the Japanese government it was demanded that the Emperor be removed from his godlike state of power. The Emperor was so highly revered in Japan that his removal would only occur under the most dire of circumstances. The Japanese military leaders would never have allowed this to happen without direct intervention by the Emperor. Even if the United States had agreed to allow the Emperor to stay in power the Japanese would have not agreed to surrender. It was defe...