Quote Originally Posted by OumaFan View Post
Sure it had something to do with intimidating the Russians but an invasion of Japan would have been brutal and there would have been huge amounts of casualties on both sides. The controversy at the time was not this, it was the did FDR know about Pearl Harbor thing.

The funny thing about this (there's nothing haha funny about it obviously) is that the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo were absolutely brutal, especially Tokyo but for some reason conventional weapons get less attention.
From what I've heard and read, the crux of the argument is that the U.S. wouldn't have had to invade Japan as the government was ready to fall/surrender through other means. I'm trying to find a couple of articles on it at the moment, but I'm busy so *if* I find some it might not be for a while