Dropping the Atomic Bomb

In all of the responses I have read, no one gave credibility to the fact that one of the main reasons the bomb was dropped on Japan was to save U.S. military lives.   We know that the U.S. wanted unconditional surrender from Japan.   We also know that due to culture, pride and the leadership of the country, the U.S. was not going to get it.   There are many written articles and documents that show Japan was gearing up EVERY man, woman and child to defend the area that the U.S. had chosen to invade.   They would not surrender.   To the Japanese, suicide was more glorious than defeat or capture.

So now we look at the military leadership.   We had just lost hundred of thousands of soldiers in previous battles versus Japan, and we were preparing for a battle of a much larger magnitude with an invasion of Japan.   Multiply the number of casualties in the previous battles and then give the advantage to Japan because we were invading their country.   We had very little idea what we were getting ourselves into.   The estimates that the military had were grossly under what Japan was prepared to bring to the war.

Take all of this information into account and then maybe we could form another hypothesis.   The United States dropped the bomb on Japan to save American lives.   Mathematically it makes sense.   Throw into the fact that we had this awesome weapon that would place us in a position of military supremacy, and in my opinion Erikson was correct.   The dropping of the Atomic bomb was inevitable.