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Having recently seen the film Oppenheimer and now reading the book it was based on American Prometheus I got into a discussion with my husband about Nagasaki bombing. He thought it happened because the Japanese didn’t surrender after Hiroshima. Thank you for your detailed account of the bombing of Nagasaki but I’m still confused by the chronology— did we have to bomb them or was it overkill?
There was no "have to" for either bomb. Merely announcing at Potsdam the policy we would adopt in August - that the Emperor would not be removed - would have ended the war without the bombs, since preservation of the Emperor was the main argument of the "dead enders." The peace party could have prevailed as soon as they heard that.
"Unconditional surrender" might have played well for FDR with domestic politics, but it extended the war at least a year. With all three Axis powers.
because of the way I grew up, I've always found it hard to lump the three axis powers together when the issue of "unconditional surrender" comes up. which is to say that I can't imagine what anything short of unconditional surrender could possible mean in the case of Germany. I've never been able feel that way about Japan. Paul Fussell titled a book of his essays "Thank God for the Atom Bomb," but he was operating on the assumption that dropping the bombs saved enough American lives to be justifiable. based on what you're saying, that argument can now be considered a "useful fiction" (ie--bullshit).
if I'm being simplistic about this, let me know.